Rights statement: The final, definitive version of this article has been published in the Journal, Critical Social Policy, 37 (1), 2017, © SAGE Publications Ltd, 2017 by SAGE Publications Ltd at the Critical Social Policy page: http://csp.sagepub.com/ on SAGE Journals Online: http://online.sagepub.com/
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Final published version
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - The psychic life of policy
T2 - desire, anxiety, and ‘citizenisation’ in Britain
AU - Fortier, Anne-Marie
N1 - The final, definitive version of this article has been published in the Journal, Critical Social Policy, 37 (1), 2017, © SAGE Publications Ltd, 2017 by SAGE Publications Ltd at the Critical Social Policy page: http://csp.sagepub.com/ on SAGE Journals Online: http://online.sagepub.com/
PY - 2017/2/1
Y1 - 2017/2/1
N2 - This article empirically grounds the ‘psychic life of power’ (Butler, 1997) by demonstrating the psychic form that power takes as immigrants or agents of the state make their way through the British ‘citizenisation’ policy – i.e. the ‘integration’ policy that requires noncitizens to acquire ‘citizen-like’ skills and values in view of seeking citizenship or other statuses (e.g. settlement). The framing argument is that an ambivalent relationship between desire and anxiety mediates the state-citizen relationship (following Honig, 2001). Taking this argument further, the article offers an in-depth analysis of how citizenisation policy’s frames of desire (the assumed desirability of citizenship and the desire for desirable citizens) also take the form of anxieties. Drawing on a multi-sited study of citizenisation in Britain, the article explores some of the different forms anxiety takes: fetishisation, enervation, and uncertainty. The analysis reveals how the uneven distribution of anxiety between agents of the state and immigrants not only mediates the state-citizen relationship but also variously enacts the state itself. Attending to the psychosocial dynamics of citizenisation reveals how hierarchies are (re)produced not only discursively and materially, but also through different ‘anxious states’.
AB - This article empirically grounds the ‘psychic life of power’ (Butler, 1997) by demonstrating the psychic form that power takes as immigrants or agents of the state make their way through the British ‘citizenisation’ policy – i.e. the ‘integration’ policy that requires noncitizens to acquire ‘citizen-like’ skills and values in view of seeking citizenship or other statuses (e.g. settlement). The framing argument is that an ambivalent relationship between desire and anxiety mediates the state-citizen relationship (following Honig, 2001). Taking this argument further, the article offers an in-depth analysis of how citizenisation policy’s frames of desire (the assumed desirability of citizenship and the desire for desirable citizens) also take the form of anxieties. Drawing on a multi-sited study of citizenisation in Britain, the article explores some of the different forms anxiety takes: fetishisation, enervation, and uncertainty. The analysis reveals how the uneven distribution of anxiety between agents of the state and immigrants not only mediates the state-citizen relationship but also variously enacts the state itself. Attending to the psychosocial dynamics of citizenisation reveals how hierarchies are (re)produced not only discursively and materially, but also through different ‘anxious states’.
KW - affect/emotions
KW - citizenship
KW - migration
KW - psychosocial
KW - state-citizen relations
U2 - 10.1177/0261018316655934
DO - 10.1177/0261018316655934
M3 - Journal article
VL - 37
SP - 3
EP - 21
JO - Critical Social Policy
JF - Critical Social Policy
SN - 0261-0183
IS - 1
ER -