Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-20T07:32:22.422Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Citizenship as Interpellation: Refugee Women and the State1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Leah Bassel
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article examines the ideological function of ‘models’ of citizenship in shaping the contours of public debate and the ability of refugee women to make claims in the public sphere. Key elements of Louis Althusser's concept of interpellation are explored: ideology works by interpellating (‘hailing’) individuals, providing them with a social and juridical identity that constitutes them as subjects. The article argues that ‘models’ of citizenship serve as vehicles for processes of interpellation that restrict claim-making, through the imposition of a dominant hierarchy of identities and needs. These processes become visible through analysis of Somali refugee women's experiences in republican France.

Type
Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 43 , Issue 2 , 2008 , pp. 293 - 314
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2008.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

1

I am grateful to the ESRC for the postdoctoral fellowship held at the Refugee Studies Centre, Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford that supported the writing of this article. Thanks to Matthew Gibney, Eva-Lotta Hedman, Cathie Lloyd, Emma Samman, Robbie Shilliam and participants in the workshop ‘The Refugee in Trans/National Politics and Society’ for comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

References

2 The continued relevance of these regimes in shaping migrant claim-making has been examined in a comparison of France, Germany, the Netherlands, Britain and Switzerland in R. Koopmans, P. Statham, M. Giugni and F. Passy, Contested Citizenship. Immigration and Cultural Diversity in Europe, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 2005.Google Scholar

3 This article focuses exclusively on claims made in the ‘national’ public sphere and sets aside consideration of transnational claims.Google Scholar

4 This approach can be contrasted to that of mapping the outcomes of claims that ‘make it’ into the public sphere.Google Scholar

5 The utility of an exhaustive typology is extensively debated with the argument that national incorporation frameworks are not fully cohesive, and a ‘radically disaggregated perspective’ is therefore more appropriate. Because they are constantly changing, national incorporation frameworks may best be described as belonging to a handful of ‘loosely connected syndromes’. See Freeman, G., ‘Immigrant Incorporation in Western Democracies’, International Migration Review, 38: 3 (2004), pp. 945–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar ‘Models’ are, however, both prevalent and persistent at the discursive level. Therefore, the focus here is on their role in framing debate and providing a basis for justifying state action.

6 M. Freeden, Ideology: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2003, p. 54.Google Scholar

7 Glynos, J., ‘The Grip of Ideology: A Lacanian Approach to the Theory of Ideology’, Journal of Political Ideologies, 6: 2 (2001), pp. 191–214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 L. Althusser, ‘Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes Towards an Investigation)’, in L. Althusser, Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, Surrey, Gresham Press, 1977, pp. 121–73, p. 160.Google Scholar

9 J. Butler, Bodies that Matter. On the Discursive Limits of ‘Sex’, London, Routledge, 1993, p. 122.Google Scholar

10 Althusser, ‘Ideology’, p. 163.Google Scholar

11 Butler, Bodies that Matter, p. 122.Google Scholar

12 Althusser, ‘Ideology’, p. 164.Google Scholar

13 Ibid., p. 155.Google Scholar

14 Edwards, J., ‘The Ideological Interpellation of Individuals as Combatants: An Encounter Between Reinhart Koselleck and Michel Foucault’, Journal of Political Ideologies, 12: 1 (2007), pp. 49–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15 L. McNay, Gender and Agency: Reconfiguring the Subject in Feminist and Social Theory, Cambridge, Polity Press, 2000, p. 97.Google Scholar

16 Ibid., p. 98.Google Scholar

17 H. Bannerji, The Dark Side of the Nation. Essays on Multiculturalism, Nationalism and Gender, Toronto, Canadian Scholars' Press, 2000; Bannerji, H., ‘The Paradox of Diversity: The Construction of a Multicultural Canada and “Women of Colour”’, Women's Studies International Forum, 23: 5 (2000), pp. 537–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 Bannerji, ‘The Paradox of Diversity’, p. 553.Google Scholar

19 Despite this divergence, Bannerji's argument has important implications for the extent to which (a qualified version of) interpellation can be extended to non-Muslim non-refugee women. She demonstrates the broader relevance of processes of interpellation, as affecting ‘visible minority’ third-world migrant women more generally who are constructed as ‘women of colour’.Google Scholar

