The anthropology of citizenship has sought to understand citizenship beyond formal-legal definitions, including a focus on how those who are legally without citizenship rights also engage in... Show moreThe anthropology of citizenship has sought to understand citizenship beyond formal-legal definitions, including a focus on how those who are legally without citizenship rights also engage in everyday acts of political claims-making. While this emphasis on the enactment of citizenship has expanded our understanding of who counts as a political being, it has also been obviously human centered. Might we also understand animals’ acts, their presence and movements, as having the potential to constitute political constituents? This article develops a more-than-human perspective on political claims-making by connecting insights from human-animal studies to the anthropology of citizenship. We draw on research on rats in Amsterdam to propose an understanding of these animals’ interventions in the urban built environment as more-than-human “acts of denizenship.” Focusing on different forms of rat behavior, we analyze rats’ mundane interactions and relations with the city's residents, infrastructure, and other animals as forms of claims-making. We see the behavior as efforts that are partially recognized by humans and that, as such, can be understood as enacting a relation of denizenship. Such attention to how rats act in and on urban space, we suggest, can help us conceptualize political agency and the formation of political belonging in ways that extend beyond the human. Show less
Youth literature of the Meiji period (1868–1912) has been portrayed as moralistic and unable to overcome premodern literary styles and tropes. However, in this article I show how this literature... Show moreYouth literature of the Meiji period (1868–1912) has been portrayed as moralistic and unable to overcome premodern literary styles and tropes. However, in this article I show how this literature was transformative and functioned as an arena within which literary writers and the government contended for the minds of young Japanese citizens. I reexamine the early development of the genre of youth literature in Japan through the lens of Juri Lotman’s theory of cultural memory. In Lotman’s spatial model of culture, or semiosphere, foreign concepts travel from the periphery to the centre of a given cultural (sub)sphere through an amalgamation with established texts, in a process of ‘creative memory’. This process, I argue, is reflected in the serialized adaptations of premodern warrior legends by the pioneering author Iwaya Sazanami (1870–1933), in which he explores the conventions of nineteenth-century youth literature from the West. Recognizing the new genre’s deep connection to citizenship, he shaped his protagonists into exemplary boys who display wanpaku (spirited) dispositions, in opposition to the moralism and ‘narrow-minded nationalism’ imparted at home and in schools. As a mediator between premodern and modern concepts and modes of text production, Meiji youth literature thus offered adults a way to develop modern identities. Show less
The determinants of whether or not an immigrant seeks to become a citizen are still largely invisible to scholars; as are the decisions made during the naturalization process by street-level... Show moreThe determinants of whether or not an immigrant seeks to become a citizen are still largely invisible to scholars; as are the decisions made during the naturalization process by street-level bureaucrats. Research on the acquisition of citizenship has incorporated a number of determinants of naturalization outcomes over the past decades, but lacks the contextualization of immigration law in its relation to criminal law. This systematic literature review of the 140 most-cited papers across the naturalization and crimmigration literatures seeks to construct a theoretical bridge between the disciplines in an effort to illuminate the blind spots challenging naturalization scholarship. I argue that the inclusion of crimmigration as a factor impacting naturalization is essential for scholarship in order to accurately use citizenship policies as an indicator of a state’s overall approach to immigration - particularly regarding residence requirements. The conceptual utilization of crimmigration in the context of citizenship acquisition offers new insights into the underexplored relationship between citizenship policy and the individual migrant, potentially uncovering some of the factors hindering immigrants’ ability to seek formal membership. Evidence within recent crimmigration scholarship points towards the role played by racialization within the functioning of a crimmigration system. This paper reviews the prominent streams of both strands of literature first utilizing a bibliometric analysis of the respective citation networks and second, diving into the substantial developments and parallels in naturalization and crimmigration research. Show less
This dissertation examines the continued, yet hitherto overlooked, engagement of the Greek community in Egypt from the period after the en masse departure of most of its members (1962), until the... Show moreThis dissertation examines the continued, yet hitherto overlooked, engagement of the Greek community in Egypt from the period after the en masse departure of most of its members (1962), until the implementation of the infitāh policies in 1976 by Anwar Sadat. Beyond Departure: The Greeks in Egypt, 1962-1976 explores the Greeks’ multiple personal, local and institutional histories that make up the Greek presence in history after 1962. It reveales the diversity of Greek experiences based on geographical, socioeconomic and individual context. It analyzes the motivations and strategies they employed to respond to the economic and social changes in Egyptian society, such as the end of the Capitulations, WWI and WWII, the formation of the post-colonial state, and the 1961 Nationalization laws, among others, and the relations these events formed between Egyptian nationals and non nationals and the Egyptian state. It also explores how Greeks negotiated their presence, identity and feelings of belonging, in mind and practice, as a diaspora with a transnational agency. Show less
