The Structural Sources of Ambiguity in the Modern State: Race, Empire, and Conflicts over Membership

Katrina Quisumbing King*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

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 languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)768-819
Number of pages52
JournalAmerican Journal of Sociology
Volume128
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 2022

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Sociology and Political Science

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