Sinners,saints,and racialized scapegoats: (Mis)interpellation and subject positions in the face of citizenship revocation in Norway

Abstract

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.

Introduction

Citizenship revocation is the official act of legally and symbolically transforming citizens into foreigners (Winter & Previsic, 2019), ultimately aiming to expel them from the territory (Birnie & Bauböck, 2020). Recently, states across Europe and North America have shown renewed interest in citizenship revocation, or denaturalization, targeting purported terrorists (Choudhury, 2017; Kapoor, 2018; Macklin, 2014), criminals (Troy, 2019), and ‘cheaters’ (Fargues, 2017; Frost, 2019; Park, 2013). In many countries, widening denaturalization powers has gone hand in hand with increasingly restrictive naturalization policies. Together, these policies signal states’ desire to differentiate between sincere and fraudulent, worthy and unworthy citizens (cf. Fortier, 2017). Policymakers proclaim that citizenship is no longer an inviolable right but something that must be earned and deserved (Joppke, 2021). A growing body of literature has examined how subjects respond to naturalization policies and how they position themselves within these newer hierarchies of deservingness (Badenhoop, 2021; Bassel et al., 2018; Fortier, 2017). However, there is a surprising dearth of research on how individuals experience denaturalization processes and their transformative consequences.

This article draws on unique interview material with 28 individuals in a hard-to-reach group – naturalized Norwegian citizens who faced citizenship revocation and deportation (or statelessness) on grounds of fraud. At the height of the ‘refugee crisis’ in 2015–16, the Norwegian government (Conservative Party and Progress Party) reinforced efforts to expose cases of naturalization fraud. The government argued that sanctioning naturalization fraud more aggressively was necessary to protect the integrity of the asylum system and to underline that ‘cheating never will be rewarded’ (Birkvad, 2023). In this article, I examine how individuals respond to accusations of dishonesty and cheating. More specifically, how do they (re)position themselves vis-a-vis the law, the state, and the national collective during processes of citizenship revocation?

The interviewees recruited for the study had immigrated to Norway from Somalia (18), Palestine (4), and various Asian countries (6). The interview material was analyzed through the concept of interpellation. According to Althusser (1971), systems of power reproduce through acts of interpellation. Interpellation ‘recruits’ individuals by naming and designating a place for them in the ideological system. Citizenship revocation, I argue, functions by calling naturalized citizens to become foreigners through the accusation of cheating. However, as Sara Ahmed (2000) underscored, interpellation is a two-way process that includes hails and responses to these hails. At different stages of the legal process, the interviewees were hailed, called upon, but also provided the chance to respond to these hails. Most interviewees were waiting for the immigration authorities to reach a decision. Thus, interpellation entails a temporal lag and always runs the risk of missing its target (S. Ahmed, 1998), producing experiences of mis-interpellation (Hage, 2010; Martel, 2015). This article opens a rare window into how individuals respond to accusations of lying and cheating while their cases are still being processed.

The analysis shows that the accusation of cheating produced differentiated (S. Ahmed, 1998) experiences and responses. I distinguish between three different subject positions. First, the sinners accepted the terms of interpellation. Interviewees taking this position expressed remorse, and some even lent legitimacy to the state’s practice. The second position, the saints, admitted to what they perceived as minor wrongdoings in asylum procedures but felt mis-interpellated, as they aligned themselves with welfare state virtues. The saints distanced themselves from other morally dubious subject positions, such as ‘criminals’ and ‘terrorists,’ implying that the authorities were addressing the wrong people. Finally, some positioned themselves as racialized scapegoats. Instead of turning inward, such as the sinners, they blamed the state for using them as pawns in a political game of chess. They dismissed the terms of the interpellation (as cheaters) and situated contemporary citizenship revocation policies within a longer history of forced assimilation, minority scapegoating and expulsion in Norway.

The article is structured as follows. I begin by laying out Althusser’s (1971) original theory of interpellation and its application in studies of naturalization (Bassel et al., 2018) as well as Ahmed (S. Ahmed, 1998) and Hage’s (2010) postcolonial understandings of the concept. Based on these insights, I seek to theorize citizenship revocation as a process of interpellation. Then, I trace the Norwegian history of citizenship to examine how race and other ‘regimes of difference’ (S. Ahmed, 1998) have shaped and reshaped ideas of national membership. To situate the interviewees within the current citizenship revocation regime, I illuminate the recent politicization of fraud and the bureaucratic process. A section on the data and methodology follows. The three-fold analysis examines the three subject positions described above in response to citizenship revocation – sinners, saints, and racialized scapegoats. In the concluding remarks, I discuss what these subject positions might tell us about Norway’s histories of citizenship and alienage. ¹

‘Hey, you cheater!’ Theorizing citizenship revocation through the concept of interpellation

Scholars have analyzed naturalization policies through the concept of interpellation (Bassel, 2008; Bassel et al., 2018), which I argue is useful for theorizing denaturalization policies as well. Interpellation was originally coined by Althusser and refers to the process by which individuals are hailed into particular positions or identities by social institutions. Althusser (1971, pp. 162–163) illustrated the process through a theoretical scene:

. . . ideology ‘acts’ or ‘functions’ in such a way that it ‘recruits’ subjects among the individuals (it recruits them all), or ‘transforms’ the individuals into subjects (it transforms them all) by that very precise operation I have called interpellation or hailing, and which can be imagined along the lines of the most commonplace everyday police (or other) hailing: ‘hey, you there!’

