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Citizenship as Interpellation: Refugee Women and the State1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Leah Bassel
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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.

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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

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