Abstract
How do we understand ambiguous state activities? How do state actors interpret, use, and produce ambiguous classifications? By asking what explains the simultaneous classification of Filipinos as citizens, nation-als, and aliens during U.S. imperial rule, this article draws attention to modern states’ ideological commitments and the foundational role of concerns over race in shaping state institutions and ambiguous prac-tices. In debating how to rule over Filipinos, U.S. state actors wrestled with tensions between territorial expansion and limiting the rights of nonwhite people. They institutionalized ambiguity into the legal archi-tecture of the state. The coexistence of seemingly contradictory statuses was enabled by the decisions of the highest court in the land and re-flected national and imperial conflicts over belonging. Debates over national boundaries—over who can belong—are key to understanding the structural sources of ambiguity in statecraft. In the United States, these questions are fundamentally about race.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 768-819 |
| Number of pages | 52 |
| Journal | American Journal of Sociology |
| Volume | 128 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Nov 2022 |
Funding
presented here were shared at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, UCLA, the American Sociological Association, and the Social Science History Association. I thank the audiences and discussants of these spaces, especially Omar Lizardo and Dan Hirschman. This research was supported by a National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant, the MIT School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences Diversity Predoctoral Fellowship, a Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship in Tagalog, the Harry S. Truman Library Institute, and the Franklin D. Roosevelt Institute. Direct correspondence to Katrina Quisumbing King, Department of Sociology, Northwestern, University, 1810 Chicago Avenue, Evanston, Illinois 60208. Email: [email protected] 2Senators Tydings and Copeland, speaking on H.R. 7233, “Philippine Independence,” Cong. Rec., 72nd Cong., 2nd sess., December 8, 1932, p. 186. 3See app. A for definitions of citizenship.
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Sociology and Political Science