In this example, interpellation works by transforming an individual into a subject of law. Generally, to be hailed is to be addressed as a subject, and to turn around is to accept the ascribed position and relations of power. According to Althusser, interpellation is universal and nearly always successful: it recruits and transforms them all into subjects (Martel, 2015).

Naturalization policies seek to transform foreigners into citizens, albeit not just any type of citizen subject (Bassel et al., 2018). Citizenship ceremonies, which have gained popularity among policymakers across Europe, call naturalized citizens ‘super citizens,’ that is, political, economic, and cultural assets to the nation-state (Badenhoop, 2017). These tests demonstrate that citizenship must be earned and deserved, reinforcing neoliberal norms of competition, performance, and self-responsibility (Joppke, 2021).

Against this policy backdrop, new hierarchies of citizens have emerged – the sincere, desiring citizen is at the top of the hierarchy; the integrated citizen is placed one step down; and the fraud, who acts instrumentally and dishonestly to acquire citizenship, is placed at the bottom (Fortier, 2017, pp. 9–12). Research shows that aspiring citizens across Europe and the US tend to internalize these hierarchies of deservingness as they move through processes of legalization and naturalization (Badenhoop, 2021; Chauvin & Garcés-Mascareñas, 2014; Menjívar & Lakhani, 2016; Monforte et al., 2019). For instance, some apply pejorative labels to others, such as ‘fraudulent’ and ‘unworthy,’ to claim their own self-worth (Fortier, 2017, p. 11). This is an example of what Butler (1997) called ‘injurious interpellation,’ a harmful internalization and perpetuation of the social norms on which interpellation rests.

However, those addressed by the state do not mechanically internalize interpellation, as Althusser’s theoretical stage suggests. Ahmed (S. Ahmed, 1998) underlined that interpellation is a relational process that requires an addresser and an addressee. Hence, targets of naturalization policies may embrace, contest, or react with disaffection (Badenhoop, 2021) or engage in reflexive negotiations to assert control over their lives (Bassel et al., 2018). Such negotiations do not occur in a vacuum but are rather shaped by pre-existing regimes of difference (S. Ahmed, 1998; Bassel et al., 2018), such as gender, race, ethnicity, and class. As Ahmed (S. Ahmed, 2000, p. 23) stated, ‘Inter-subjective encounters in public life continually reinterpellate subjects into differentiated economies of names and signs, where they are assigned different value in social spaces.’ The implication is that Althusser’s bypasser is not an abstract individual at the moment she or he is hailed but is already marked by categorical differences.

Moreover, Ahmed (1998) argued that hailing is not necessarily as successful as Althusser proclaims. On the contrary, interpellation can be ‘fractured, incomplete and miss its mark’ (p. 114). Therefore, we need to unpack different forms of interpellation and mis-interpellation (Martel, 2015). Based on Fanon’s (1952/2021) lived experiences of racial encounters in colonial France, Hage (2010) theorized three different modes of interpellation. Non-interpellation entails the experience of being invisible, ignored, and non-existent in the symbolic order of society. Negative interpellation denotes the experience of being hyper-visible through the attribution of derogatory characteristics, such as being a social problem (Hage, 2010, pp. 121–122) or inherently deceitful (Lorenzini & Tazzioli, 2018). In Fanon’s (1952/2021) own terms, the racialized is ‘objectified’ and ‘fixed’ to a negative image of himself. Hage tells us that racial mis-interpellation unfolds as a Fanonian drama in two acts. First, Fanon is hailed into a collective ideology – the French nation – which ostensibly addresses everyone. However, as soon as Fanon identifies with this collective ideology, he is brutally reminded that the call was not for him: ‘I wasn’t talking to you. Piss off. You are not part of us’ (Hage, 2010, p. 122). The experience of racial mis-interpellation causes more trauma than the two other modes because it swirls up intense feelings of betrayal and rejection. In Hage’s (2010, p. 122) words, ‘It lures the subject into dropping their defences vis-à-vis the dominant culture thinking for a moment that they are not racialized.’

I build on these insights to theorize the process of citizenship revocation. The etymological meaning of the term revocation is ‘recalling’ (re = back, vocare = to call). ² In the case of fraud-based citizenship revocation, the state calls upon citizen-subjects to become foreigner-subjects through the accusation of cheating. However, the call does not automatically and instantly transform the citizen into a foreigner, as Althusser’s determinism suggests. Rather, the citizenship revocation process involves multiple encounters of interpellation and response. Therefore, I conceptualize the process of becoming a foreigner as relational, dynamic, and incomplete (S. Ahmed, 1998). Immigration authorities can process the case for many years before reaching a conclusion, theoretically implying that those subjected can take on multiple positions during the process. In the analysis, I also emphasize that individuals are positioned differently in social hierarchies (especially along the axes of race and ethnicity), which suggests why people answer differently to the same call. I now turn to histories of citizenship, race, and other regimes of difference in Norway to contextualize and historicize the interviewees’ responses to citizenship revocation.

Citizenship, race, and other regimes of difference in Norway

According to liberal theory, citizenship bestows every citizen with equal rights and symbolizes membership in the collective identity of the nation (Joppke, 2007). In particular, the French Revolution framed citizenship as a universal concept that addressed everyone. However, such positive and abstract articulations of the constitution of citizenship rarely address the deeper, racialized structuring of the social world (Bhambra, 2015).

