Calling for the Super Citizen

ISBN-13: 9783031342592 / Angielski / Twarda / 2023

Elisabeth Badenhoop

Opis

This book offers the first empirical and holistic analysis of the design, implementation and effects of the new naturalisation regimes in the United Kingdom and Germany introduced in the 2000s. Based on a multi-sited state ethnography, it uniquely compares the law on the books, the local administration, and the lived experiences of citizenship tests, courses, and ceremonies from an interdisciplinary social science perspective.The book argues that naturalisation procedures in both countries suggest to migrants to constantly optimise themselves in the state’s interests toward the subjectivity of the “Super Citizen” – a political, economic, and cultural asset to the liberal-democratic, capitalist nation-state. The concept of the Super Citizen enables us to highlight and criticise the overburdening expectations toward citizens by application as opposed to citizens by birth. The analysis reveals that the self-presentation of Britain and Germany as liberal and meritocratic polities is in stark contrast to migrants’ lived experiences of the naturalisation process.By shedding light on naturalisation policies’ efficacy, this book is aimed at students and scholars in sociology, politics, law, anthropology, and education, as well as policy-makers in the areas of citizenship and migration.

Spis treści

CONTENTS

1.      Chapter 1 Naturalisation as subject-formation and the call for the Super Citizen

1.1 Synopsis of the book

1.2 The call for the Super Citizen: naturalisation as subject-formation

1.3 The historical emergence of naturalisation in the UK and Germany

1.4 A multi-sited state ethnography of naturalisation in the UK and Germany

1.5 Outline of the book

 

2.      Chapter 2 Problematisations in naturalisation processes: Super Citizen or “scrounger”

2.1   The dependent citizenship applicant: supposed lack of economic integration

2.2   The insincere citizenship applicant: doubts about cultural-linguistic integration efforts

2.3   The indifferent citizenship applicant: suspicious political loyalties

2.4   Engrained institutional mistrust

 

3.      Chapter 3 Rationalities of naturalisation: citizenship as award or entitlement

3.1 Naturalisation as a discretionary award

3.2 Naturalisation as a legal entitlement

3.3 Naturalisation as creating an emotional attachment

3.4 Naturalisation as a commercial commodity

3.5 Comparison and conclusion

 

4.      Chapter 4 Authorities in naturalisation procedures: structurally prescribed and self-perceived roles of state actors

4.1 Accessing information and forms: the role of legal advisers

4.2 Educating “good” citizens: the role of citizenship course teachers

4.3 Presenting the certificate: the role of registrars and caseworkers

4.4 Addressing the “new” citizens: the role of honorary ceremony speakers

4.5 Discrepancies between structurally prescribed and self-perceived roles

 

5.      Chapter 5 Techniques of subject-formation: citizenship courses, tests, and ceremonies

5.1 Citizenship courses and tests 

5.2 Citizenship ceremonies

5.3 The dialectics of citizenship courses, tests and ceremonies: between national nostalgia and democratic modernity

 

6.      Chapter 6 Responses to the Super Citizen: migrants’ lived experiences of naturalisation

6.1 Embrace

6.2 Contestation

6.3 Disaffection

6.4 Migrants’ competition for state recognition and new hierarchies of worthiness

6.5 The ambivalent effects of the Super Citizen

 

7.      Chapter 7 The Super Citizen and the future of naturalisation

7.1 Current policy developments in the UK and Germany

7.2 Recommendations for future policy-making

O autorze

Elisabeth Badenhoop is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Wuppertal. She is the guest editor of ‘Citizenship Matters: Assessing the History, Regulation and Lived Experiences of Naturalization from a Global Perspective’ (Citizenship Studies, 2021). Her research has been published in leading journals, including Governance, Regulation & Governance, and Comparative Political Studies, and has been cited by the UK House of Lords Justice and Home Affairs Committee. She holds a PhD from the University of Glasgow and was Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh, the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Göttingen, and the Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg.

Blurb

“This book proposes a bold new interpretation of naturalisation requirements and procedures. Badenhoop regards them as state efforts to produce “Super Citizens”, who contribute to the economy and cultural diversity, and show loyalty and gratitude. A must-read for scholars, policy-makers and others interested in citizenship.”

 – Rainer Bauböck, European University Institute, Italy

“Elisabeth Badenhoop’s book provides important insights into the character of naturalisation processes in modern states. The figure of the “Super Citizen” is a powerful metaphor for the ways in which states use the naturalisation processes to place heavy demands on migrants.”

 — Jo Shaw, Edinburgh Law School, UK

“Badenhoop’s book is a powerful and revealing, indeed breakthrough study that will shape citizenship research for years to come.”

­– Steven Vertovec, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Germany

 

This book offers the first empirical and holistic analysis of the design, implementation and effects of the new naturalisation regimes in the United Kingdom and Germany introduced in the 2000s. Based on a multi-sited state ethnography, it uniquely compares the law on the books, the local administration, and the lived experiences of citizenship tests, courses, and ceremonies from an interdisciplinary social science perspective.

The book argues that naturalisation procedures in both countries suggest to migrants to constantly optimise themselves in the state’s interests toward the subjectivity of the “Super Citizen” – a political, economic, and cultural asset to the liberal-democratic, capitalist nation-state. The concept of the Super Citizen enables us to highlight and criticise the overburdening expectations toward citizens by application as opposed to citizens by birth. The analysis reveals that the self-presentation of Britain and Germany as liberal and meritocratic polities is in stark contrast to migrants’ lived experiences of the naturalisation process.

By shedding light on naturalisation policies’ efficacy, this book is aimed at students and scholars in sociology, politics, law, anthropology, and education, as well as policy-makers in the areas of citizenship and migration.

 

Elisabeth Badenhoop is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Wuppertal, Germany.