Non citizens – Non politics? Contested citizenship projects around a refugee camp in Bamberg

Titelangaben

Götze, Melina:
Non citizens – Non politics? Contested citizenship projects around a refugee camp in Bamberg.
Bayreuth , 2023 . - 95 S.
(Masterarbeit, 2023, Universität Bayreuth, Kulturwissenschaftliche Fakultät)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.15495/EPub_UBT_00006957

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Abstract

This thesis examines the tension between state practices of subjectification and camp dwellers’ daily self-positioning around a refugee camp in Bamberg. By analyzing the camp’s social production, I discuss how it is created as a borderspace, positioning camp residents as ‘legible non-citizens’, who, however, situate themselves in relation to the camp’s regulation to claim rights and get recognized. I will show that state citizenship and its legal framing regarding economic categories and kinship definitions are not only experienced as excluding but unravel as a site of struggle to make claims for rights. Furthermore, other practices regarding work activities and self-organized in-groups through which rights are exercised besides the relation to the state will be addressed, proposing alternatives to state membership. I will highlight concepts describing citizenship and belonging in their relation to practices of claim-making. Thereby, the interplay between being positioned by state authorities and self-positionings will be central guidance through the thesis and the question: How are struggles for rights resolved in line with citizenship’s framings and beyond? The analysis of the camp and its various practices will contribute to understanding political practices in a context where legal citizenship is denied, and the spatial right to reside is only temporarily granted.