Uncertain citizenship

Life in the waiting room

Anne-Marie Fortier

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9781526163707
  9781526139085
• eBook ISBN:
  9781526139108
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Civics & Citizenship
• Index: Social Sciences

Uncertainty is central to the governance of citizenship, but in ways that erase, even deny, this uncertainty. This book investigates uncertain citizenship from the unique vantage point of 'citizenisation': twenty-first-century integration and naturalisation measures that make and unmake citizens and migrants, while indefinitely holding many applicants for citizenship in what Fortier calls the 'waiting room of citizenship'. Fortier's distinctive theory of citizenisation foregrounds how the full achievement of citizenship is a promise that is always deferred: if migrants and citizens are continuously citizenised, so too are they migratised. Citizenisation and migratisation are intimately linked within the structures of racial governmentality that enables the citizenship of racially minoritised citizens to be questioned and that casts them as perpetual migrants.

Drawing on multi-sited fieldwork with migrants applying for citizenship or settlement and with intermediaries of the state tasked with implementing citizenisation measures and policies, Fortier brings life to the waiting room of citizenship, giving rich empirical backing to her original theoretical claims. Scrutinising life in the waiting room enables Fortier to analyse how citizenship takes place, takes time and takes hold in ways that conform, exceed, and confound frames of reference laid out in both citizenisation policies and taken-for-granted understandings of 'the citizen' and 'the migrant'. Uncertain Citizenship's nuanced account of the social and institutional function of citizenisation and migratisation offers its readers a grasp of the array of racial inequalities that citizenisation produces and reproduces, while providing theoretical and empirical tools to address these inequalities.

Scene 1
Researching citizenisation

This scene sets the stage for subsequent chapters. It includes two parts: first, it introduces the basic elements of the current British citizenisation process. Second, it details the fieldwork conducted for this study. The latter provides not only information about the type of material gathered and a general profile of participants, but the contextualisation of the fieldwork also adds more information to the citizenisation process itself, and the people and spaces that populate the waiting room of citizenship.

British citizenisation in a nutshell

The current citizenisation process in Britain was designed in 2002, in a Home Office White Paper on nationality, immigration and asylum (Home Office 2002), enshrined in the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2012, and implemented in 2004. The process formalised what had hitherto consisted of a postal application for naturalisation: since 2004, the process requires a citizenship test, a language test and a citizenship ceremony. Several amendments altered the process since then: in 2007, the citizenship test and language test were moved forward in the citizenisation timeline to applications for Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) for all non-EU residents (EU residents take the test only when applying for citizenship). In 2010, English language tests used for skilled migrants were extended to all third country migrants seeking entry in the UK as a spouse, civil partner, or fiancé(e) to a British citizen.

Up until 2015, EU citizens automatically acquired settled status after five years of residency in the UK, under EU law. Since November 2015, EU residents are required to apply for a ‘residence card’ as evidence of their ‘settled’ status. Without the card, applications for citizenship are refused henceforth. In the post-Brexit context, the permanent residence status was replaced with an EU settlement scheme announced in 2017 and opened on 30 March 2019. While the scheme still does not require the citizenship test to be completed until one applies for British citizenship, the assumption is that it will gradually align EU residents with non-EU residents in terms of their rights, notably with regards to their rights to bring a spouse to live in Britain.¹ In short, the ‘Brexit effect’ on the citizenisation process for EU residents in the UK is to incrementally standardised it following the process for non-EU residents. In this regard, EU residents are directed to the same waiting room of citizenship as non-EU residents.

Language requirements changed in the course of this study. Until October 2013, applicants for settlement or citizenship undertook either a citizenship test or a language test, depending on their level of fluency in English. Prior to that, the language requirement separated applicants for settlement or citizenship along two routes: the ESOL route or the Life in the UK (citizenship test) route. What determined an applicant's route was whether or not they had an entry level 3 ESOL proficiency.² Those whose level of English was below entry level 3 were entitled to take an ESOL with citizenship-content class. If they progressed a level, evidenced by passing a speaking and listening test, they were eligible for settlement or citizenship without having to undertake the Life in the UK (LUK) test.

Since October 2013, however, all applicants, unless exempt, must prove their English fluency and complete the citizenship test. In addition, the bar for English speaking and listening rose to the same level as that of the LUK test, which is level B1 of the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) or above³ (Home Office 2013a). This means that the English fluency requirement set the bar higher for all applicants, whose progression from one level to another was no longer sufficient. Those exempt from showing an English speaking and listening qualification are those who obtained a degree taught in English and nationals of majority English speaking countries (white settler societies and countries in the West Indies; Home Office 2013a: Appendix A).⁴ Migrants from white settler societies or the educated elites from the New Commonwealth or other countries are advantaged in this system (more in Scene 3 and Chapter 4).

The citizenship test, for its part, is undertaken at one of 30 test centres around the country, at a cost of £50 (as of December 2019). The test is computer-based and consists of 24 questions to be answered in 45 minutes. The pass grade is 75 per cent (18 questions). As of December 2019, the test and study guide are in their third edition (Home Office 2017).

