Diminished Citizenship: A Genealogy of the Development of 'Soft Citizenship' at the Intersection of US Mass and Political Culture

Abstract

My thesis is influenced by such scholars as Lee Edelman, Shane Phelan, and Lauren Berlant, who sit at the intersection of queer theory and citizenship studies, my project undertakes a genealogy of contemporary citizenship subjectivity and practice in the United States. I designate my object "soft citizenship," to separate it from citizenship as defined by the state through civic and electoral practices, and to define a mode of thinking and performing politics characterized by familial-based moralization, child-centricity, sentimentality, and politicized consumption. My use of genealogy is indebted to Michel Foucault and enables a materialist understanding of cultural phenomenon as effects of social forces; for example, my project reveals the process by which the nation began to be imagined through the trope of the heteronormative family, a practice still prevalent today, which reflects the child-centricity and familial-based moralization I attribute to soft citizenship.