Compared to France and the UK, Norway, and the Scandinavian countries in general have considered themselves to be insignificant and relatively innocent colonial powers associated with imperial oppression (Jørgensen, 2013, p. 80). From 1537 until 1814, Norway was the ‘little brother’ in a union with Denmark, a period in which Denmark–Norway seized colonies overseas in accordance with developments in Western Europe (Naum & Nordin, 2013). Norway gained independence from Denmark in 1814. Norwegian nationalism has always been defined by democratic and constitutional patriotism, on the one hand, and an emphasis on descent and culture, on the other (Gullestad, 2002a, p. 302). Despite its self-projected image of colonial innocence, Norway has not been shielded from ‘the cultural climate of colonialism’ (Gullestad, 2002a, p. 292), including ‘scientific’ biological ideas about race (Kyllingstad, 2023). Occasionally, these ideas spilled over onto citizenship legislation in general, and practices of citizenship deprivation in particular.

Interestingly, the Norwegian Constitution of 1814 provided no clear definition of a ‘citizen.’ The Constitution sporadically mentioned ‘citizen,’ ‘citizens of the state,’ ‘Norwegians,’ and ‘subject,’ but the distinction between citizens and non-citizens was ambiguous. Only the clause regulating access to high-ranking government positions provided some clues. These positions were reserved for Norwegian citizens who professed the Evangelical Lutheran religion, swore allegiance to the Constitution, and spoke the Norwegian language (Niemi, 2003). Although the Constitution provided no positive definition of citizen, it negatively defined Jews, Mormons, and Jesuits as not belonging to the national community. These religious minorities were prohibited from entering the Kingdom (known as ‘the Jew Clause’) and were deemed ‘anti-citizens,’ the opposite of ‘good citizens’ (Ulvund, 2017).

Norway adopted its first Nationality Act in 1888, which formalized jus sanguinis and single citizenship and sharpened the distinction between citizens and foreigners. The law stated that immigrants could naturalize if they had lived in Norway for three years, had the right of municipal domicile, and could prove that they would not become burdens on the social system (Kjelstadli, 2003a). Formally, the residency requirement was universal. Yet, in practice, the rule was applied unequally throughout the early 1900s. For instance, the state required 20 years from ‘Russian Jewish merchants,’ while Norwegian Americans, and Scandinavians were treated leniently (Kjelstadli, 2003b).

Race thinking and colonial logics continued to influence immigration and citizenship policies until the end of the Second World War (Kyllingstad, 2023; Naum & Nordin, 2013). Norway’s five national minorities and its indigenous population, the Samis, were all subjected to racist policies, albeit in different ways. The state carried out paternalistic assimilation policies against the Samis as well as Kvens, Forest Finns, and Romani (Taters), forcing them to repress their culture and origins to become fully Norwegian (Midtbøen & Lidén, 2015). In contrast, the Roma people (‘Gypsies’), who were seen as a subgroup of Romani (Taters), were considered ‘unassimilable.’ Despite shared descent and itinerant lifestyles, the Taters and Roma were categorized as two distinct ‘races’ by the Norwegian state. The authorities wanted to ‘make good Norwegians out of Taters’ through assimilation whereas Roma were persecuted and expelled from Norway in the 1920s, owing to being seen as racially inferior and morally threatening. Despite showing evidence of Norwegian citizenship, the authorities deemed these peoples’ papers fake (Brustad et al., 2017). Norwegian Jews were later marked for expulsion when Nazi Germany assumed control of Norway’s state apparatus in 1940. The Quisling regime reintroduced ‘the Jew Clause,’ as it did not consider Norwegian Jews to be members of the Aryan nation. Nearly 800 individuals, half of them Norwegian citizens, were deported to concentration camps in Poland (Bruland, 2014). Immediately after the war, Norwegian women who married German soldiers during the Nazi occupation of Norway were stigmatized as ‘sexual traitors’ and deprived of citizenship. This was a discriminatory provision because men who initiated relationships with German women were not subjected to it (Lenz, 2009).

During the 1950s, these racist and discriminatory provisions were removed from the law book as the discourse shifted to universal rights and equality. In the 1960s, labor migrants – mainly from Pakistan, Turkey, Morocco, and India – immigrated to Norway to fill the needs in the industry and service sectors. In 1975, however, the authorities introduced an ‘immigration stop.’ Yet it was not a proper stop but a selective policy that sought to limit unskilled migrants from the Global South while recruiting skilled workers to the booming oil sector. In the 1970s and 1980s, family migrants and refugees from Chile and Vietnam immigrated in large numbers. From the 1990s, refugees and asylum seekers from Iraq, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, and Somalia came to Norway (Brochmann, 2006). In this period, the Norwegian oil sector expanded greatly, and the social-democratic welfare state came into fruition. According to Brochmann and Hagelund’s (2012) account of the postwar welfare state, Norway is characterized by a ‘hard outside, soft inside’ approach to immigration and citizenship. On the one hand, it selects who gets to stay and who gets to acquire citizenship. On the other hand, it offers universal rights and benefits to its citizens.

