What's the big deal? Naturalisation and the politics of desire

Abstract

This article takes the naturalisation process as a vantage point to consider how citizenship constitutes a site of emotional investment not only on the part of applicants and ‘new’ citizens but also on the part of the state. The premise of this article is that naturalisation is more than solely the admission of foreigners to the position and rights of citizenship, and it approaches naturalisation as a state practice that needs to be understood within a politics of desire. The article asks three questions: what makes naturalisation a thinkable and desirable means of acquiring citizenship? Second, what do practices of naturalisation tell us about ‘the state's attachment to particular embodiments of desirable citizens’ (S. Somerville, 2005, Notes toward a queer history of naturalization. American quarterly, 7 (3), 661)? Third, ‘who may desire the state's desire’ (J. Butler, 2002. Is kinship always already heterosexual? Differences, 13 (1), 22)? Using policy documents and auto-ethnographic material, the article examines practices through which the state selects its own objects of desire and produces them as citizens, while it also produces itself as desirable. The article concludes that naturalisation distinguishes desirable from less desirable citizens through fantasies of English proficiency and birthright citizenship. In addition, the staged performance of the citizenship ceremony assures the state of its desirability by subsuming ‘as if’ enactments of citizenship.

Keywords::

• naturalisation
• citizenship
• politics of desire
• fantasy
• UK

Acknowledgements

I am very grateful to three anonymous reviewers and the journal editors for their advice on revising an earlier draft of this paper.

Notes

^1. It is beyond the scope of this article to provide a fuller reflection on why citizenship has attracted such state attention in current immigration policies. Suffice to say that since the turn of the twenty-first century, many countries have either strengthened or reintroduced citizenship tests (e.g. Australia, Canada, the USA) or introduced tests for the first time (e.g. the Netherlands, Germany, the United Kingdom). This has been widely understood as resulting from fears for the loss of national identity in the context of globalisation and ‘super diversity’ (Vertovec 2007) and fears for national security in the post 9/11 world (see Wright 2008b, Slade and Möllering 2010). As the Home Office itself put it in the White Paper that laid the foundations of the current naturalisation process, migration policy must be viewed in the context and constraints posed by ‘the challenges of globalisation, and the challenges at home’ (Home Office 2001, p. 23)

^2. Applications for British citizenship in 2011 amounted to a total of 207,792, an increase of 4% compared to 2010. A total of 177,785 (85%) applicants were granted citizenship in that period. See http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/science-research-statistics/research-statistics/immigration-asylum-research/immigration-tabs-q2-2011v2/citizenship-q2-11-tabs?view = Binary [Accessed June 21, 2012].

^3. The Blair government in Britain proposed to set up ‘orientation days on British values and customs’, while the Netherlands have ‘social orientation’ tests for applicants, and Austria, Denmark and France have ‘socio-cultural orientation courses’ (see Kostakopoulou 2010, p. 834–836.

^4. The study from which these observations and interviews are drawn is ongoing and will include interviews with various local government registrars and officials who dispense services to applicants, observations of citizenship ceremonies and interviews with applicants and new citizens. The study is funded by the British Academy.

^5. The Home Office Guidance summarises the required standard as follows: ‘A person at ESOL Entry 3 is able to follow straightforward spoken explanations and instructions and hold a conversation on a familiar topic’ (Blackledge 2009, p. 11). ESOL level 3 is equivalent to the benchmark intermediate level B1 on the Common European Framework of Reference.

^6. This refers to civil disturbances that took place in Oldham, Burnley and Bradford (Northern England) between May and July 2001. Widely reported as ‘race riots’, the disturbances involved large numbers of people from different backgrounds – especially young men – and resulted in the destruction of property and attacks on individuals. The confrontations were largely between Asian youths and the police, where the former were angry at the failure of the latter to protect them from recent racist attacks and threats perpetrated by racist groups such as the British National Party.

^7. While it can be argued that the Life in the UK citizenship test is itself a de facto language test (as well as a computer proficiency test), it cannot be likened to the ESOL route to citizenship for two reasons. First, it is a de facto English literacy test rather than a speaking and listening test, which is what the ESOL assessment consists of. Second, the level of English literacy required for the Life in the UK test is much higher than for ESOL entry level 3. Furthermore, some researchers show that learners who have had no or minimal schooling and who are not literate in their first language struggle to learn another language, even at low entry levels (Tarone et al., 2009).

^8. This group had the remit to develop proposals for language and citizenship courses and tests for immigrants applying for British citizenship.

^9. There is a chronic shortage of publicly funded English language provision for migrants in the UK, especially in London, which has been worsened by a 32% cut in funding brought on by the current Coalition government between 2009 and 2011. The cuts include limiting free places only to ESOL students on jobseeker's or employment support allowance – benefits paid to those who are actively seeking work. For those receiving other benefits, such as housing benefit, income support or tax credits, free places are no longer available. According to campaigners from Action for ESOL, this means that 100,000 students, three quarters of whom are women, will be hit with fees of £400–£1,200 for ESOL classes – charges that they simply cannot afford (Source: letter for the press by E. Galbraith and M. Cooke on behalf of Action for ESOL; ESOL research listserv 14 April 2011).

^10. Thanks to the ESOL Research listserv for alerting me to these new regulations and to Cooke and Simpson for their excellent synopsis in their email of 19 June 2012.

^11. Canaday's study of the history of the recognition and non-recognition of homosexuality for the purposes of immigration in the US is enlightening for understanding how ‘sexuality and citizenship are both a type of status that is configured (even, to some extent, conferred) by the state’ (2009, p. 255).

^12. At the time of writing, the British government is debating the legalisation of same-sex marriage; a debate initiated by Cameron's bid for the recognition of gays and lesbians who are in committed relationships (see Cameron 2011b).

^13. The Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 (British Crown 2002, p. 126) states that: ‘A person of full age shall not be registered under this Act as a British citizen unless he has made the relevant citizenship oath and pledge specified in Schedule 5 at a citizenship ceremony’.