Affects · Mobilising Affects: Withdrawal of Citizenship and Politics of Security

This project examines denaturalisation laws that have been enacted in Europe, with a comparative focus on practices of withdrawal of citizenship in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. Denaturalisation laws raise fundamental questions about politics of belonging and repression, as well as about what it means to be a citizen, be at at the national, European, or global level. The democratic and societal implications of the withdrawal of citizenship and the emotional politics involved are a particularly urgent concern today. Security concerns have led to an intense revival of public debates about the legitimacy of withdrawing citizenship and about its consequences, both for the individuals involved and the wider society. The research methods applied are archival research and critical discourse analysis. Empirically innovative as it collects archival material on the underexplored issue of denaturalisation, the project makes a timely intervention in current debates on security and citizenship. By studying norms of citizenship in relation to security practices, it makes a crucial contribution to security studies, in which citizenship remains an under-researched question. Its focus on emotions reveals affective relationships between citizenship and security. The project will take place at the Queen Mary University of London under the supervision of Prof. Jef Huysmans, who is a renowned scholar in critical security studies with a focus on the relationship between citizenship and security. The fellowship will significantly enhance my academic skills and career opportunities, allowing me to join a leading research centre in the social sciences after having worked in the humanities so far. It will allow the scope of my research to grow from a national context to an international and comparative framework, and establish me as an inter-disciplinary expert in citizenship and security.