Gargi Bhattacharyya is Professor of Sociology at the University of East London, UK. Her published works include: Tales of Dark Skinned Women (1998); Race and Power (with Stephen Small and John Gabriel, 2001); Sexuality and Society (2002); Traffick (2005); Dangerous Brown Men (2008); and Ethnicities and Values (2009).

• 1. Is it too late to write a book about austerity? 2. The Primacy of the Economic and the Degradation of Politics 3. The Institutionalisation of Despair and Diminishing Expectations 4. Austerity and Extending the Racial State 5. Reproductive Labour in Austere Times 6. Conclusion: Surplus populations and austerity forever?