Migrant women becoming British citizens: care and coloniality

Abstract

This article explores the different experiences of migrant women who are at various stages in the UK naturalisation process, drawing on interviews in Leicester and London, United Kingdom. We consider how care and coloniality shape migrant women's experiences in the context of the neoliberal test process and what Nancy Fraser has called a 'crisis of care' (Fraser 2016). We argue that migrant women claim their own citizenship despite rather than because of the naturalisation process, and in so doing resist colonial relations of citizenship.

The Securitisation of Language Borders and the (Re)production of inequalities

“…There are three main forms of borders in relation language assessment (Khan, 2021) all of which contribute to citizenisation. First, what I call 'settlement linguistic borders' which includes language assessment for settlement in a country.…”

“…There are also intersectional implications. Bassel and Khan (2021) in their study of over 150 participants, demonstrate how race and gender are consistent issues in reproducing inequality negotiating settlement linguistic borders. They note how due to the effect of care duties due to gendered roles and being from non-English dominant/ EU countries, Black and Women of Colorespecially motherswere often lacking in support with English language.…”

“…Language testing and assessment for migration purposes can be situated more aptly as bordering practices (Khan, 2021). These are not tests that operate as stand-alone educational assessments but forms of border control to govern belonging and access to rights and privileges.…”

“…Drawing on the post-conflict situation between the Ephraimites and Gileadites when the word 'shibboleth' or 'sibboleth'depending on the pronunciation was used to differentiate between friend and foe. Derrida (2005) referred to several dimensions of the shibboleth including the capacity to draw borders through assessment particularly through time and place (Khan, 2021). In Redfield's reading this means 'the linguistic test renders the border mobile, irreducible to fixed socio-political articulations of the earth' (Redfield, 2021: 21).…”

“…Turner (2020: 11) reminds us that ‘Intimacy codified as “family”, regulated by the state, is bound up with more than the organisation of movement; it is also structures access to resources, wealth, property and exposure to spectacular and cruddy forms of violence and abandonment.’ Language borders can keep families apart in some cases and/or expose them to the vulnerability of lacking full rights. One person's negotiation of a language borders may well affect other dependents (Bassel & Khan, 2021).…”