Abstract
Calling for the Super Citizen: Citizenship ceremonies in the UK and Germany as techniques of subject-formation
Highlights
One morning in October 2012, around 40 candidates and guests gathered in the Council Chamber of the London Borough of Brent to receive their certificates of naturalization as British citizens
The argument begins by outlining how the subject-formation framework can be meaningfully applied to the study of naturalization and how citizenship ceremonies were introduced by the national government in the UK and by local authorities in Germany
The advice and expectations formulated in speeches were analysed via the Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) method developed by Ruth Wodak and Norman Fairclough, who propose an understanding of discourse as both language and the institutional context of its production (Fairclough 1995: 70–71)
Summary
One morning in October 2012, around 40 candidates and guests gathered in the Council Chamber of the London Borough of Brent to receive their certificates of naturalization as British citizens. The argument begins by outlining how the subject-formation framework can be meaningfully applied to the study of naturalization (section 2.1) and how citizenship ceremonies were introduced by the national government in the UK and by local authorities in Germany (section 2.2) It discusses the comparative research design and how the audio-recordings of ceremony speeches were explored using the method of Critical Discourse Analysis (section 3). Referring to extracts from such ceremony speeches, the article presents three main features of the Super Citizen subjectivity as a political, economic and cultural asset to the nation-state (section 4). It concludes by highlighting the analytical value of the Super Citizen as a trans-national subjectivity with some local and national nuances
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