The emergence of fraud-based citizenship revocation

In 2005, a new citizenship law was passed. The aim of the revised law was to stimulate the integration of immigrants and introduce the language skills and knowledge of society as requirements to naturalize. Moreover, the law introduced citizenship as a right, given that the conditions were met (Brochmann, 2013). ³ A new provision on citizenship revocation was also introduced. The provision stipulates that citizenship can be revoked if it is granted on incorrect or incomplete information, provided that the applicant has furnished the incorrect information against their better judgment or has suppressed circumstances of substantial importance (Section 26 of the Norwegian Nationality Act). ⁴ As such, a new differentiation was produced by the provision, namely between sincere and fraudulent citizens.

At the time of its institution, the provision was framed as dry legal technicality (Birkvad, 2023). It would first be mobilized politically 10 years later. At the height of the ‘refugee crisis’ in 2015–16, the government (consisting of the Conservative Party and the Progress Party) adopted a range of restrictive measures to ‘make Norway less attractive to asylum seekers’ (Ministry of Education and Research, 2016). These measures included cessation of refugee status and revocation of permits and citizenship (Brekke et al., 2021). The Norwegian Directorate of Immigration (the UDI) was instructed to dig up old asylum cases to uncover and sanction ‘cheating.’ According to the government’s moralizing rhetoric, citizenship revocation distinguished between legitimate and deceitful applicants. The mantra was that ‘cheating will never be rewarded’ (Birkvad, 2023).

The government’s decision to reinforce citizenship revocation became a subject of critique in parliament, which turned into minor changes to law and practice. Most importantly, a ‘proportionality assessment’ was introduced, which means that the UDI should weigh the gravity of the revocation case against the individual’s attachment to Norway (Ministry of Education and Research, 2020). On the one hand, if an individual has actively used multiple identities or committed a serious crime, citizenship revocation is judged proportionally. On the other hand, if the individual has a considerable length of residency in Norway and exhibits a high ‘level of integration,’ citizenship revocation can be judged as a disproportional intervention. ⁵ Among other factors, participation in the labor market, language skills, and education are used to measure the individual’s attachment and integration in Norway. Second, a new subsection added protection to children from derivative loss of citizenship. As the main rule, the citizenship of a child shall not be revoked based on the parent’s loss unless the child does not exhibit a ‘strong attachment to the realm.’ ⁶ Therefore, a sub-differentiation was created between highly integrated fraudsters and less integrated fraudsters.

Bureaucratic processes and targets of citizenship revocation

For the targeted individual, the citizenship revocation process begins when the UDI sends a decision regarding revocation or a notification letter. If they receive a decision, they have three weeks to submit a written appeal with the assistance of a lawyer. If the individual receives a notification letter, it typically states that ‘the foreigner’ is suspected of furnishing incorrect information that was decisive for the granting of citizenship. The individual can also be summoned to an administrative interview to inform the case and clarify contradictory pieces of information, often conducted by the local police on behalf of the UDI. The burden of proof is placed on the accused individual. ⁷ This means that they must prove that it is more than 50% likely that they are speaking the truth about their identity, country of origin, or whatever the dispute concerns. Based on the collected information, the UDI then decides whether to revoke citizenship or dismiss the case (Brekke et al., 2021). After 2017, the UDI processed 1,350 cases. Nearly 70% (917) of cases have been dismissed, while the remaining 30% (360 cases) have resulted in citizenship revocation. Only 68 persons have been deported (Kinsella, 2024).

The individual can appeal the case to the Immigration Appeals Board (UNE). In appeal cases, the burden of proof lies with the UNE. If citizenship is revoked by the UNE, the individual can either apply for a new residence permit (based on the correct information) or be deported to the country of origin (Brekke et al., 2021). The UNE processed 212 cases between 2020 and 2023. Nearly 70% (127 cases) resulted in the decision of revocation being upheld, and the remaining 30% of the decisions (55) were reversed (Utlendingsnemnda, 2023). Cases can ultimately be tried before a court, although the appellant must cover the expenses.

Although the law on the books does not single out groups, the enforcement shows that Somalis are the most heavily targeted immigrant group. In most of these cases, the Norwegian authorities suspect that they have lied about their identity or country of origin, often Djibouti. Norwegian authorities generally do not consider identity documents from Somalia trustworthy, as the country has lacked a functioning state administration since the civil war broke out in 1991 (Utlendingsnemnda, 2023). Ethnic Palestinians are the second-largest immigrant group targeted by revocation. In these cases, the immigration authorities allegedly uncovered that persons who have claimed protection in Norway on grounds of being stateless have access to Jordanian citizenship. Unlike documents from Somalia, Norwegian authorities consider Jordanian registers reliable sources of information (Utlendingsnemnda, 2023).

Zooming out from citizenship revocation, Somali immigrants (43,000 persons, the third-largest immigrant group) encounter a wide range of problems in Norwegian society. Somali immigrants often arrive with little formal education and face a strictly regulated labor market (Næss, 2020). Many, therefore, rely on social welfare and represent the immigrant group with the lowest average income (Vrålstad & Wiggen, 2017). Somalis are regularly portrayed as ‘work-averse’ (Handulle & Vassenden, 2021) and ‘difficult to integrate’ (Ali, 2022), often with reference to such statistics. Palestinians in Norway have not been subject to such negative public scrutiny to the same extent as Somalis have experienced.

