Constructing Citizenship: Exclusion, Subordination, and Resistance
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
2010 Presidential Address American Sociological Review 76(1) 1–24 Constructing Citizenship: Ó American Sociological Association 2011 DOI: 10.1177/0003122411398443 Exclusion, Subordination, http://asr.sagepub.com and Resistance Evelyn Nakano Glenna Abstract This Presidential Address develops a sociological concept of citizenship, particularly substan- tive citizenship, as fundamentally a matter of belonging, including recognition by other members of the community. In this conception, citizenship is not simply a fixed legal status, but a fluid status that is produced through everyday practices and struggles. Historical examples illustrate the way in which boundaries of membership are enforced and challenged in everyday interac- tions. The experience of undocumented immigrant college students is particularly illuminating. These students occupy a position of liminal legality, which transcends fixed categories such as legal and illegal. As they go about their daily lives, their standing is affirmed in some settings and denied in others. Furthermore, the undocumented student movement, which asserts that education is a human and social right, represents a form of insurgent citizenship, one that chal- lenges dominant formulations and offers an alternative and more inclusive conception. Keywords citizenship, education, social rights, undocumented immigrants aUniversity of California-Berkeley Corresponding Author: Evelyn Nakano Glenn, Department of Ethnic Studies, 506 Barrows Hall, University of California-Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720 E-mail: [email protected] 2 American Sociological Review 76(1) When I selected citizenship as the theme for through face-to-face interactions and through the 2010 American Sociological Association place-specific practices that occur within (ASA) Annual Meetings, I was cautiously larger structural contexts. hopeful that all of the many ASA sections With regard to the question of what the and subfields would find topics relating to their study of citizenship offers to sociology and particular concerns and interests. Little did the its many subfields, I would argue that citizen- Program Committee and I suspect that by the ship is omnirelevant. Citizenship affects public time of the meeting in August 2010, the mean- life in such areas as political participation and ings of citizenship, inclusion, participation, and development of state policy; it also affects pri- rights would become perhaps the hottest and vate life, including family and interpersonal most contentious set of issues in America. relations. Lack of citizenship or legal status We can in large part ‘‘thank’’ politicians and affects household formation and may indeed media personages who enflamed public pas- fracture families by separating members who sion by advocating for racialized nationalism, have legal status from those who do not. restrictions on immigrant rights, and, most Exclusion from citizenship rights interacts recently, repealing the 14th Amendment in with and magnifies other social inequalities. order to end birthright citizenship.1 For example, individuals lacking legal status In choosing the title for the meetings, are severely disadvantaged in the labor market ‘‘Toward a Sociology of Citizenship,’’ I and are often limited to low-paid jobs in the wanted to stimulate us to think about two inter- informal economy. Considering what is at related questions. First, what can sociology stake, it is not surprising that some of the contribute to an understanding of citizenship? most galvanizing social movements have Conversely, what can the study of citizenship been organized by those who are excluded contribute to sociological understanding? and who want to gain entry and expand rights. What can sociology offer that law, politi- Conversely, many social movements have also cal science (the heretofore dominant fields in been started by individuals whose interests are citizenship studies), history, and anthropol- served by restricted membership that shore up ogy have not? Law and political science usu- boundaries and define rights narrowly. ally view citizenship as a formal status This address is divided into two sections. defined by legal documents and state poli- First, I will outline a sociological approach cies. Thus, legal and political scholars focus that I have developed in my own work, on constitutions, laws, court decisions, and which focuses on how citizenship is continu- the writings and speeches of influential legal ally constituted and challenged through polit- and political actors.2 Historians and anthro- ical struggle. I build on the work of British pologists, on the other hand, are interested sociologist T. H. Marshall to examine the fre- in the discursive constructions and cultural quent disjunction between formal citizenship meanings of citizenship. They focus, for and substantive citizenship. Marshall argued example, on symbols and media representa- that twentieth-century reforms that expanded tions of nationhood and belonging versus social rights—free and compulsory education being alien or foreign.3 and basic welfare provisions—enabled work- It seems to me that these fields offer much ing-class Britons to finally exercise civil and of value to sociologists interested in citizen- political rights that they had, in theory, been ship, but sociology also has a tremendous granted in the eighteenth- and nineteenth- amount to contribute. Sociology’s special centuries. Citing historical cases in the U.S. strength may lie in its focus on the social pro- context, I argue that social rights are cer- cesses by which citizenship and its bound- tainly necessary but they are not sufficient aries are formed. In particular, sociologists for people to enjoy substantive citizenship. can highlight how citizenship is constructed One must take into account local practices Glenn 3 that recognize or deny standing to certain meet general property qualifications to vote, groups and individuals irrespective of their serve on juries, and hold office. Starting in formal standing under constitutional provi- 1819, however, under the banner of Universal sions or statutory law. White Manhood Suffrage, states expanded Next, I examine the contemporary case of voting rights for propertyless white men while undocumented immigrant students in the simultaneously disfranchising African Ameri- United States and their struggle to gain access can men, even those with property.8 By the to public higher education. Undocumented late 1850s, most states barred free blacks students constitute a growing segment of the from voting, and the Supreme Court’s Dred estimated 12 million immigrants without legal Scott decision ruled they were not citizens.9 papers.4 Their situation illustrates the multiple Still, Marshall’s formulation of citizenship levels at which citizenship is constructed and as differentiated into several aspects rather contested, from the national to the local. Addi- than being a unitary status remains exceed- tionally, undocumented students’ activism ingly useful. The idea of multiple dimensions speaks to the importance of insurgent move- draws attention to the fact that people can be ments in redefining the scope and meaning citizens in some respects and not in others.10 of American citizenship. Marshall’s notion that social citizenship At its most general level, citizenship refers (e.g., access to free education and social serv- to full membership in the community within ices) is essential for there to be substantive cit- which one lives. Membership, in turn, implies izenship has also proved useful.11 As sociolo- certain rights in and reciprocal obligations gists, we should be attentive to the difference toward the community.5 Marshall, writing between having rights in theory and being from the perspective of post-World War II able to exercise rights in practice, that is, hav- Britain, famously distinguished among three ing substantive citizenship. Indeed, sociolo- types of rights that emerged sequentially: civil gists can make a valuable contribution by rights in the eighteenth century, political being attentive to the processes that enable rights in the nineteenth century, and social or disable individuals and groups from realiz- rights in the twentieth century.6 ing and exercising rights. For Marshall, the history of rights in Brit- ain was linear and progressive. However, his account does not capture the complexity, SUBSTANTIVE CITIZENSHIP dynamism, and fluidity of citizenship in the AS LOCAL PRACTICE United States. Examination of historical changes in the status of blacks, women, Citizenship is not just a matter of formal Native Americans, and other originally legal status; it is a matter of belonging, which excluded groups reveals that their trajectories requires recognition by other members of the have been far more tortuous, as they experi- community. Community members participate enced periods when they lost rights they in drawing the boundaries of citizenship and had previously enjoyed.7 defining who is entitled to civil, political, and For example, blacks, particularly free social rights by granting or withholding recog- blacks, had more rights at the beginning of nition. During the Jim Crow era, which flour- the nineteenth century than they did 50 years ished until the mid-1960s, ordinary people later. After the American Revolution, require- maintained segregation in the South on a daily ments for private manumission were liberal- basis. For example, segregation of streetcars ized in the upper South, resulting in a sizable meant