Achieving Citizenship Through Organizational Performance: Performative Citizenship and Immigrant Organizations’ Strategies for Equality

• In Event: 20862 - Section on International Migration Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 15: Citizenship and Transnationalism

Abstract

Immigrant organizations are typically understood to have interests specific to their own community, such as easing the transition for newcomers, preserving culture and traditions, and fighting for increased rights. As such, they are often theorized as organizations that prevent immigrant assimilation into the national body. These theories do not leave room for a common phenomenon—immigrant organizations frequently engage in broad-based public service on behalf of their receiving country. In this paper we introduce and apply the concept of “Performative Citizenship” to explain this less understood activity of immigrant organizations. Through case studies of immigrant organization efforts in 1) contemporary refugee resettlement efforts and 2) historical military patriotism, we explain why immigrant groups often engage in activities that serve beneficiaries far beyond the immigrants’ own community. We combine dramaturgical theories of performance with the analytical concepts of boundaries and organizational legitimacy to articulate a new approach to the study of immigrant organizations.

Authors

• Simon Yamawaki Shachter, University of Connecticut

• Samina Hossain, University of Wisconsin-Madison