Communicating Citizenship

Abstract

Citizenship has become a major topic in anthropology and the study of language (including sociolinguistics) since the early 1990s, with scholars in these fields especially examining the status and political claims of immigrants, refugees, indigenous groups, and other subaltern populations. This article argues that models of communication lie at the heart of debates about citizenship and explores two fundamentally communicative processes: first, the mutual recognition of citizens as citizens, and second, the interpellation by state apparatuses of citizens. It first discusses the emergence of the question of citizenship within anthropology and the study of language. It then considers the tension that arises as any recognition of difference confronts the normative model of citizenship already institutionalized in the state apparatus. Finally, this article examines the interlacing of these scholarly trajectories in one of the premier sites where citizens communicate as citizens: the public sphere.