20 See M. Freeden, Ideologies and Political Theory: A Conceptual Approach, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1998; M. Freeden, The Meaning of Ideology: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives, London, Routledge, 2006.Google Scholar

21 L. Bassel, ‘From Refugee Woman to Citizen: The Politics of Integration in France and Canada’, DPhil dissertation, University of Oxford, 2007.Google Scholar

22 This research is informed by intersectionality theory, which draws attention to the simultaneous and interacting effects of gender, race, class, sexual orientation and national origin as categories of difference. See Hancock, A.-M., ‘When Multiplication Doesn't Equal Quick Addition: Examining Intersectionality as a Research Paradigm’, Perspectives on Politics, 5: 1 (2007), pp. 63–79;CrossRefGoogle Scholar K. Crenshaw, ‘Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics and Violence Against Women of Color’, in M. Albertson Fineman (ed.), The Public Nature of Private Violence, New York, Routledge, 1991, pp. 93–118; P. Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought. Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment, London, HarperCollins Academic, 1990.

23 See A. George and A. Bennet, Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences, London, MIT Press, 2005, pp. 205–32; J. Gerring, Case Study Research: Principles and Practices, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007, pp. 173–86.Google Scholar

24 For example, using a method of ‘political claims analysis’ Koopmans et al. draw on newspaper coverage of interventions by both government and civil society actors, and argue for the continued relevance of national citizenship and integration regimes as ‘political opportunity structures’ – composed of both institutional and discursive opportunities and constraints – in shaping migrants' claim-making. See Koopmans et al., Contested Citizenship.Google Scholar

25 This ‘model’ is described in greater detail in Bassel, L., ‘Refugee Women and La République: Participation in the French Public Sphere’, Parliamentary Affairs, 60: 3 (2007), pp. 467–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

26 Levinson, M., ‘Liberalism versus Democracy? Schooling Private Citizens in the Public Square’, British Journal of Political Science, 27: 3 (1997), pp. 333–60,CrossRefGoogle Scholar p. 335.

27 S. Castles and M. Miller, The Age of Migration: International Population Movements in the Modern World, London, Macmillan, 2003, pp. 245–8.Google Scholar

28 Schnapper, D., ‘La citoyenneté: perspectives historiques et théoriques. Les processus de l'intégration en France’, Cahiers de la Documentation Française: Citoyenneté et Société, 281 (1997), pp. 20–6,Google Scholar p. 22.

29 Ferry, J., ‘Lettre aux instituteurs (27 November 1883)’, Pouvoirs, 75 (1995), p. 111.Google Scholar

30 Schnapper, ‘La citoyenneté’, p. 23.Google Scholar

31 Assemblée Nationale, ‘Loi no. 2004-228 encadrant, en application du principe de laïcité, le port de signes ou de tenues manifestant une appartenance religieuse dans les écoles, collèges et lycées publics. 15 March 2004’, available at http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/recueil-lois/2004/recueil-1-21.asp.Google Scholar

32 Laborde, C., ‘On Republican Toleration’, Constellations, 9: 2 (2002), pp. 167–83,.CrossRefGoogle Scholar pp. 172–3.

33 For a more detailed discussion see Bassel, ‘Refugee Women and La République’.Google Scholar

34 ‘Le Rapport de la Commission Stasi sur la Laïcité’, Le Monde, 12 December 2003.Google Scholar

35 Commission de Réflexion sur l'Application du Principe de Laïcité dans la République, Rapport au Président de la République, Paris, 2003, pp. 1–78, p. 58.Google Scholar

36 Ibid., pp. 47, 57.Google Scholar

37 Kada is coauthor (with Dounia Bouzar) of L'une voilée, l'autre pas. Le témoignage de deux musulmanes françaises, Paris, Albin Michel, 2003, and an activist in the association Femmes françaises et musulmanes engagées (French women and politically engaged Muslims).Google Scholar