Methodology: Recruiting interviewees and negotiating positionality

Recruiting interviewees required sustained efforts and the help of gatekeepers from different immigrant communities. ⁸ For the reasons stated above, I chose to concentrate primarily on Somali and Palestinian communities. After initial recruitment attempts, the gatekeepers told me that people were skeptical about talking about citizenship revocation with outsiders, partly because the topic was fraught with ill feelings and stigma. In the Somali community, fear and mistrust of Norwegian authorities circulated (Birkvad, 2024; Brekke et al., 2021). Potential participants may have associated me with the authorities (Carling et al., 2014), which was detrimental to the establishment of trust. Some may have positioned me as an ‘apparent outsider’ – a white, public university employee. To others, I could represent the exact system responsible for depriving them of citizenship, hailing me as the ‘adversary other’ (Baser & Toivanen, 2018).

However, recruitment accelerated after Utrop (a multicultural Norwegian newspaper) and Norsom News (a Norwegian Somali newspaper) posted calls for research participants, which generated great interest in participating in the project. Gatekeepers from previous research projects (Birkvad, 2019; Brekke et al., 2021), civic organizations, and immigration lawyers also helped me recruit participants.

In total, I reached 28 individuals – 16 men and 12 women (for an overview, see Appendix A available online). ⁹ The participants were all born abroad and had immigrated to Norway as adults, youths, or children. They had lived in Norway between 11 and 25 years. Eighteen participants originated from Somalia, four were Palestinians, and the remaining six were from various countries in Asia. Four participants faced revocation by extension of their parent’s case and were not suspected of lying or concealing information themselves. ¹⁰ The interviewees were in different stages of the revocation process. Twenty-two were waiting for the first decision by the UDI (20 of these had undertaken one or more administrative interviews, while the others had been notified but not interviewed); three were waiting for their appeals to be processed by the UNE; an additional two had been deprived of Norwegian citizenship and were stateless; lastly, one person had his case dismissed. Some interviewees told me that their entire family faced revocation and deportation, while others risked family separation, as one or both parents could be deported.

The interviews were conducted in their homes (in Oslo and beyond), at the University of Oslo, in cafes, and via telephone and video calls. I asked questions about their daily lives, migration stories, naturalization experiences, the revocation process and its consequences, and their views on the legal and political aspects of citizenship revocation. The interviews lasted between one and three hours. Three interviews were conducted with a Somali Norwegian translator, and the remaining were conducted in Norwegian, as most interviewees had a strong comprehension of Norwegian. Still, I recognize that the choice of language enables some forms of knowledge, impedes others, and reproduces fluency as a marker of worth (Drangsland, 2024).

Some of the interviewees claimed that I was unable to understand their experiences of being at the receiving end of citizenship deprivation. Rightly so. Only naturalized citizens, not ‘natural-borns,’ can be subjected to involuntary loss of citizenship. Born in Denmark to a Norwegian mother and a Danish father and having immigrated to Norway at age two, I represent a position of privilege. Scandinavians have easier access to Norwegian citizenship because of their assumed ‘cultural closeness.’ As such, I am just as much a product of the history of Norwegian citizenship legislation as the research participants currently are, a piece of legislation that continues to favor ‘Nordic brothers’ over ‘strange others’ (Wickström, 2016). My whiteness was also pointed out by several interviewees. Whiteness as a privilege is often invisible, especially to those who inhabit it (S. Ahmed, 2007). By calling out my whiteness, they addressed the insignificance of legal citizenship and the significance of ancestry and cultural sameness in becoming accepted as Norwegian (Gullestad, 2002a). These interview encounters demonstrate how racialization and relations of power are deeply embedded in the production of knowledge (U. Ahmed, 2024).

The interviews were transcribed and subsequently coded in NVivo. ¹¹ First, I coded for guilt attribution in their own case and how they made sense of the government’s revocation campaign. Through this initial round of coding, I distinguished between two antithetical positions – interviewees who primarily blamed themselves (sinners) and those who blamed the state (racialized scapegoats). After a second reading, I found a middle position – the saints. I treat these subject positions as ideal types in Weber’s sense. The ideal types identified do not aim to fully correspond to ‘reality’ but primarily serve heuristic purposes (cf. Swedberg, 2018) – here, to capture variation and compare different responses to the accusation of naturalization fraud. While the subject positions of sinners and scapegoats were mutually exclusive, the participants could draw on sinners and saints and saints and scapegoats within the same interview. Although the data material is non-longitudinal, such shifts of position point to the dynamic aspect of citizenship revocation as a process of interpellation.

(Mis)interpellation and subject positions in the face of citizenship revocation

Sinners

The first position entailed assuming guilt before the law. Some interviewees admitted to providing incorrect or withholding information when they came to Norway, either because they felt they had no choice but to tailor their story to get protection or because they held incomplete knowledge of the asylum system (cf. Borrelli et al., 2022). The absorption of guilt weighed heavily on them. Adam (Asian country, 15–20 years in Norway) had experienced rumination and sleeplessness after giving incorrect information to the authorities. Unlike the rest of the interviewees, he decided to turn himself into the authorities. He did this to take the load off his conscience, well aware of what the consequences might be for him and his family. As he awaited the decision, he still carried the weight of guilt: ‘You feel [like a] second-class citizen, I think I am guilty [. . .] we’re not saying we are God. We are no angels; everyone makes mistakes. We are saying that amnesty would make things easier.’ ¹² By expressing remorse and underscoring their humanity – as fallible beings – he pleaded for administrative grace.

