Suspect Citizenship: Rethinking Belonging and Non-belonging in Plural Societies

Based on years of ethnographic research on France’s present antiracist movement and mobilization against state violence, Dr Beaman will introduce a framework of “suspect citizenship” which demonstrates how ethnoracial minorities are constantly outside of the boundaries of full societal inclusion. She argues that postcolonial plural societies like France position certain populations as suspect or suspicious, due to their ethnoracial assignmen. Dr Beaman examines suspect citizenship at the nexus between active citizenship, belonging/non-belonging, antiracism at a macro level, and activism against state violence, considering how certain populations are automatically rendered suspicious or suspect by virtue of their ethnoracial assignment on micro and macro levels, and how this construction of citizenship is not just a postcolonial formation. The discussion will also cover how we can understand how individuals resist their categorization as suspect through examining mobilization against state violence, as well as how suspect citizenship exists without state recognition of ethnoracial difference. Suspect citizenship is therefore a framework and mode for understanding and making sense of how colonial hierarchies are maintained in postcolonial or neocolonial societies. 

The discussion will be chaired by Dr Hélène Neveu Kringelbach, Associate Professor of African Anthropology at UCL.

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.