Ethnography of a political ritual: speeches given to new Swiss citizens by representatives of the state

Ossipow, Laurence; Felder, Maxime

doi:10.1080/13621025.2015.1006175

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Title		Ethnography of a political ritual: speeches given to new Swiss citizens by representatives of the state
Authors		Ossipow, Laurence Felder, Maxime
Published in		Citizenship Studies. 2015, vol. 19, no. 3-4, p. 233-247
Abstract		Our paper examines speeches given at citizenship ceremonies in Geneva (Switzerland) in order to understand what makes a foreigner a new member of a national and especially of a cantonal entity. Focusing on speeches by three ministers over an interval of 4 years, we analyze their conceptions of the state, the nation, and of nationality, and the kind of change – if any – this rite of passage acknowledges. We observed that the variations that appeared, ranging from an assimilationist view to a conception of citizenship mainly encompassing rights and duties, reached beyond the political positions of the magistrates who wrote and read the speeches. We aim to show that official discourse covers a broad range of conceptions of the state and of citizenship, independently of the political position of the state representative making the speech.
Keywords		Citoyenneté — Naturalisation — Genève — Etrangers — Cérémonie — Citizenship — Naturalization — Discours — Speech — Rituel — Rituals
Identifiers		DOI: 10.1080/13621025.2015.1006175
Full text		Article (Published version) (130 Kb) - Limited access to UNIGE
Structures		Faculté des sciences de la société / Département de sociologie Faculté des sciences de la société / Institut de recherches sociologiques
Project		Autre: Fonds stratégique de développement HES-SO, Projet Ra&D CEDIC 09-12 SAGE-X 32935
Citation (ISO format)		OSSIPOW, Laurence, FELDER, Maxime. Ethnography of a political ritual: speeches given to new Swiss citizens by representatives of the state. In: Citizenship Studies, 2015, vol. 19, n° 3-4, p. 233-247. doi: 10.1080/13621025.2015.1006175 https://archive-ouverte.unige.ch/unige:74914