On the Frontiers of Deviance

If we don’t believe that race is a scientific fact, why can’t we shake it off? The answer, according to Sita Balani, has to do with how race is made through sexuality, and sexuality through race – like the two sides of a Möbius strip.

Drawing on historical evidence from the colonial era to the modern day, Balani’s research reveals that culture, sexuality and race are inextricable. She talks to Eleanor Penny about prostitution in colonial India, the mutable myths of Asian gangs and jihadi brides, and why non-productivity is the new deviance.

Deadly and Slick: Sexual Modernity and the Making of Race is out on Verso in May.