JOURNAL OF ETHNIC AND MIGRATION STUDIES
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significantly underestimates the degree of ethnic-origin bias, ‘thereby render[ing] an inaccurate sense of the extent of equalization that is occurring across countries of origin in
skilled immigration selection’ (2020, 2535).
Matthew Gibney (2020) examines discrimination and precarity in the least likely of
places: citizenship. In his historical analysis of denationalisation – the state’s revocation
of citizenship – he asks whether recent denationalisation provisions have managed to
break free from their discriminatory past. Tracing the use of denationalisation from the
early twentieth century until its falling into disuse after World War II, Gibney shows
that, historically, citizenship revocation has been used in ways that select (and deselect)
on the basis of national origin, gender, and mode of citizenship acquisition (i.e. naturalisation). Turning to the present-day return of citizenship-stripping, Gibney’s investigation
of denationalisation enforcement in Britain finds that ‘contemporary denationalization
power is still a powerful tracer of groups within the polity who, despite holding formal
citizenship, are viewed as foreign’ (2020, 2551). With the single exception of citizenship
no longer being revoked from women after marriage, citizenship revocation continues
to operate on the basis of group-based exclusion, applying only to certain categories of citizens (naturalised immigrants with dual nationality) and, through the use of anti-terrorist
provisions, targets citizens originating from Muslim-majority countries, in marked contrast to the treatment of non-Jihadist terrorist suspects who are not swept up under denationalisation enforcement. Denationalisation thus singles out religion as an axis of
exclusion and inclusion, as Muslims are seen as ‘suspect holders of British citizenship’
(2020, 27). Present-day denationalisation thus not only perpetuates its discriminatory
past, but also stratifies citizenship by creating a class of citizens whose citizenship can
never be fully secure. Because the prohibition of statelessness limits denationalisation to
dual nationals, its is virtually always applied to naturalised citizens as individuals who
still bear the taint of their immigration.
Catherine Dauvergne’s (2020) article grapples with the ways in which liberal human
rights norms interact with immigration law as it regulates Muslim minorities in areas
of national security and forced marriage. What is the impact of human rights arguments
on immigration law in these deeply gendered and Islamophobic settings? Dauvergne
employs the concepts of ‘unknowability’ and ‘unintelligibility’ as a lens through which
to examine how Western law has responded to Islam. She conceives of terrorism as a challenge of knowability: as long as it is framed as unknowable, terrorism remains impervious
to human rights arguments. Because ‘[i]mmigration law needs less precision than criminal
law and thus unknowability flourishes here’ (2020, 2573–2574). This can be seen in the
context of the indefinite detention of (always male) terrorist suspects, which, because it
is based on secret evidence, has remained largely unchallenged by human rights law.
While terrorism has been framed in terms of unknowability, Dauvergne understands
forced marriage as a challenge of intelligibility. Whereas arranged marriage is considered
unintelligible, and viewed through the lens of cultural relativism, forced marriage is rendered intelligible through human rights arguments that ‘assimilate it into a familiar framework’ (2020, 2580). The rendering of forced marriage as intelligible, however, comes at the
cost of a nuanced engagement with gender and culture, and, ultimately, entrenches
Western representations of Islam that (re)produce gender stereotypes and Islamophobia.
David Owen (2020) moves the normative discussions of inclusion and exclusion from
the national to the global level. He employs a normative frame of structural injustice to