Denaturalizing Hannah Arendt and Claudia Jones: Statelessness, Citizenship and Racialization
Schaap, A
Date: 10 June 2022
Book chapter
Publisher
Lexington Books
Abstract
Claudia Jones (1915-1964) and Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) were both illegalized by states
seeking to shape populations through citizenship legislation and immigration control. The
political thinking of each was informed by their respective experience of state violence and their
belonging to a diaspora. In this chapter, I situate ...
Claudia Jones (1915-1964) and Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) were both illegalized by states
seeking to shape populations through citizenship legislation and immigration control. The
political thinking of each was informed by their respective experience of state violence and their
belonging to a diaspora. In this chapter, I situate Arendt’s reflections on
citizenship and statelessness in relation to the intellectual biography of Jones and the contexts in
which she worked and wrote: the Harlem Renaissance, the Red Scare and the Notting Hill riots
in Britain. I explore how the development of citizenship rights in the twentieth century was
intertwined with race and colonialism in ways that Arendt neglected. In particular, the
experiences and political thinking of Claudia Jones draw attention to how immigration control is
not simply an instrument of exclusion but has been integral to the racial ordering of societies
such as the USA and the UK.
Social and Political Sciences, Philosophy, and Anthropology
Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
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