Speculative citizenship: limiting the rights of citizens accused of terrorism

We develop the concept of speculative citizenship – the process of limiting citizenship rights based on speculation about future security risk – showing how counterterrorism measures make citizenship rights malleable in particular gendered and racialized ways. Moving beyond debates on citizenship deprivation or immigration, we focus on the curtailing of citizenship rights of full citizens accused of terrorist crimes. We analyse the legal proceedings around human and citizenship rights of 23 Dutch women who had joined the Islamic State (IS) and were rendered de facto stateless in Kurdish camps. We trace two practices of speculation – assessing risk based on limited information and investing on chance by state agencies that respond to speculative risk assessments. Our analysis concludes that speculative citizenship enables an indefinite infringement of rights of racialized and gendered populations justified through future risks. Our critique becomes increasingly important as states apply the terrorist label to currently protected forms of citizen dissent.