‘Swiss by ancestry’: Genuine and strategic nativism in naturalization procedures

Abstract A letter from the Swiss State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) recently asked a naturalization applicant to provide reference contacts who are, preferably, ‘Swiss by ancestry’. This instance foregrounds how naturalization regimes materialize boundaries of belonging. This article examines how imaginaries and hierarchies of citizenship are shaped and re/produced in naturalization procedures. It takes Switzerland as a case study to analyse this question through an examination of the naturalization requirement to be ‘familiar with the Swiss way of life’ and, in particular, to ‘maintain contact with Swiss citizens’ and the ‘native population’. The article analyses legal provisions, the interpretation of the law, street-level bureaucratic practice, and interviews with naturalization candidates to carve out what is considered the ‘Swiss way of life’ and the ‘Swiss citizen’ to establish contact with. The analysis reveals both nativist and universalist citizenship imaginaries. Naturalization authorities and candidates engage in a matrix of what is theorized as genuine/strategic universalism/nativism. While some authorities explicitly require referees to be ‘Swiss by ancestry’ and exclude naturalized citizens (genuine nativism), other authorities and some naturalization candidates explicitly include naturalized citizens in their imaginaries of Swiss referees (genuine universalism). In between, there is what we identify as strategic nativism: naturalization candidates strategically submit ‘native Swiss’ as referees to prove their ‘integration’ and minimize the risk of rejection. Overall, the article demonstrates how, despite ostensibly universalist legal provisions, nativist accounts of ‘Swiss citizen’ and ‘native population’ prevail, and how citizenship is continually negotiated and shaped by social hierarchies, racialization, and power relations.