Less-than-equal citizens

However, even once naturalised participants often did not consider themselves authentic British citizens. Many subtly excluded themselves from this category, even after receiving their British passport, suggesting that the label of immigrant is not easily lost. This was evident in Paul and Yolanda’s comments:

It’s good, the opportunity we have here, let me say, not only

immigrants, even the some of you citizens. Only that’s all citizens don’t know what they have so they don’t make use of the opportunity. (Paul, economic migrant, Nigeria)

You have an opportunity and you are very fortunate that you’ve got Great Britain as your country or that you’ve got a good government, because your government helps people.

(Yolanda, economic migrant, Philippines)

Both participants here categorised ‘we’ immigrants, in opposition to ‘you’ citizens, despite the fact that they had already received British citizenship. This

demonstrates how collective ‘we-images’ can inform self-identification within stigmatised groups (Mennell, 1994). In this case the term ‘immigrant’ was not used as an overtly negative marker, but simply a way of describing themselves despite now having changed legal status. They also implied that those who possessed British citizenship as an automatic birthright had taken-for-granted opportunities, which were appreciated more by immigrants. This echoes the original rationale for introducing new citizenship measures, aiming to emphasise “the value and

significance of becoming a British citizen” (Home Office, 2002, p.30). However, immigrants such as Paul and Yolanda, originating from countries with fewer perceived democratic freedoms and employment prospects, were grateful for the opportunities afforded without this needing to be reinforced by the government. Whilst this kind of appreciation has more typically been associated with refugees (Rutter et al., 2007), these narratives suggest that a wider group of migrants may

value opportunities not available in their origin country. In fact, according to Paul, it is existing citizens who fail to display this gratitude.

The government’s targeting of new citizens in their attempt to increase the

significance of British citizenship further sets them apart from British-born citizens, for whom these measures are not considered appropriate. This instils a sense that new citizens are still regarded as migrants (cf. Anderson, 2013), and indeed the term ‘immigrant’ was used by many as a self-descriptor. Countertopography is able to materialise in-between spaces, which are considered crucial to the functioning of exclusionary geopolitical forces globally (Mountz, 2011). Thus Agamben’s (1998) abstract concept of ‘spaces of exception’ within the nation can be applied to real life situations. Whilst this has been researched with asylum seekers, whose incarceration in offshore detention centres places them literally between states (Mountz, 2011), this experience is one that is figuratively shared with other groups of migrants. In my study, participants were brought together in striving for British citizenship and the opportunities it afforded, and remained united in their less- than-equal citizenship, occupying a space somewhere in-between immigrant and citizen.

Language differentiating immigrants from nationals was also frequently used in the citizenship ceremonies. While outwardly appearing to be welcoming new citizens into an equal status, scripts nonetheless made frequent use of the ‘national we’ (Billig, 1995) into which the ‘foreign you’ are being incorporated. As a line from the official ceremony script reads: “we are here today to extend this welcome to you and to confer the honour of citizenship upon you”. Although intended as a mark of acceptance, a welcome simultaneously defines the outsiders who are being welcomed (Derrida, 2000). The fact that ‘we’ ‘extend’ and ‘confer’ upon ‘you’ places power in the hands of state officials, suggesting that they have ultimate control in the ability to attribute but also to withdraw British citizenship. Since 2002, 53 people have been deprived of British citizenship (Galey and Ross, 2014), with the Immigration Act 2014 extending government powers to strip individuals of their citizenship even if this renders them stateless. This demonstrates the

conditionality of hospitality, with tolerance used selectively towards different groups (Darling, 2009, Furedi, 2011). Thus a seemingly benign practice of tolerance can become a tool for exerting spatial power, with the ‘tolerant’ setting the limits for the acceptance of the ‘tolerated’ into ‘our’ nation (Hage, 1998). Tolerance is an effective means of separating ‘majority’ and ‘minority’ (Lewis, 2005), with these types of power relations not present between the state and British-born citizens. They are innately considered part of the national whole, not subjected to

reminders of their otherness or the expectations of conformity resulting from their difference.

Citizenship was commonly conceptualised as a sacred right conferred by birthplace and passed down generationally, a privilege to be earned by outsiders who can never truly belong. This demonstrates the problem of portraying citizenship as a natural phenomenon (Somerville, 2005), with the biographies of new citizens unable to be erased despite the symbolic transformation of status. The attitude of some of the officials conducting the ceremonies was telling in this regard:

I think it’s very important that they have a ceremony. Umm you know I’m British I was born here. Umm so I’m very proud to be British and I think going through the ceremony gets the point across that it is a privilege.

(Calderdale registrar)

The registrar here compared being British as a natural birthright afforded to her, to becoming British as a privilege for immigrants to earn. She believed the aim of the ceremony was to reinforce this message, therefore also strengthening the division between ‘they’ who need a citizenship ceremony to remind them of what they are becoming, and ‘us’ who have been ascribed our status as British citizens since birth. Despite having established ‘elective belonging’ (Pollini, 2005) through

naturalisation, this was unable to supersede the traditional notion of citizenship being based on a combination of birth, ancestry and long-term residence (Bond, 2006). This connects an ethnicised national identity with citizenship, with the

authenticity of a legal status determined by the degree to which one is considered a member of the nation. The European-wide shift from civic to ethnic citizenship identities has been widely noted by scholars (Odmalm, 2007, Joppke, 2007,

Kostakopoulou, 2010), and it is evident that this may also inform interpretations on the ground. Continuing to draw distinctions between new immigrant citizens and existing British-born citizens suggests that those who have been naturalised cannot be afforded the same status.

Whilst countertopography illustrates the way in which global processes may affect divergent local places in a similar manner, I have used this section to highlight the missing analytical scale – the national. Although the state is recognised in certain countertopographical analyses (cf. Martin, 2005, Rossiter and Wood, 2005, Dixon, 2011), it tends to be seen as seamlessly advancing the interests of global capital. In this view, citizenship is used as a vehicle for promoting globalised neoliberalism (Nelson, 2004). As my analysis shows, whilst incorporating aspects of globalisation, states have simultaneously challenged it, attempting to retain sovereignty by exerting control over their borders. This has recently been extended to citizenship, with the imposition of naturalisation measures now commonplace amongst

Western states. This accentuates the division between immigrant and native, which cannot be erased even upon the acquisition of formal membership. The prevailing association of citizenship with being rooted in national territory heightens the binary between British-born and foreign-born. Contour lines can thus be drawn between new citizens, whose experiences of exclusion from full belonging are created by a national reaction against globalisation, in which migrants as global agents are represented as ‘out of place’. The state’s response to global threats in the form of securitisation is explored further in the next section.