Universal Citizenship: Latina/o Studies at the Limits of Identity(Border Hispanisms)

Recently, many critics have questioned the idea of universal citizenship by pointing to the racial, class, and gendered exclusions on which the notion of universality rests. Rather than jettison the idea of universal citizenship, however, R. Andres Guzman builds on these critiques to reaffirm it especially within the fields of Latina/o and ethnic studies. Beyond conceptualizing citizenship as an outcome of recognition and admittance by the nation-state-in a negotiation for the right to have rights-he asserts that, insofar as universal citizenship entails a forceful entrance into the political from the latter's foundational exclusions, it emerges at the limits of legality and illegality via a process that exceeds identitarian capture. Drawing on Lacanian psychoanalysis and philosopher Alain Badiou's notion of "generic politics," Guzman advances his argument through close analyses of various literary, cultural, and legal texts that foreground contention over the limits of political belonging. These include the French Revolution, responses to Arizona's H.B. 2281, the 2006 immigrant rights protests in the United States, the writings of Oscar "Zeta" Acosta, Frantz Fanon's account of Algeria's anticolonial struggle, and more. In each case, Guzman traces the advent of the "citizen" as a collective subject made up of anyone who seeks to radically transform the organizational coordinates of the place in which she or he lives.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments Introduction: Universal Citizenship at the Limits of Nature and Culture Chapter 1. Cause and Consistency: The Democratic Act, Universal Citizenship, and Nation Chapter 2. Ethnics of the Real: HB 2281 and the Alien(ated) Subject Chapter 3. Criminalization at the Edge of the Evental Site: Migrant “Illegality,” Universal Citizenship, and the 2006 Immigration Marches Chapter 4. Oscar “Zeta” Acosta and Generic Politics: At the Margins of Identity and Law Chapter 5. Between Crowd and Group: Fantasy, Revolutionary Nation, and the Politics of the Not-All Notes Bibliography Index

About the Author :
R. AndrÉs GuzmÁn is an assistant professor of Latina/o and Latin American literature and culture at Indiana University.

Review :
GuzmÁn’s incisive approach to the role of identity in Latino studies and broader collective group formation offers a timely  intervention that will serve scholars in numerous disciplines across the humanities and social sciences. A compelling read that adds necessary revisions to understandings of undocumentation in Latino studies and of migration more broadly, GuzmÁn’s text offers a nuanced perspective on political action and structural change. By moving in scale from the individual’s relation to the self to the individual’s relationship to broader society, GuzmÁn activates a wide range of methods for cohering the social into radical democratic acts, offering new ways to approach the subject at the limits of identity and the nation-state. (Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies)