TAXI CAB PUBLICS AND THE PRODUCTION OF BROWN SPACE AFTER 9/11

Abstract

This paper introduces Brown Space as a conceptual category to understand the particular spatial politics of Brown as an ‘identificatory strategy’ after 9/11. I use the taxi cab and the daily life of the ‘brown’ taxi driver as a vehicle to navigate the new micro-politics of brown in public space. Within the popular imaginary I locate two dominating configurations of the taxi post-9/11 which work together to create Brown Space. The taxi figures prominently in the dark corners of the Right as a roving terrorist cell while it is elevated to an idealized ‘public sphere on wheels’ in the bright sensibility of the liberal imagination. In the first account the driver needs to be eradicated and in the second account the embodied driver is strangely absent. Between this deviant brown and an unacknowledged brown there emerges yet another post-9/11 proclamation of civic life – a renewed public space free of brown.

Keywords:

• brown space
• taxi cabs
• 9/11
• immigrant labor
• public space

Acknowledgements

This essay was first presented at the 2008 Crossroads in Cultural Studies Conference in Kingston, Jamaica. A big thanks to Kumarini Silva for her early encouragement in fall of 2006 to expand my work on the taxi and for her feedback and advice on earlier drafts over the last few years. More thanks go to two anonymous reviewers who provided engaging criticism and direction and another thank you to Jeremy Packer for his comments on earlier drafts.

Notes

1. For a good discussion of how these reforms effected black/white race relations in NYC see Torres (2003).

2. (Marx Darkside June 28, 2004) http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/002351.php#c26846.

3. Terrorist Internet Super Highway, Tuesday, September 05, 2006 1:36 PM

4. http://www.ubiq-cab.com.

5. Two of the 7/07 London suicide bombers were characterized as having ‘measured’, ‘thick’ English accents.