This thesis investigates the formation of the Japanese nation-state from the angle of children’s literature. On the one hand, it elucidates how premodern warrior legends were canonized and adapted... Show moreThis thesis investigates the formation of the Japanese nation-state from the angle of children’s literature. On the one hand, it elucidates how premodern warrior legends were canonized and adapted in children’s literature and textbooks of the Meiji (1686-1912) and Taishō (1912-1926) period to shape the dispositions of young citizens according to various modern ideals. On the other hand, it analyses the role of children’s literature in Japan’s transition to modernity and the identity-formation of the adults involved. This thesis challenges the idea that ‘books for children’ did not exist before the Meiji period by placing the material within the contemporary context. Focusing on the work of the author Iwaya Sazanami (1870-1933), it consequently re-assesses the development of modern children’s literature in Japan through the lens of Yuri Lotman’s theory on cultural memory. The re-appropriation of warrior legends in a modern literary genre for young citizens contributed to the coherence of culture during Japan’s transition to modernity. The new genre moreover signified Japan’s status as a modern society that separates the sphere of childhood from adulthood, thereby providing the latter with a sense of Selfhood and the right to guide both real and metaphorical children in their development. Show less
In this dissertation I have explored contemporary modes of displacement and citizenship in India. Rather than large-scale spectacular dislocations which are a focus of ‘refugee’ studies or set... Show moreIn this dissertation I have explored contemporary modes of displacement and citizenship in India. Rather than large-scale spectacular dislocations which are a focus of ‘refugee’ studies or set patterns of ‘voluntary’ population movement which come under the rubric of ‘migration’ studies, I am interested in low-key everyday forms of displacements which fall through these categories of understanding, are invisible, and remain undiscussed. I have explored everyday forms of displacement through Oren Yiftachel’s (2020) concept of displaceability. I draw on two case studies of two different displaced groups in Calcutta and North 24 Parganas in West Bengal: i) East Bengali dalit refugees coming from East Bengal (present day Bangladesh) to West Bengal and ii) a group of peripatetic impoverished rural people coming from the villages of Bangladesh and West Bengal to the urban agglomeration around Calcutta. The time frame of the dissertation is from the beginning of the Second World War in 1939 till the present. I have utilised the concept of displaceability to show how these groups are kept in a condition of permanent temporariness through deliberate state policies and how this erodes their citizenship. Displaceability expands understanding of displacement from an act to a systemic condition of informal urban living. In displaceable conditions actual displacements or the potential threats of it are utilised as an administrative tool to extract services from the urban poor and coerce them into participating in unequal political exchanges. My study shows that while these refugees and migrants become displaceable through state mechanisms, they negotiate this condition through their own brands of politics from below. Show less
Since the fall of the authoritarian New Order regime in 1998, the indigenous movement in Indonesia has become one of the world’s largest national movements to champion the cause of rural... Show moreSince the fall of the authoritarian New Order regime in 1998, the indigenous movement in Indonesia has become one of the world’s largest national movements to champion the cause of rural communities. Its advocacy has pushed the government to implement legal reforms that have widened the scope for recognition of collective land rights. In the context of Indonesia’s widespread land conflicts, an important question is who gets to benefit from laws that grant land rights on the basis of indigeneity? By design, such laws are limited in their scope, given that they only grant rights to those that qualify as indigenous. In order to explain how indigeneity can actually empower local communities, this book adopts the perspective of actors at the local level. Focusing on how local land users in South Sulawesi invoke indigeneity in their struggles over land, this book explores the local processes through which claims to indigenous adat land rights succeed or fail to be recognized. The book combines case studies, legal analysis, and theories on social movements and collective action frames. The book alarmingly shows that by making indigeneity a prerequisite for land rights, the most vulnerable people may actually be excluded from obtaining such rights. Show less
‘Let us Live as Hindus’: Narrating Hindu Identity Through Temple Building Processes in Amsterdam Zuidoost (1988-2015) asks how Hindu identity has been narrated through turbulent processes of... Show more‘Let us Live as Hindus’: Narrating Hindu Identity Through Temple Building Processes in Amsterdam Zuidoost (1988-2015) asks how Hindu identity has been narrated through turbulent processes of temple building in Amsterdam Zuidoost. It focuses on a critical event in 2010, when a community of Hindus was ordered to evacuate a temporary space that the local district government had provided them. The author argues that struggles to establish a purpose built temple in the neighbourhood are articulated as forms of 'Hindu hurt' that are strategically narrated through the experiences of being ex-colonised indentured workers. However, the ways in which Hindu hurt are articulated shift dramatically after 2010, revealing the ways in which the trauma of losing their temporary space has constructed a moral economy in which transparency, democracy and Hindu solidarity become central tenets of ideal Hindu practice. This dissertation analyses a body of correspondence from 1988-1996 and uses extensive ethnographic interviews with various Hindu and non-Hindu actors in Amsterdam Zuidoost. It also attempts to link current discussions of citizenship in the Netherlands to scholarship on Hindu hurt in the diaspora. Show less
This thesis investigates the highly complex issue of cross-border marriages between Mainland China and Taiwan in the period from early 1990 to 2004. The objectives of this research is to... Show moreThis thesis investigates the highly complex issue of cross-border marriages between Mainland China and Taiwan in the period from early 1990 to 2004. The objectives of this research is to investigate three aspects of cross-border marriage migration: 1) factors and motivations for cross-border marriage, that is, Why do mainland Chinese women choose to leave China and to come to Taiwan and why do Taiwanese men marry mainland Chinese women? 2) formation and justification of borders of exclusion, that is, Why and how are mainland brides constructed as “others”? 3) negotiation of gender and intra-familial relations among members of cross-border families. These questions are answered by looking at the perspectives of different actors and by examining how these perspectives are formed and whether and how they are substantiated. These actors include the state and the media, the marriage brokerage industry, and cross-strait couples and family members. Multiple research methodologies and sources of data are used, including ethnography, discourse analysis of policy and media representation and participant observation. Show less
