Programme full

Thursday 16 April 2015 13:30 - 15:00
PAPER SESSION 5
Building on a number of research projects undertaken by the author over the last ten years, this paper presents an
overview of the factors which have shaped the development of BME organisations. It is argued that the equality
impact of the trends currently affecting the sector is much deeper than it might appear - and deliberately so. What is at
stake is not just the survival of certain types of organisations, but the whole idea of how diversity is 'organised' within
British society and how the needs of minority groups are catered for. The paper concludes by discussing what
scenarios may lay ahead and identifying possible ways forward as emerging from the field.
Race, Ethnicity and Migration 2
W709, HAMISH WOOD BUILDING
DIASPORA, MIGRATION AND TRANSNATIONALISM SUB-STREAM: IMMIGRATION AND CITIZENSHIP
‘Say It Like You Mean It’: Rituals of Citizenship and Narratives of Nation
Byrne, B.
(University of Manchester)
Citizenship ceremonies have been practiced for at least a century in the United States and Canada, and for 50 years
in Australia, with more recent introductions in Europe in the last decade or so as part of a series of changes to
countries' citizenship regimes. This paper will explore what citizenship ceremonies – the rituals created to 'make' new
citizens - can tell us about understandings of citizenship and the nation. Coming from an empirical study of three
countries in Europe and the US, Canada and Australia, the paper asks who is being held up as the welcomed citizen
and who is excluded in these public events. What does it mean to 'welcome' a new citizen and how are migration and
national history imagined in these events? These questions become increasingly urgent in the context of securitisation
and given current debates about the withdrawal of citizenship from suspected 'extremists'.
Citizenship Admission Procedures as New Forms of Racialized Subject Formation: The Construction of
‘Super Citizens’ in the UK and Germany
Badenhoop, E.
(University of Glasgow)
Although experiences of racism and migration have always been interlinked, academic research treated them
separately until recently (Schuster 2010). This paper aims to demonstrate that 'naturalisation', i.e. citizenship
admission processes for people classified as 'aliens', serve as a useful starting point for examining the intersection of
racism, nationalism and migration.
Since 2000, several European supposedly liberal democratic states introduced ceremonies, classes and tests as part
of their current citizenship regimes. Yet, comparative empirical evidence presented in this paper indicates that these
new regimes have regressive and segregating, rather than integrating, effects.
Drawing on ethnographic data comprising observations, documents, and interviews collected between 2012 and 2013
in Germany and the UK, this paper conceptualizes current citizenship requirements as techniques of subject
formation. While in the past, citizenship applications – unlike procedures for the recognition of asylum – were largely
dealt with via mail, the new requirements necessitate the direct interaction of migrants with agents of the state.
As the analysis of citizenship ceremonies illustrates, these processes produce new forms of racialized subjectivation.
Through their speeches, state representatives invoke a role model of the ideal citizen, or 'super citizen', which is also
being re-produced and performed by citizenship applicants in interview situations. This ideal of the 'super citizen' is
constructed through processes of racialized othering, resulting in new hierarchies between 'naturalized' and 'native'
citizens, which are structured along axes of ascribed merit and usefulness for the nation-state (cf. Baumann 1991,
Miles 1993, Sayad 1999).
One Step Forward, Two Steps Back: Immigration and Citizenship in Greece
Karamanidou, L.
(City University London)
The Greek citizenship regime has often been seen an example of the ethnic model, a legacy of the country's past of
ethnic homogeneity and constructions of national identity based on ideas of common descent, religion and culture.
The transformation of Greece into a country of immigration since the 1990s and the impact of processes of
Europeanisation have opened up, at least partially, regimes and discourses of citizenship and national belonging
183 BSA Annual Conference 2015
Glasgow Caledonian University