Karima (Asian country, 20–25 years in Norway) also expressed feelings of guilt. When she read the notification letter, she was not surprised but relieved. She explained her reaction to me in the following way:

I have carried this burden and have had problems with my neck and back [. . .] because I regretted it immediately after leaving the interview [. . .] Why did I do it? But I couldn’t take it back because of my children.

Karima was ‘ready to turn,’ as Althusser (1971) put it, in the very moment she read the notification letter. She did not fear revocation and deportation to her country of origin. On the contrary, she wanted to go back one day to rebuild the country after years of war and conflict. Her children were near adulthood and were less dependent on her as a caretaker. Karima thus had little to lose. She even legitimized the authorities’ attempts to sanction naturalization fraud more strictly. In her own words, ‘I hope they continue [revoking citizenship], so they can distinguish between those who need protection and those who don’t [. . .] I think it’s good that they are doing it.’ Karima here tied sincerity to deservingness, and, as such, reproduced the line between ‘bogus’ and ‘legitimate’ asylum seekers (Fortier, 2017).

Moreover, several interviewees expressed concerns about their children being affected by the revocation case. For instance, Khaled (Palestine, 20–25 years in Norway) said:

My Norwegian children [. . .] I’m sorry, [interviewer name], his name is [Arabic name], but he’s just like Ola Nordmann. He doesn’t have any country other than Norway. He’s born and raised in Norway. Norway can’t take away his citizenship. But what is best for Norway? That he’s brought up as a Norwegian boy [. . .] like everyone else, or that [he] carries this guilt forever? [. . .] this really burns me up.

Khaled’s worry was not unfounded. Before the nationality law was revised (Ministry of Education and Research, 2019), the main rule was that a child would lose their citizenship by extension of the parent’s loss. Although Khaled’s children were legally protected from revocation and deportation, they were not emotionally shielded. Khaled used the ‘Ola Nordmann’ figure to characterize his son, which denotes an average stereotypical Norwegian (such as John Doe in the UK). Khaled accepted the accusation and was ready to face the consequences of citizenship revocation, but felt his son was being mis-interpellated (Martel, 2015). He desired ‘universalism’ for his son, wanting him to grow up ‘like everyone else’ in Norway (cf. Hage, 2010), but feared that his past wrongs would haunt his son into eternity.

The sinners expressed feelings of guilt and regret and submitted to the authority of the law. As such, they turned against themselves (Butler, 1997), feeling bad about transferring their sins to their children. This aspect of original sin speaks to the spillover effects of interpellation, in which the accusation of cheating misses its target (S. Ahmed, 1998) and reverberates across generations. The next section shows how other interviewees deflected the interpellation as cheaters by positioning themselves as saints.

Saints

Admitting legal wrongs was often closely followed by claims of leading a virtuous life. Some downplayed their own misdeeds, concealed information, and distanced themselves from worse actions, such as crime, terrorism, and ‘welfare scrounging’ (cf. Fortier, 2017). Interestingly, most of these claims appealed to welfare state ideology. As such, they responded not only to the interpellation as cheaters but also to the state’s call to become ‘ideal citizens’ (Bassel et al., 2018). They claimed to be law-abiding, hard-working, self-supporting citizens who had invested both affectively and financially in the state. As Samir (Palestine, 10–15 years in Norway) said:

Yes, I did hide information. I can stand in front of the King and say, ‘I apologize, dear King, for hiding information to stay in your kingdom.’ But still, I’m no criminal, I’m no war criminal, I’m a person who [. . .] deserves to stay in Norway. In nine years, I have held two jobs. On average, I have paid between 250 and 270 thousand kroners in taxes every year! [raises voice] Nine years of my life!

Samir appealed to the King, the highest authority in Norway, prepared to admit that he had held back information but denied that he was criminal. The excerpt displays the blurred distinction between fraud and crime rehearsed in media and parliamentary discussions (Birkvad, 2023). ¹³ Moreover, he claimed his deservingness on the basis of self-reliance and abundant tax-paying.

Another example of claiming virtues and deservingness vis-a-vis the state was uttered by Jamilah (Somalia, 15–20 years in Norway):

We have done everything in [the right] order. [We] came to Norway and were granted asylum. After two years, we received residence permits. [After] eight years, citizenship. I have educated myself, found a job, worked [. . .] I have never been to the social [welfare] office to get money [. . .] Lived in Norway for 16 years, worked for 14 years, and until this day [. . .], I have never cheated the system. Never cheated NAV [the Norwegian Labor and Welfare Administration]. I don’t even know where my local NAV office is, frankly, because I don’t need to.

Jamilah believed she had followed the right path laid out by the Norwegian integration regime – attained lawful residence, acquired citizenship, educated herself, worked hard, and never relied on social welfare or ‘cheated the system.’ This statement perhaps also speaks to the negative, gendered interpellation of Somali women as work-averse and welfare dependent (cf. Handulle & Vassenden, 2021). She seemed to address the Norwegian welfare state to justify her right to stay in Norway. Indeed, targets of citizenship deprivation who demonstrate that they are ‘well integrated’ can be exempted (Ministry of Education and Research, 2020). Thus, the call to become a super-citizen (Badenhoop, 2017) is not only symbolic. Failure to meet standards can have material and legal consequences.

