‘People without a State Also Must Live’ situation in my country, my parents got it. My dad came to France as a political refugee. 87 Dutch citizenship within this context becomes a necessity for access to rights and recognition. Within the context of recognition as a refugee, possession of Dutch citizenship implies the impossibility of accessing effective citizenship from one’s homeland. In the case of the family of the 21-year-old woman, Kurdish citizenship could not be granted due to the non-existence of an internationally recognised Kurdish state, and the acquired citizenship of the recognised country of origin has, through the recognition of refugee status, been established as ineffective. CITIZENSHIP: SECURITY AND PROTECTION OR A RISK The participants’ narratives illustrate the variation and differentiation across and, within citizenship regimes, suggest that citizenship is in some cases associated with security and protection and in other cases, with risk. Within the narratives, the Netherlands was the only state whose citizenship was considered to be associated with security and protection, although participants held different views regarding the degree to which state protection is differentiated among citizens and along what lines. A 21-year-old woman, who perceives Dutch citizenship to provide more protection for single than dual citizens (such as in cases of arrest abroad on political grounds), shares her reasoning in light of the risk she attributes to holding Turkish citizenship: I’m trying to get rid of my Turkish citizenship. It’s a fucking burden on my shoulders because all I’m thinking about is if I go to Turkey and I get arrested — and I’m going to Turkey this summer — and I have dual citizenship, what’s going to happen to me? If I only have Dutch citizenship I feel like it’s more likely for the Netherlands to be able to pull me out of there and bring me back here … But I don’t know how to give back my Turkish citizenship without being on the radar. Because it’s not like you just go and, ‘here you go, no thank you’ — you have to write an official request and state the reason for why you don’t want to have it anymore. And if I’m not careful with that, that could mean that my name goes on some list. And then the moment I go to Turkey I get picked up … I don’t know when I should do it. If I should wait until I come back from Turkey, if I should do it before I go — what is smarter? I don’t know. 88 The 21-year-old suggests that she would have been more protected without Turkish citizenship — firstly, because she would face a lesser risk of being arrested if she was a non-citizen of Turkey and, secondly, because she would then expect to receive greater protection from the Dutch government as a sole Dutch citizen. The participant thereby raises the issue of the effectiveness of citizenship, or the idea that the quality of citizenship can differ within a particular citizenship regime, whereby it provides more effective protection for certain citizens than for others. 89 Understood through Isin and Turner’s framework of citizenship as being situated along different axes, 90 the content, or associated rights and responsibilities, is understood to differ between single and dual citizens. The participant suggests that if she were to renounce her Turkish citizenship, she would 87 88 89 90 Interview with 21-year-old woman (Kurdistan-Turkey and Kurdistan Region of Iraq). Interview with 21-year-old woman (Kurdistan-Turkey and Kurdistan Region of Iraq). Batchelor (n 23). Isin and Turner (n 24) 2. 297