Unequal and gendered: Notes on the coloniality of citizenship

Abstract

An entire Occidentalist tradition of citizenship theory viewed citizenship as a modern, progressive institution that helped overcome particularities of unequal social origin. Contrary to the claims of this (mainly male) Western scholarly tradition, the article argues, first, that the institution of citizenship has developed in the West through the legal (and physical) exclusion of non-European, non-White and non-Western populations from civic, political, social and cultural rights; these exclusions, and thus citizenship as such, have historically been (en)gendered. Second, the article maintains that citizenship and gender are the most decisive factors accounting for extreme inequalities between individuals in rich and poor countries in the twenty-first century. Forms of racialization, sexualization and precarization to which the acquisition of citizenship and the corresponding gain in social mobility are linked today are illustrated with examples of practices to subvert citizenship law through marriage or childbirth in countries relying primarily on jus sanguinis and jus soli, respectively.

Migrant women becoming British citizens: care and coloniality

“…Thus, intervention is required in the face of such imported gender and racialised dynamics, that always come from elsewhere rather than within European modernity (Tudor 2018). This therefore evokes images of more passive women who are denied access to English and integration and revives broader colonial tropes of Other femininities and masculinities (Boatcă and Roth 2016;Farris 2017). Umut Erel (2017) argues that this 'racialised migrant family' unit serves as a figure which threatens the 'reproductive society' of the nation.…”

“…Gender, revealed by many scholars as a colonial construction, is understood to have informed 'the modern/colonial institution of citizenship from its emergence' (Boatcă and Roth 2016).…”

“…. .To this unequal and gendered mode of organization corresponded a structural distribution of unequal and gendered citizenship rights that shaped the modern/colonial institution of citizenship from its inception and that gets continuously rearticulated in new forms and understandings of citizenship today' (Boatcă and Roth 2016).…”

Counter-mapping citizenship: bordering through domicide in Calais, France

“…iii. See Boatcȃ and Roth, 2016 for an in-depth study of how the coloniality of gender is central to the constitution of modern citizenship.…”

Migration und radikale Demokratie

“…Politik wird in unterschiedlichen Traditionen reduziert auf einen gesellschaftlichen Teilbereich, ein bestimmtes Regime, eine Sphäre und zudem auf ein normierendes männliches, weißes und bourgeoises Subjekt -eine Partikularisierung, die zugleich durch allgemeine Begriffe des Menschen und Bürgers entnannt wird, wie feministische, antirassistische und marxistische Ansätze aufgezeigt haben (vgl. Lutz et al 2013;Boatcă/Roth 2016;Demirović 2016). Der Politikbegriff radikaler Demokratietheorie stellt diese Verkürzungen und Grenzen infrage, kommt jedoch selbst nicht umhin, per Definition bestimme Aspekte von Politik zu fokussieren und andere aus dem Blick zu verlieren.…”