Anxious Vigilance and the Production of (Il)legitimacy in the UK Citizenship Regime “It’s How You Sift Them Out, Y’know?”

Abstract

This article examines the navigation and enactment of vigilance in the UK citizenship regime. Drawing on data from a four-year research project in a UK city, including observations of citizenship ceremonies and interviews with institutional actors and citizen-candidates, it sees vigilance as a central feature of the naturalization process, with watchfulness oriented toward three key areas: the bureaucratic precision, the linguistic proficiency, and the commitment to the nation evidenced by the citizen-candidate. It sees the navigation of anxious vigilance among all actors—state, institutional, and citizen-candidates—but argues that this is directed unevenly, with the state’s securitizing gaze particularly maintained upon those racialized as Other. Reading citizenship in domopolitical terms as a technology through which the securitized state can enact its bordering practices, it sees the vigilance enacted in the naturalization process as productive: as working to realize the legitimacy of the state and the Good citizen, to articulate and exclude from membership those deemed illegitimate, and, ultimately, to curtail possibilities for solidarity.