Once they obtain evidence of succeeding in the required tests, applicants can submit their settlement or citizenship application. At the time of the study and up to December 2018, local authorities offered two optional services for applicants: the Settlement Checking Service (SCS; for foreign spouses of British citizens) and Nationality Checking Service (NCS). These services operated in ways similar to the passport checking service offered by the Post Office. In short, registrars checked through one's application for SET(M) (Settlement on the basis of Marriage) or for British citizenship and confirmed that all the required evidence was present and ready to send. Their services also included producing certified copies of documents such as passports and sending the application to the UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI). These services cost up to £60 per appointment at the time and grew in popularity because they usually ensured a faster processing time and increased the chances of avoiding refusals because of missing information or mistakes (see Chapter 3 for more).

All successful applicants for citizenship aged 18 and over must attend a citizenship ceremony (with exemptions made for ill health or other exceptional circumstances). Ceremonies take place at local authorities and are organised by registrars. They are officiated by a registrar along with another ceremony official, usually a local ‘dignitary’ (mayor, Deputy-Lieutenant, or a local person of notoriety in the community; see Scene 4 and Chapter 5 for more).

The fieldwork

This book results from of a study about practices, processes and experiences of the British citizenisation measures. The study is based on multi-sited fieldwork conducted in England between March 2012 and June 2017, with the bulk of it between 2012 and 2014. A distinctive feature of this study is that it includes both applicants for citizenship, SET(M) or ILR, as well as institutional actors who are variously involved in providing services en route to citizenship – local registrars, ceremony official and language teachers. The details above situate my fieldwork in what I qualify as meso-levels of governance, that is, a space in-between civil society and the federal state government, where local government or private language school actors are enlisted as ‘intermediaries of the state’ (see Chapter 3).

The fieldwork included observations of six ESOL classes and 11 citizenship ceremonies, as well as shadowing a ‘citizenship and nationality’ team of registrars at a London borough council (which I christened Stadlow Council) where, among other things, I observed SCS and NCS meetings between registrars and applicants and followed registrars as they sorted various documents or planned citizenship ceremonies. I also conducted semi-structured interviews with 46 individuals in total (more than one interview in some cases; one joint interview): 24 migrants (16 women, 8 men) at different stages of citizenisation, including 8 new citizens; 3 ‘exceptions’; and 19 institutional actors (ESOL professionals, registrars, ceremony officials). The names of all locations and participants have been changed to preserve their anonymity.

The migrants I met had come to the UK through different routes: as spouses, for work, or as asylum seekers (one with and one without refugee status when I met them). Five were EU nationals. They had been living in the UK for periods ranging from 1.5 to 29 years. The migrants came from 16 countries⁵ spanning all continents except Antarctica, and were aged between 24 and 53 years old. All interviews were conducted in English (see Scene 3), and all of the 24 migrants declared that they speak at least one language other than English: 14 spoke one other, and 11 spoke two or more.⁶ Their educations levels went from three years of elementary school up to doctoral degree.

There were three exceptions in my sample of ‘applicants’: these individuals were not themselves applying for settlement or citizenship, but were directly affected by citizenship regimes: Paul, a British-born man married to a Thai woman who was arriving in the UK three days after we met, after a long battle to secure her spousal visa. Likewise, Robert was married to a Thai woman, and I interviewed them both together. The third ‘exception’ was Charlotte, an Australian permanent resident (with ILR) who adopted two British-born children and who found out, when applying for a British passport for one of them, that the child's British citizenship had been erased upon her adoption. Paul, Robert and Charlotte are ‘exceptions’ insofar as neither is seeking legal settled status or citizenship in the UK. However, their stories are telling of the close connections between citizenship and migration, and the blurred boundaries between what are understood as distinct legal categories. If this volume privileges the experiences of those who undertake the citizenisation process, which ultimately demigratises them, Charlotte, Robert and Paul's stories (which we return to in subsequent chapters) reveal how citizens can also be ‘migratised’ or cast as ‘foreign’.⁷

Institutional actors, for their part, include 11 registrars, three ceremony officials known as ‘dignitaries’, and five ESOL teachers or providers. All registrars (seven women, three men) were born in the UK. They were aged between 27 and 64, and had completed GCSEs up to Bachelor's degrees. The three dignitaries, for their part (two men, one woman), were aged between 66 and 73 years old, were born in the UK, Malaysia and Pakistan respectively, and had obtained a BA or Master's level degree. Of the 14 registrars and ceremony officials interviewed, only five said that they spoke one or more languages other than English; the rest spoke English only.

ESOL teachers, in contrast, all had two or more languages (including English) in their repertoire. The three women and two men we...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Introduction – Uncertain citizenship
• Scene 1 – Researching citizenisation
• Scene 2 – Documents, stories, pictures
• Scene 3 – Conversing with Anglophones
• Scene 4 – Becoming citizen
• Conclusion – Lessons from the waiting room: citizenisation and migratisation
• Notes
• References
• Index