Part of the HOSTILE ENVIRONMENTS Spring Public Programme
Thinking through race, securitisation and the co-option of citizenship
This paper explores the ways in which citizenship, already functioning as a conditional status and an institution for disciplining subjects, is co-opted for the surveillant assemblage as part of a broader (racialized) securitisation agenda. Where the powers to enact the extreme punishment of citizenship deprivation have been cultivated on the back of the pathologised, ultimate ‘bad citizen’, the terrorist suspect who shows no sign of docility or compliance with being surveilled or doing surveillance, the mark of a good citizen is they who are willing to be surveilled and act as surveillants. Surveillance as conditionality of citizenship is further built into the character test which one must pass before citizenship is granted. This racially charged and focused infrastructure functions through the creation and maintenance of a hostile environment.
HOSTILE ENVIRONMENTS Series organised by Lorenzo Pezzani and Nishat Awan Thursday 31 January 2019 Professor Stuart Hall Building LG02 17:00 - 19:00