Social Reproduction Gone Wrong? The Citizenship Revocation and Rehabilitation of Young European Women Who Joined ISIS

Abstract

Some European women who joined the Islamic State during the 2010s have had their citizenship revoked, which leaves them in a liminal state in camps at the Syrian border. Others have been able to return home, where they face prosecution and potential pathways to “rehabilitation.” This article turns to media discussions of two cases that have been extensively discussed in the media: Shamima Begum, a British national whose citizenship was revoked, and Laura Hansen, a Dutch national who was rehabilitated. Our analysis homes in on the symbolic dimension of social reproduction, showing how media representations of these two women as mothers, wives, and daughters play a critical role in media justifications of revocation and rehabilitation. We argue that media discourses create a gendered, racialized, and class-based conceptualization of citizenship unattainable to those whose social reproductive labor is deemed a threat to the nation-state.