Policymakers across Europe proclaim that citizenship should be earned and deserved. States have raised the bars for naturalization and lowered the threshold for denaturalization, creating new hierarchies of deservingness. While researchers have studied how prospective citizens navigate these hierarchies, the experiences of to-be-denaturalized individuals have remained nearly untouched. Based on interviews with 28 individuals who had immigrated to Norway from Somalia, Palestine, and various Asian countries and were accused of ‘cheating’ their way to Norwegian citizenship, this article examines how they respond to this accusation and (re)position themselves vis-a-vis the law, the state, and the national collective. Analytically, I use the concept of interpellation, which captures how individuals are transformed into subjects through being named by social institutions. I argue that citizenship revocation functions by calling naturalized citizens to become foreigners through the accusation of cheating. Rather than seeing it as a mechanical process, I highlight how the interviewees actively positioned themselves in it. The analysis distinguishes between three positions: (1) the sinners, who expressed guilt and submitted to the authority of the immigration law; (2) the saints, who admitted to minor wrongdoings but felt mis-interpellated, as they aligned themselves with welfare state virtues; and (3) the racialized scapegoats, predominantly Somali interviewees who refused to accept the premises of the interpellation, situating citizenship revocation within Norway’s history of minority scapegoating and expulsion. The article argues that these subject positions speak to different facets of Norway’s history as well as the hierarchical and racialized contours of citizenship.

中文翻译：

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罪人、圣人和种族化的替罪羊：挪威面临公民身份撤销时的（错误）质询和主体立场


欧洲各地的政策制定者宣称，公民身份应该是应得的。各州提高了入籍门槛，降低了取消入籍的门槛，创造了新的应得等级制度。虽然研究人员研究了潜在公民如何驾驭这些等级制度，但即将失去国籍的个人的经历几乎没有受到影响。根据对 28 名从索马里、巴勒斯坦和亚洲各国移民到挪威并被指控“欺骗”获得挪威公民身份的人的采访，本文研究了他们如何回应这一指控并（重新）定位自己面对法律、国家和国家集体。在分析方面，我使用了质询的概念，它捕捉了个人如何通过被社会机构命名而转变为主体。我认为，取消公民身份的作用是通过指控作弊来呼吁归化公民成为外国人。我没有将其视为一个机械的过程，而是强调了受访者如何在其中积极定位自己。分析区分了三种立场：（1） 罪人，他们表达了内疚并服从移民法的权威;（2） 圣徒，他们承认轻微的过错，但觉得受到了错误的质询，因为他们与福利国家的美德保持一致;（3） 种族化的替罪羊，主要是索马里受访者，他们拒绝接受审讯的前提，将取消公民身份置于挪威少数族裔替罪羊和驱逐的历史中。文章认为，这些主体立场说明了挪威历史的不同方面以及公民身份的等级制度和种族化轮廓。