However, such statements may be more than a strategic way to secure their right to stay in Norway. They can also be read as attempts to escape what Fanon (1952/2021) called ‘fixation’ – being locked into a particular racialized image of oneself. Unlike the sinners, who were ‘ready to turn’ (cf. Althusser, 1971), the saints described citizenship revocation as a shock. Until that point, they had viewed themselves as irrevocably Norwegian. Muhammed succinctly described the immediate aftermath of receiving the first letter from the UDI:

[We watched] all the football and handball games; it was just – yes! We even started watching cross-country skiing [. . .] you can’t become more Norwegian than that, right? [. . .] When you watch it now, you suddenly think, ok, maybe it was just an illusion [. . .] All that time did not happen. That is painful [to think of].

The excerpt exemplifies the trauma of racial mis-interpellation (Hage, 2010). In the first act, Muhammed responded to the call to become Norwegian through his engagement with the majority’s purported passion for cross-country skiing, conforming to the ‘white norm’ (Plümecke et al., 2023). He had strived to belong to the national community ‘like everyone else.’ In the second act, however, the UDI’s letter woke him up. The call to become Norwegian was not addressed to him. In hindsight, becoming Norwegian was no more than a painful illusion.

The second response to the accusation of fraud consisted of conforming to welfare state virtues and drawing boundaries vis-a-vis those who did not conform to these virtues. By positioning themselves as saints, they claimed that the authorities were addressing the wrong people.

Racialized scapegoats

While the two previous subject positions implied absorbing and deflecting the interpellation as a cheater, the third position dismissed it by questioning the legitimacy of citizenship revocation practice altogether. According to this line of reasoning, the authorities had little, if any, evidence to support the accusations made against them. They claimed they were being used by the government to gain political currency and keep the immigration bureaucrats employed after the number of asylum seekers rapidly dropped. As such, they claimed that they were being scapegoated and reversed the relationship of mistrust. In short, a scapegoat is an individual or group wrongfully blamed, punished, and banished for another party’s misdeeds (Girard, 2020).

Yacub (Palestine, 20–25 years in Norway) claimed that the government moved ‘foreigners around like pieces on a chess board’ and ‘used them in the media whenever it suited them.’ Zakaria (Somalia, 20–25 years in Norway) compared the Norwegian government’s actions to corrupt leaders in African countries:

They pick a minority and charge it with lots of guilt, and then everything else is forgotten – poverty, corruption [. . .] then they get re-elected [. . .] they use people like scarecrows and sacrifice [them] in an election. They will do everything to sacrifice and hunt down cheaters [. . .] to divide people.

While some interviewees used the term ‘foreigner’ to signify the targets of scapegoating, others claimed that Somalis were collectively targeted. Zakaria (Somalia, 20–25 years in Norway) compared the position of Africans and Somalis in Norway with those on the bottom of the caste system in India: ‘Somalis and Africans. . . I think that maybe I’m not political enough, that I’m not visible in society. We are on the bottom of the ladder. We are easy to step on [. . .] we’re like the untouchable caste in India.’ Lived experiences of being politically insignificant, invisible, and untouchable evoke Hage’s (2010, p. 121) concept of non-interpellation. Africans and Somalis, in Zakaria’s view, were easy targets of citizenship revocation because of their marginal, non-recognized position in Norwegian society.

Muhammed had a different interpretation, however. In our interview conducted in 2016, when the media coverage of citizenship revocation peaked, he said:

Speaking from experience, and when you look at the TV, it doesn’t look good for Somalis right now. It’s a witch hunt against all of us. We feel unsafe. Right now, no one stands up for Somalis. If we go to the media, no one will support us. [Somalis] are a despised ethnic group. People talk negatively about Somalis. If something goes wrong, it’s always the Somalis.

According to Muhammed, the problem Somalis faced in Norwegian society was not their invisibility but their hyper-visibility. He pointed out that Somalis were subject to negative interpellations (Hage, 2010), repeatedly singled out as a ‘social problem’ in public and political discourse. Similarly, Nadia (Somalia, 20–25 years in Norway) interpreted citizenship deprivation as state-sanctioned racism, carried out against ‘blacks,’ ‘Somalis,’ and ‘Muslims.’ In a half-joking, half-serious manner, she said, ‘They want pure society [. . .] no rainbow, only snow.’ When I asked her to reflect on why Somalis were overrepresented in citizenship revocation statistics, she replied, ‘I don’t know why. Maybe because we don’t want to integrate. Or integrate? They want assimilation; [they want] you to become completely Norwegian. But what can we do with our color?’ In her view, the government attributed Somalis with a will (S. Ahmed, 2014) to stick to their culture rather than assimilating to the Norwegian nation. She refused the pressure to assimilate, however, as she could not escape the color of her skin. The pressure of this ‘could not’ describes the social and existential realities of racism (S. Ahmed, 2007).

Zahid (Somalia, 15–20 years in Norway) construed the current denaturalization policy as a continuation of a longer history of scapegoating minorities. In his own words,

When the Germans came to Norway, Norwegians were divided. Some Norwegians were chased away and deprived of their lives, their families, and their houses. What happened, really? It was just someone who thought they were doing something right. But what had they proved 70 years later? Norway apologized. Europe apologized [. . .]; it proves that what they did was wrong. When I sat in the [interview] room at the police station [. . .] I said to them, ‘One day, this room will become a museum. In one hundred or two hundred years, Norwegians will be ashamed when they read these records.’

