Citizens Excepted: Limits of Belonging and Statelessness in The United States

<p>In sociological literature, the condition of statelessness is marked by the inability or unwillingness of the state to protect its citizens from political violence. Refugees are those excepted from the state. Their precarity invites sympathy and hostility from the international community. By contrast, citizenship is the condition of inclusion. Members of nation states are protected from violence by the states to which they belong. In this dissertation, I investigate statelessness as a condition beyond the loss of protection from political violence. Can those granted citizenship be considered internally stateless, if the nation state abdicates its responsibility to provide for them socially, economically and politically? If so, who is at risk of internal statelessness? Would American citizens who may find themselves forcibly displaced by disasters be in a better position than refugees vis-à-vis social programs? If the ideological dichotomy of citizen and refugee holds, one would expect citizens to fare better in accessing social services. I examine these questions by looking at the experiences of resettled Iraqi refugees in Michigan and American citizens in New York City who were impacted by Hurricane Sandy. I investigate the nexus of statelessness and citizenship in the United States to explore the boundaries of inclusion and exclusion under late modernity.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Sociology

Grantor

The Graduate School and University Center of The City University of New York

Year dc:date.available

2018

Author dc:creator

• Salman, Sara

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Stanley Aronowitz

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• David Brotherton
• Lynn Chancer

• Migration Studies
• Other Sociology
• Politics and Social Change
• Quantitative, Qualitative, Comparative, and Historical Methodologies
• Theory, Knowledge and Science
• Citizenship
• Refugees
• Nation State
• Late Modernity
• Structural Violence
• Statelessness

Repository record dc:identifier

https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/2686

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:academicworks.cuny.edu:gc_etds-3691