Stephanie Tseng

Susanna Fioratta
ANTH B294: Final Topic Proposal and Annotated Bibliography
11/21/18
I would like to create a research project in which I investigate the ways in which different
groups construct the idea of citizenship in the United States. I want to include ideas of
autochthony, the dominant political rhetoric, and ethnographic studies from threatened
communities. Autochthony is the construction of citizenship based on being physically born on a
nation’s land. Meanwhile, the political rhetoric needs to negotiate citizenship in such a way to be
able to include the people they want as citizens while excluding others–so that there is an
exclusivity to the rights and services they provide. Finally, I want to bring in ethnographic
studies to see the cultural understandings of citizenship from marginalized communities,
especially those who feel as though their citizenship are threatened by the political rhetoric.
Legally, citizenship is a person’s right to participate in and be heard by the government
that they are living under, as well as their right to the social services provided by that governing
body. However, it also represents an aspect of a person’s identity. It can be “one of the most
powerful instruments of exclusion” because it is both “the binding element of a national
community and is an instrument and object of social closure” (UNESCO). A nation is dependent
on the loyalty of its citizens and must create certain benefits to promote that loyalty.
Citizenship is an important topic in the way that it informs public policy and how people
are treated by the government. Because the government must construct a narrative to describe a
citizen in order to decide who to include and exclude, it is important to look at people who are on
the border of that decision. Especially those who feel as though their citizenship is threatened
and their legal rights constantly scrutinized. Furthermore, citizenship contributes to people’s
constructions of their own identity and their notions of self-worth. Undocumented immigrants,
especially, live in a constant state of fear that they will be deported, thus leading to a lack of
security. In terms of security, they are not only emotionally compromised, but also financially
compromised because they cannot find stable work.
Annotated Bibliography
Blackburn, Carole. 2009. “Differentiating indigenous citizenship: Seeking Multiplicity in Rights,
Identity, and Sovereignty in Canada.” American Ethnologist 36 (1): 66-78. doi: 10.1111/j.1548-
1425.2008.01103.x.
Blackburn studies how the Nisga’a–an indigenous group–negotiated their rights and
citizenship with the Canadian government. This negotiation contributes to both the narratives of
how indigenous groups construct their own identities in terms of citizenship and how the
government views their rights to that citizenship.

Coutin, Susan Bibler. 2003. “Cultural logics of belonging and movement: Transnationalism,
Naturalization, and U.S. Immigration Politics.” American Ethnologist 30 (4): 508-26.
Coutin discusses the cultural expectations of naturalization, where immigrants are
expected to make a “clean break” from their cultures, but finds that they use that naturalization to
be able to make stronger, transnational ties with their families. This finding shows the disparity
between the dominant societal expectations and immigrant realities, showing an interesting
difference in what each side thinks of as the meaning of citizenship.

Geschiere, Peter. 2011. “Autochthony, Citizenship, and Exclusion - Paradoxes in The Politics of
Belonging in Africa and Europe.” Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies 18 (1): 321-39.
Geschiere traces the history of the word “autochthony” and how different people have
used that concept to both refer to people who were born on the land and those of the dominant
group. Both concepts, despite being opposites, have been used in the legal construction of
citizenship in the US. The French interpretation of autochthony as being indigenous people can
also be an interesting way to discuss the citizenship of Native Americans.

Gomberg-Muñoz, Ruth. 2016. “The Juárez Wives Club: Gendered Citizenship and US
Immigration Law.” American Ethnologist 43 (2): 339-52. doi: 10.1111/anet.12309.
Gomberg-Muñoz looks at how the expectations of citizenship contrast with the reality
when mixed-status couples apply for green cards to little success, in ways that dehumanize even
the US citizen by putting the burden of proof of hardship on them while erasing their partner.
This study provides an interesting intersection between citizenship and non-citizenship as it
discusses the disparities between expectation and reality in legal-status adjustment.

Ong, Aihwa. 1999. Flexible Citizenship. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Ong discusses the ways in which the globalized economy shapes citizenship. Examining
the reciprocal relationship between a transnational economy and the creation of citizenship also
brings in an interesting dimension to citizenship that is not included in looking at autochthony,
but parallels that of Coutin’s article with an added dimension of economic power.
Zenker, Olaf. 2011. “Autochthony, Ethnicity, Indigeneity and Nationalism: Time-Honouring and
State-Oriented Modes of Rooting Individual-Territory-Group Triads in a Globalizing World.”
Critique of Anthropology 31(1): 63-81. doi: 10.1177/0308275X10393438.
Zenker synthesizes scholarly insights from nationalism and indigeneity in distinguishing
between two opposing views of citizenship that are often used to construct citizenship. While
“individualized autochthony” refers to how individuals may draw upon the shared culture of the
place they were born and reside in, “collectivized autochthony” that comes from a shared past
through ancestry. His conclusion, especially, is important in helping conceptualize how
negotiations of citizenship occur between indigenous people and the dominant class that came
after.

Donald Trump, “Trump Immigration Executive Order: President Wants To Terminate Birthright
Citizenship,” interview by Jonathan Swan, AXIOS, HBO, October 30, 2018.
Regardless of whether Trump signs an executive order to end birthright citizenship as he
describes in this interview, he represents a certain faction of the political rhetoric and how they
wish to construct citizenship. It seems important to see how the President of the United States
himself views citizens and his beliefs on who deserves citizenship.

“United We Dream,” United We Dream, accessed November 21, 2018,

https://unitedwedream.org.
United We Dream is a grassroots organization that seeks to give voice to undocumented
immigrants. I think that looking at the media they produce, especially the blog posts from
immigrant youth, gives a very personal perspective on the views that immigrants have on
citizenship.

This is a very interesting and relevant topic and you have located some great sources to support
your project. For the final paper, consider my comments about articulating a broad research
question and showing how you’ll gather answers to it through fieldwork, guided by the
literatures you draw on.
Grade: 4.5/5