Affective identities: Denaturalization and the politics of nationality in France

This dissertation investigates denaturalization (i.e. the deprivation of citizenship). The context is the politics of citizenship and nationality in France. Combining research insights from history, legal studies, security studies, and narratology, it demonstrates that the language of denaturalization shapes national identity as a form of formal legal attachment but also, and more counter-intuitively, as a mode of emotional belonging. As such, denaturalization operates as an instrumental frame to maintain and secure the national community.
Going back to eighteenth-century France and to both World Wars, periods during which governments deployed denaturalization as a weapon against "threatening" subjects, the analysis exposes how the language of denaturalization interweaves concerns about immigration and national security. It is this historical backdrop that helps us understand the political impact of denaturalization in contemporary counterterrorism politics, and what is at stake when borders and identities become political weapons.