Julia Roth

Unequal and gendered: Notes on the coloniality of citizenship

An entire Occidentalist tradition of citizenship theory viewed citizenship as a modern, progressive institution that helped overcome particularities of unequal social origin. Contrary to the claims of this (mainly male) Western scholarly tradition, the article argues, first, that the institution of citizenship has developed in the West through the legal (and physical) exclusion of non-European, non-White and non-Western populations from civic, political, social and cultural rights; these exclusions, and thus citizenship as such, have historically been (en)gendered. Second, the article maintains that citizenship and gender are the most decisive factors accounting for extreme inequalities between individuals in rich and poor countries in the twenty-first century. Forms of racialization, sexualization and precarization to which the acquisition of citizenship and the corresponding gain in social mobility are linked today are illustrated with examples of practices to subvert citizenship law through marriage or childbirth in countries relying primarily on jus sanguinis and jus soli, respectively.

Sugar and slaves: The Augsburg Welser as conquerors of America and colonial foundational myths

ABSTRACT In her 1883 collection of biographies of the most famous conquistadores of the Americas, Colombian writer Soledad Acosta de Samper noticeably included two German representatives of the Augsburg-based Welser trading company. Her depictions demonstrate that German finance and investment has been constitutive for the early colonial endeavor in the Americas of which the enslavement of Amerindians and the trade in enslaved Africans formed an integral part from the outset. This essay pursues a twofold aim: Firstly, it employs Acosta de Samper’s account of the Augsburg traders as a lens for elaborating on the little-studied German activities in the Spanish colonies. Secondly, the essay is interested in how early colonial endeavors such as the Welser’s have been serving as a showcase example for German colonial fantasies ever since. Both arguments refute the dominant discourse of the “late” or “insignificant” German role in the colonial enterprise, the transnational slave trade, and the trade in enslaved Amerindians. This essay will pursue and promote a perspective that focuses on the entangled histories and processes of conquest and colonialism, thus broadening the claim of the structural involvement of German-territorial actors such as the Welser company whose activities were transnational in scale to begin with. A relational entanglement perspective brings into view the transnational flows of capital, goods, people, and ideas; the essay thereby raises questions concerning the acknowledgement and confrontation of a German responsibility for colonization and enslavement.

Staatsbürgerschaft, Gender und globale Ungleichheiten

The category gender has marked the institution of citizenship from the modern / colonial outset, and both citizenship and gender have been providing crucial factors for extreme inequalities between countries. In order to elaborate on this thesis, the article introduces a global and postcolonial perspective on citizenship and gender. In a second step, the article discusses »acts of citizenship« such as marriage, motherhood and sex tourism to subvert, reinscribe and appropriate engendered colonial-racialized structures. Finally, the article advocates a stronger focus on persistent colonial intersectional gender relations for the analysis of global power structures.