Potential protection and politics of a City ID in The Netherlands: the case of Utrecht

Abstract

When questions of access to citizenship for irregular migrants are addressed by theorists of citizenship, it is often argued that it is important to move away from an idea of citizenship as merely legal rights-based and as something bound to the nation-state. At the local level, citizenship can be conceptualised as a social process which emphasises norms, practices, meanings and identities. From this perspective, citizenship is no longer bounded by legal status but, rather, grounded in place. So how does this work in practice? In this paper we explore the potential protection of and politics around the introduction of a City ID card for irregular migrants. Based on expert interviews with people involved in the introduction of a City ID in Utrecht and a comparative analysis of initiatives from other cities, we explore the potentials and challenges of introducing such a card, taking Utrecht as a case study. We assess how including irregular residents in the cities where they reside can complement citizenship as nationality, by looking at the ways in which local institutions concretely open up spaces for and provide rights to irregular migrants and the role which this plays in the contestation and constitution of local citizenship.