Paper Short Abstract:

We draw on two case studies, bureaucratic practices within residency procedures in Brussels and the Amsterdam “digital city ID” proposal, in order to examine how local bureaucracies and municipal efforts advocating for alternative understandings of citizenship fortify categories of (non-)citizens.

Paper Abstract:

Existing scholarship exploring the role of state bureaucracy in producing il/legalization within a particular migration regime, has predominantly focused on the national level, such as within migration offices (Eule, Borelli, Lindberg & Wyss, 2019) and deportation case workers (Cleton & Chauvin, 2019; Kalir, 2019), amongst others. Yet, a large portion of legal and bureaucratic encounters between illegalized residents and the state happen at the local, municipal level. In our article, we examine local bureaucracies or municipalities that play a crucial role in fortifying categories of (non-)citizens, even when proposing alternative understandings of citizenship. As a way to foster “anthropological comparative perspectives,” we draw on two case studies: bureaucratic practices within residency procedures in Brussels and a proposal for an Amsterdam “digital city ID.” In the case of Brussels, we examine how malpractices of local administration and authorities within specific residency procedures and temporary precarious residence permits obstruct or revoke a potential legal status, thereby pointing at its liminality and contingency. These local bureaucratic practices include, official removal from the population register, and inadequate or slow paperwork. In the case of Amsterdam, we examine how grassroots activists and street-level bureaucrats jointly reconfigure regimes of trust production and identity verification by proposing a decentralized, locally-issued identity document for the illegalized.