Going Native? Citizenship, Race and the Pesky Question of Indigeneity

• In Event: 3131 - Intersectional Approaches to Citizenship and the State

Abstract

White nationalists maintain that the US was founded on white supremacy; and they are right. This talk channels Margaret Atwood and indulges in some dystopian reflections on what is at stake when Donald Trump calls for the abolition of birthright citizenship. The talk reflects on what a departure from birthright citizenship could mean, and specifically what the future could look like seeing that this departure was motivated by racial nativism. In order to do so, I draw on the German development of jus sanguinis (citizenship by descent) as a relevant reference point to what is happening in the US today. We often think of citizenship as a comparatively stable attribute, one that most individuals are unlikely to change over their lifetime, and citizenship changes as mostly singular and voluntary events. 19th and 20th century Germany on the other hand saw many citizenship changes for those who saw the border move across them throughout the many territorial re-orderings of German borders that period entailed. I suggest not only that the jus soli / jus sanguinis binary is an inaccurate distinction to describe the development of German citizenship legislation, but also that it is an incomplete one that ignores and blurs significant fault lines shaping expulsion and naturalization. Ethnicity and descent did play a role in German citizenship allocation, but more important and historically overlooked has been the question of how geopolitical and foreign policy considerations as well as territory played into ideas of German citizenship. I show that territory and residence have been significant criteria prior to NS rule in shaping naturalization decisions, and that eligibility criteria for naturalization had little to do with ‘race;’ even under NS rule, on-the-ground practice veered away from the racial nativist citizenship legislation encapsulated in the Nuremberg Laws.

Author

• Anna Katharina Skarpelis, Harvard University