Notes on Undocumented Immigrants and Affective Citizenship

Abstract

This paper offers an analysis of self-representations in texts of an autobiographical nature published recently by three undocumented migrants in the United States. Following the recent phenomenon of claiming visibility as the right to be seen, this piece of research looks into elaborations of citizenship, namely whether forms of affect are “allowed” into modes of belonging not necessarily mediated by the law or connected to citizenship. Notions such as “acts of citizenship” (Isin, 2008) and “affective citizenship” (Grossberg, 2015; Ayata, 2019) form the critical lens to approach the texts. Articulated into forms of attachment, the undocumented migrants’ positions as expressed in these texts can foster our imagination towards more encompassing notions of citizenship that include forms of belonging beyond the territorial, the legal, and the duty to the land.