Syeda Quratulain Masood, assistant professor of sociology and social justice studies, published “Securing Profit: Threat Production as a Mechanism of Racial Capitalism in U.S.-Occupied Kabul” in The British Journal of Sociology.
Based on 15 months of ethnographic research in Kabul, Masood shows how ideas about danger were actively produced and generated profit during the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan. She demonstrates that private security companies benefited from portraying Afghans as inherently threatening through security rating systems, media summaries and strict spatial divisions between “foreign” and Afghan zones. These representations justified wage inequalities and sustained demand for security services.
The article reveals how racialized perceptions of threat became embedded in everyday systems of governance and profit during the occupation.