Abstract
AbstractThis study explores the ways in which constructions of immigrants' illegality and accounts on the meaning of naturalization and citizenship serve as argumentative resources against a particular immigration law in Greece. Data consisted of transcripts of parliamentary speeches by political party leaders who opposed the law. Analysis used the tools and concepts of discursive and rhetorical social psychology and identified three main lines of arguing. The first set clear boundaries between ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’ immigration and constructed immigrants' (il)legal entry as a category defining criterion. The second represented legal status as subject to change and constructed immigrants as ‘legalized’, in order to argue against their entitlement to citizenship. Finally, in another sort of accounting, regularization and naturalization procedures were trivialized, as the speakers negotiated the necessary, and also the ideal conditions of co‐existence and participation in a nation–state. The findings are discussed in relation to their potential contribution (i) to the existing literature on the constituted and constitutive nature of the category of illegal immigration and (ii) to a social psychological approach to citizenship. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Published Version
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