Zahid reversed the suspicion cast against him and refused to be hailed as a cheater. Instead, he juxtaposed his situation with the persecution of Jews in the 1940s. Somalis and Jews were ‘brothers in misery’ (Fanon, 1952/2021, p. 92). Zahid claimed that the deportation of Jews was deemed morally right at that time. By invoking national shame for the unlawful deportation of Jews in the 1940s and the state-issued apology in 2012, he sought to hold the Norwegian state accountable for its present denaturalization policies.

Concluding remarks

Citizenship revocation transforms citizens into foreigners, legally and symbolically (Winter & Previsic, 2019). We know surprisingly little about how would-be-denaturalized individuals experience this metamorphic process. Given that citizenship revocation is considered the ‘harshest available state-imposed sanction’ (Tripkovic, 2021, p. 1046) and spreads on a global plane, this is a serious scholarly sin of omission. Through the concept of interpellation, this article has examined how targeted individuals experience and respond to fraud-based citizenship revocation in Norway. I have argued that citizenship revocation functions by hailing individuals as cheaters. Yet rather than producing a singular cheater-subject (as Althusser’s universalizing theory implies), the analysis shows that the interpellation differentiated (S. Ahmed, 1998) between three different subject positions.

The sinners expressed feelings of guilt and regret about providing incorrect information to the immigration authorities, constituting what Butler (1997) called ‘injurious interpellation.’ Some insisted on their ability to make mistakes, which can be read as a claim to equal humanity and agency in a context where ‘migrants are not allowed to err, but only to fake’(Aradau & Perret, 2022, p. 421). Nonetheless, they felt bad for allegedly occupying the spot of sincere asylum seekers and refugees, and, as such, reproduced the distinction between sincere and bogus asylum seekers. The saints downplayed the legal breach they were accused of (concealing information but not outright lying) and highlighted their virtues vis-a-vis the welfare state. They experienced mis-interpellation. By paying taxes and being self-reliant and simultaneously distancing themselves from welfare-scroungers, they claimed the authorities had got the wrong address. Thus, the sinners and saints partially subscribed to the ‘hard outside, soft inside’ ideology, on which the practice of citizenship revocation rests. However, they placed different emphases on each side of this duality. While the sinners lent legitimacy to the ‘hard side’ and were ready to face the consequences of breaking the law, the saints emphasized their achievements in the ‘softer sphere’ to challenge what they perceived as the pettiness of the ‘hard outside.’

In contrast, the racialized scapegoats refused to accept the premises of the interpellation as cheaters. According to this position, the state was deceiving them, not the other way around. Some interviewees understood the citizenship revocation campaign as yet another negative interpellation of Somalis. Moreover, they situated themselves in a longer history of forced assimilation and minority scapegoating in Norway, predating the advent of the postwar welfare state. To them, this demonstrated that legal citizenship has never been enough to secure national belonging (cf. Gullestad, 2002b).

Indeed, at various points throughout Norway’s history, citizenship has been defined and redefined in line with hierarchies of race and ethnicity. As a self-proclaimed homogeneous nation, the (unmarked white Lutheran) majority was simply assumed to be Norwegian, while minorities were negatively defined for lacking this identity. For instance, the Samis, Kvens, Forest Finns, and Romani were not considered truly Norwegian, and thus, in need of ‘Norwegianization’. On the other hand, Jews and Roma (‘gypsies’) were seen as racially and morally uncapable of Norwegianization and had to be expelled. There are some parallels between Roma and Somali immigrants’ positions within Norwegian society, as indicated by the Norwegian anthropologist Engebrigtsen (2006), who spoke about ‘the gypsification of Somalis’ nearly 20 years ago. In her optics, Somali immigrants and Roma share experiences of public stigmatization and refusal to accept the majority’s contempt. In Fanon’s (1952/2021) terms, both Roma and Somalis have tried to escape being ‘fixed’ to a negative, racialized image of themselves. Unlike the Roma, however, Somalis are not singled out by the letter of the law. Yet, for some, the fact that the enforcement of law disproportionally targets Somalis (suspected of being Djibouti) only confirms their inferior position in Norwegian society. The experience of being ‘difficult to integrate,’ of never arriving at a state of full being, points to the existential reality of racism (S. Ahmed, 2007).

The variation of subject positions identified in this article thus speaks to different facets of Norwegian national history – past and present. Seen together, they testify to the shifting, hierarchical, and sometimes blurred conceptions of citizenship and alienage in Norway. I urge future research to take national histories into account in order to better understand the differentiated lived experiences of people subjected to citizenship revocation. Despite its universal allure, citizenship has never addressed everyone on equal terms.

Supplemental Material

sj-docx-1-sor-10.1177_00380261241307583 – Supplemental material for Sinners, saints, and racialized scapegoats: (Mis)interpellation and subject positions in the face of citizenship revocation in Norway

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-sor-10.1177_00380261241307583 for Sinners, saints, and racialized scapegoats: (Mis)interpellation and subject positions in the face of citizenship revocation in Norway by Simon Roland Birkvad in The Sociological Review