Making political citizens? Migrants’ narratives of naturalization in the United Kingdom^*

* Data has been archived in the UK Data Archive following the completion of the project. For further details please contact Pierre Monforte: [email protected].

Abstract

Citizenship tests are arguably intended as moments of hailing, or interpellation, through which norms are internalized and citizen-subjects produced. We analyse the multiple political subjects revealed through migrants’ narratives of the citizenship test process, drawing on 158 interviews with migrants in Leicester and London who are at different stages in the UK citizenship test process. In dialogue with three counter-figures in the critical naturalization literature – the ‘neoliberal citizen’; the ‘anxious citizen’; and the ‘heroic citizen’ – we propose the figure of the ‘citizen-negotiator’, a socially situated actor who attempts to assert control over their life as they navigate the test process and state power. Through the focus on negotiation, we see migrants navigating a process of differentiation founded on pre-existing inequalities rather than a journey toward transformation.

Keywords:

• Naturalization
• citizenship tests
• neoliberal citizenship
• United Kingdom

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Akwugo Emejulu, Engin Isin, Barbara Misztal and Emma Samman for their comments on this paper.

Notes

* Data has been archived in the UK Data Archive following the completion of the project. For further details please contact Pierre Monforte: [email protected].

1. More recently the Casey Review on Opportunity and Integration commissioned by then-Prime Minister David Cameron (Casey 2016) and the All Party Parliamentary Group Report on Social Integration (APPG 2017) are expressed in a similar vein.

2. See also Bishop 2017 on the ‘making’ of an American through the obligation to perform a particular narrative of an idealized supercitizenry.

3. See also Michael Jones-Correa and Sofya Aptekar on ‘defensive naturalization’ or ‘citizens by intimidation’ for fear of deportation (Jones-Correa 1998; Aptekar 2015, 6, 132); the desire to be ‘deserving citizens’ (Anderson 2013; Van Oers 2013); the individual and politically neutralizing effects of the process (Aptekar 2015, 133) in contrast to collective ‘community’ dimensions we explore elsewhere (see Bassel et al. 2017, 22–24).

4. ‘The act of hailing or recognising some-body as a stranger serves to constitute the lawful subject, the one who has the right to dwell, and the stranger at the very same time. It is not that the “you” is or can be simply a stranger, but that to address some-body as a stranger constitutes the “you" as the stranger in relation to the one who dwells (the friend and neighbour)’ (Ahmed 2000, 24).

5. This attempted ‘hailing’ also sends a message to those who will never be able to go through the process (see Sayad 1993), reinforcing the privilege of those who are included and ‘hailing’ the excluded as those to whom the law cannot be bound, and acts as a ‘technology of reassurance’ (Fortier 2008) to reassure those who are already citizens.

6. Interpellation is also never simply dyadic but takes place through more diffuse social and cultural practices (Butler 1993). In addition to daily interpersonal encounters these may take highly visible forms: statements by political leaders, popular media (e.g. David Letterman’s interview of then Prime Minister David Cameron in which Cameron ‘failed’ the UK citizenship test), mainstream media coverage (e.g. newspaper articles in which British people are invited to test their own knowledge of ‘Life in the UK’) (Bassel et al. 2017, 4).

7. This approach to ‘the political’ can include but is not limited to the study of political participation within and as a result of the naturalization processes (Bloemraad 2006). We focus on the kinds of political selves that can be observed in migrants’ narratives when they account for the ‘grip’ of the process and how they negotiate state power.

8. A full discussion of methods is included in the final research report from this project (Bassel et al. 2017). Here we highlight some important methodological considerations

9. Leicester is one of the main ‘minority-majority’ cities in the UK, where non-white residents are in the majority. London boroughs range in diversity, with the proportion of the White ethnic group at 59.8 per cent, in 2011 (Office of National Statistics 2012).

10. For an overview of naturalization trends in the UK see Blinder 2016.

11. See our final project report for a table summarizing fixed and variable costs. At the time of writing the minimum cost for one adult was over £1300 (Bassel et al. 2017, 19).

12. Please note that in some cases specific nationalities have not been provided to preserve anonymity. A more general geographic category is used instead.

13. See for example Kofman et al. (2000), Indra (1999), Morokvasic (1984), Morokvasic and Catarino (2007), Pessar (1999), Donato, Gabaccia, et al. (2006), and Abraham, Chow, et al. (2010).

14. See: http://www.mirror.co.uk/play/quizzes/can-you-pass-uk-citizenship-7108104

15. This possibility is diminished with the 2015 Life in the UK handbook which provides a history of colonialism and Empire that conveniently glosses over violent independence struggles and rebellions with a narrative of ‘orderly transition’ (Home Office 2015, 51, 52).