Citizenship and the Gendered Boundary of the Nation. Conditions of Belonging in the Swiss Naturalization Procedure

This paper investigates how state actors mobilise gender and other categories of difference like ethnicity, race and religion, when deciding who is entitled to full citizenship. I approach citizenship policies as instruments that shape the conditions of belonging and reflect underlying concepts of the nation. Citizenship policies are at the heart of struggles about membership in national societies. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in different institutions that are in charge of Swiss naturalization procedures and drawing on theories of boundary work and street-level bureaucracy, this paper examines how gendered categories of difference affect state practices relating to naturalization. In Switzerland, citizenship acquisition is a long procedure that involves several state institutions and as part of which state representatives assess each application individually. Decision-making is informed by ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ criteria. The latter are related to ideas about the nation. In this context, gendered constructions of Swiss families, love and marriage are mobilized to categorize certain family relationships and marriages as incompatible with Swiss citizenship. Especially foreign men of specific countries of origin are continuously suspected of patriarchal behaviour and of initiating sham marriages with Swiss women. They are therefore presented as a threat to the integrity of the Swiss nation. The paper contributes to debates theorizing conditions of belonging by exploring the entanglements between citizenship policies and the gendered boundaries of the nation state. It shows that gendered categories not only affect access to citizenship but also shape wider representations of what the nation should be.