38 ‘Nadia, Saïda et Fatiha, avec ou sans voile devant la commission Stasi’, Le Monde, 6 December 2003.Google Scholar

39 Commission, Rapport, pp. 53–5, 65, 67.Google Scholar

40 United Nations High Commission for Refugees, ‘The 1951 Refugee Convention’, available at http://www.unhcr.org/protect/3c0762ea4.html.Google Scholar

41 See Commission des Recours des Réfugiés (CRR), Sections réunies (SR), 27 June 1997, Jama Shide, n° 300986; CRR, SR, 26 November 1993, Ahmed Abdullahi, n° 229619, Rec. CRR, 1993; CRR, SR, 3 May 1996, Maxamed Xasan Maxamuud n° 276383, Rec. CRR, 1996. Jurisprudence confirmed by the Conseil d'Etat, 12 May 1999, Jaamac, n° 176272, Rec. CRR, 1999, in D. Alland, Textes du Droit d'Asile, Paris, PUF, 1998, pp. 60–1.Google Scholar

42 D. Alland and C. Teitgen-Colly, ‘Motif tenant à l'appartenance à un certain groupe social’, Traité du droit de l'asile, Paris, PUF, 2002, pp. 471–2.Google Scholar

43 See CRR, SR, 26 November 1993, Ahmed Abdullahi, n° 229619, Rec. CRR, 1993, 60, in Alland, Textes, p. 60.Google Scholar

44 A report by the French Section of Amnesty International denounces the consistent refusal of French jurisprudence to recognize persecution that does not emanate from public authorities or officials of a country. Amnesty International Section Française, Droit d'Asile en France. État des lieux, Paris, Les Éditions Francophones d'Amnesty International, 1997.Google Scholar

45 Ibid., p. 44.Google Scholar

46 This text is from a 2001 rejection by the CRR. It was shown to the author in the course of fieldwork on the condition that any identifying details be removed.Google Scholar

47 See H. Crawley, ‘Women and Refugee Status: Beyond the Public/Private Dichotomy in UK Asylum Policy’, and A. Macklin, ‘A Comparative Analysis of the Canadian, US, and Australian Directives on Gender Persecution and Refugee Status’, both in D. Indra (ed.), Engendering Forced Migration. Theory and Practice, Oxford, Berghahn Books, 1999, pp. 272–333.Google Scholar

48 Alland and Teitgen-Colly, Traité du droit de l'asile, pp. 422–32.Google Scholar

49 Ibid., p. 428.Google Scholar

50 Ibid., p. 431.Google Scholar

51 Cases of ‘excision’, or female genital mutilation, have been recognized. These have been cases of women ‘personally exposed against their will’ to the practice, which they wish to protect themselves from. There have also been decisions in favour of parents whose daughters risk undergoing this practice. However, in the case of a Malian claimant asylum was refused because state-driven eradication campaigns were in place. Alland, Textes, p. 91; Alland and Teitgen-Colly, Traité du droit de l'asile, p. 422.Google Scholar

52 Alland and Teitgen-Colly, Traité du droit de l'asile, pp. 428–9.Google Scholar

53 C. Rezai and C. Wihtol de Wenden, Le regroupement familial. Séparation familiale et insertion des réfugiés, Paris, Service Social d'Aide aux Émigrants, 1998.Google Scholar

54 ‘Ministère du Travail, de l'Emploi et de la Formation Professionnelle, ‘Textes officiels. Circulaire CDE n° 91–48 du 26 septembre 1991 relative à la situation des demandeurs d'asile’, cited in L. Legoux, La crise de l'asile politique en France, Paris, Centre Français sur la Population et le Développement, 1995, p. 212.Google Scholar

55 Lloyd, C., ‘Anti-Racism, Racism and Asylum-Seekers in France’, Patterns of Prejudice, 37: 3 (2003), pp. 323–40,CrossRefGoogle Scholar p. 325.

56 The author was an emergency outreach worker at three French NGOs from May 2000 to July 2002. This work involved outreach to homeless women, asylum seekers, people in difficulty; social and legal assistance to asylum seekers in a state-funded residence; and emergency reception of asylum-seeker families.Google Scholar