The Value of Nation

Abstract

Drawing on ethnographical observations made in the Naturalization Office of a prefecture of the Paris region, and on interviews carried out with bureaucrats and French citizens who have been naturalized, this article examines both the institutional process of granting citizenship as well as its impact on subjectivities. It investigates the assumptions and broad judgments that underlie the granting of French citizenship to see how norms and values linked to this procedure circulate between bureaucrats and applicants. It focuses on the idea of “deservingness,” linked to the act of being granted French citizenship, to determine how bureaucrats from the Naturalization Office and French naturalized citizens differently appropriate this notion. By addressing the articulated difference between bureaucratic practice and lived experience, this article aims to highlight the political, moral, and ethical dimensions at stake in the procedure of making foreigners into French citizens.

Born Again French: Explaining Inconsistency in Citizenship Declarations in French Longitudinal Data

“…In particular, we are not able to identify the degree to which ticking the citizenship box is experienced as a conscious or unconscious enactment of identity or status, or whether and how reclassification occurs in social interactions beyond filling out the census form. Nonetheless, our findings are consistent with qualitative research in France showing the symbolic dimensions of these categories (Mazouz 2019;Ribert 2006;Sayad 1993).…”

“…Furthermore, ethnographic research shows that during naturalization ceremonies, new citizens are often reminded of the path they have completed to finally access French citizenship, but also more or less explicitly of the insurmountable distance that still lies between them and native citizens. 7 This contributes to othering new citizens precisely at the moment when they are meant to celebrate the final step in the integration process (Calba 2015;Mazouz 2017Mazouz , 2019. Hence, while candidates for citizenship must prove their worthiness by assimilating to Frenchness, demonstrating their commitment to the host country's history, language, traditions, and norms, ethnoracial markers like skin color, religious signs, and names that signal foreign-origin persistently undermine naturalized citizens' claims to native status (Escafré-Dublet and Simon 2014;Hajjat 2012;Jugé and Perez 2006;Masure 2008;Mazouz 2017).…”

“…In this sense, even within civic citizenship regimes, attaining full membership is rendered more difficult for some immigrants on the grounds they are unassimilable or incompatible with the shared values of the nation-state. This is particularly true in France, where immigration and integration laws increasingly emphasize cultural values, such as secularism ( laicité ) or gender equality, as inherent components of Frenchness (Beaman 2015; Fassin and Mazouz 2007; Mazouz 2019; Safi 2014).…”

A White Race Blindness?

“…This discrepancy may have been the reason why some of them constantly diminished me in order to put me back in the subaltern position they considered to be the right one for me. 18 In addition, for several months during 2006 and then in 2008, I led a sociology reading group in a young people's employment support center in the area of Doucy. The aim was to generate conversations about the participants' lived experiences of racializing ascriptions and racial discrimination.…”

The multidimensionality of national belonging: Patterns and implications for immigrants’ naturalisation intentions

“…Frenchness and whiteness tend to be conflated in the national narrative (Beaman, 2015;Fassin and Mazouz, 2009) and certain religious markers signal a lack of cultural assimilation that is seen as incompatible with French national identity (Mazouz, 2019;Bussat, 2012). For instance, in 2008, the French Conseil d'Etat denied citizenship to a Moroccan woman because she wore the niqab.…”