Naturalisation procedures through which states symbolically and legally recognise noncitizens as citizens offer the most secure legal status for migrants and a means for them to evade global inequalities in the world system of nation-states. This study critically examines contemporary citizenship admission procedures in the UK and Germany following the introduction of citizenship tests, courses and ceremonies in the early 2000s. Based on a multi-sited state ethnography of both countries, this thesis argues that naturalisation does not simply separate citizens by discretionary application from citizens by automatic right of birth. Rather, citizenship admission procedures suggest a specific subjectivity, the Super Citizen, insofar as ‘new’ German and British citizens are expected to become a political, economic and cultural asset to the state. This study thus conceptualises naturalisation processes as a specific subject-formation regime created through particular problematisations, rationalities, authorities and techniques as institutionalised by the state. The analysis begins with a brief reconstruction of the genealogy of naturalisation in Britain and Germany, focussing on the emergence of the distinction between nationals and ‘aliens’ or ‘foreigners’, respectively, as well as on the legal mechanisms put in place to differentiate their access to full membership. Using a thematic analysis of qualitative interviews, observations and official documents, the study then tracks contemporary citizenship applications in four research locations in the two countries. It visits ceremony halls, classrooms and naturalisation offices and considers the perspective of a range of actors involved in citizenship admission procedures. This includes those who implement naturalisation on behalf of the state such as officials, legal advisers, teachers, politicians, and guest speakers, as well as the lived experience of the citizenship applicants themselves. The thesis concludes that naturalisation procedures in both the UK and in Germany produce the Super Citizen as a particular, neoliberal and neonational subjectivity that holds newly naturalized citizens responsible for developing a new nationalism.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:744177 |
| Date | January 2018 |
| Creators | Badenhoop, Sophie Elisabeth |
| Publisher | University of Glasgow |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://theses.gla.ac.uk/9133/ |
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