Blurred boundaries: fantasy citizenship, the worker citizen and mobility controls

ABSTRACT

This article uses the lens of state control over mobilities of residents both migrants and citizens to move away from assumptions that position them as competitors for the privileges of membership. I begin by critiquing the migrant/citizen binary, claiming that it promotes as actuality Fantasy Citizenship of equality and accessible rights when the reality is one of banal citizenship. This Fantasy citizen is a Worker Citizen. However, the substance of the ‘right to work' is the right to the welfare safety net and the banal citizen finds access to this safety net restricted by the ‘duty to work'. Taking the example of the UK and specifically, England, I examine how citizens' mobility is restricted and controlled, firstly by social housing allocation policies which effectively turns citizens into ‘migrants’ via worker citizenship, and secondly through the restrictions of COVID-19 including its racialised policing. In this way, I suggest closer attention to state restrictions on the mobilities of citizens can help draw out connections in practice between the citizen and the migrant, connections that are obscured by Fantasy Citizenship and the migrant citizen binary.

KEYWORDS:

• Citizenship
• mobility
• worker citizen
• welfare benefit
• social housing

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 They must exercise their treaty rights as a jobseeker, worker, self-employed, self-sufficient person, or student

2 An exception is now made for those taxpaying citizens who have paid UK National Insurance contributions on the grounds that they have ‘recently contributed to the UK economy whilst being posted to work abroad, thus maintaining their connections to the UK’ (Kennedy 2015).

3 Please note Barnet Council changed their social housing allocation policy in 2023.

4 See https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-53947488