Conceptualising the Citizenship-Integration Nexus

Abstract

Beyond reiterating the well-known trope that citizenship is simultaneously a status, a category of belonging, and an identity, this volume gets back to the long-standing question about the relation between immigrant integration and the process of citizenship acquisition in Europe. In this chapter, we conceptualize the citizenship-integration nexus, we review the state of the art around this question and clarify our understanding of integration. Furthermore, we explain why and how the contribution to this volume help us to revisit the citizenship-integration nexus: showcasing the acquisition of citizenship as a multi-stakeholder process, pluralist in form, manifesting at many sites, levels, and times (before, during and after the formal process of naturalization), the contributions question three main assumptions of the nexus. First, that citizenship is the main path for social incorporation. Second, that policies and processes of citizenship acquisition are conducive to integration. Third, that naturalization is a vehicle for socioeconomic improvement. Based on the innovative analytical and methodological perspectives included in this book we propose that citizenship performs tasks other than – and sometimes regardless of – integration, while social incorporation goals are often met irrespective of the formal acquisition of citizenship.