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Colonial Citizenship

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Who deserves to be a citizen? Colonial Citizenship reveals how citizenship emerged from empire as a technology of racial and civilisational sorting. Navigating the longest-standing European empire,...
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  • 23 February 2027
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Who deserves to be a citizen? Colonial Citizenship reveals how citizenship emerged from empire as a technology of racial and civilisational sorting. Navigating the longest-standing European empire, it analyses colonial policies, citizenship regulations and segregation laws to show how citizenship works as both affirmation and denial of rights. Drawing on newly uncovered Portuguese archives, it develops a critical citizenship theory that asks, from the perspective of the colonised, who has the right to have rights and whether citizenship, despite its colonial nature, can become a tool for justice. A devastating critique and a theory of survival essential for decolonial studies, jurisprudence, and constitutional law.
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Price: $240.00
Pages: 304
Publisher: Bristol University Press
Imprint: Bristol University Press
Publication Date: 23 February 2027
ISBN: 9781529243215
Format: Hardcover
BISACs: LAW / Civil Rights, Citizenship and nationality law, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Civics & Citizenship, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Colonialism & Post-Colonialism, Decolonisation and postcolonial studies
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"An original contribution, owing to the author’s distinctive focus on the legal construction of nationality in the context of the Portuguese colonies." Carmen Tibúrcio, State University of Rio de Janeiro



"Loureiro’s book is fundamental in deconstructing citizenship as a colonial device of exclusion. With a critical analysis focused on the subaltern, it proposes the tactical use of law to guarantee immediate protections, aiming for an emancipatory citizenship that overcomes racial hierarchies and promotes justice for all!" José Ricardo Cunha, State University of Rio de Janeiro



"This book offers a profound deconstruction of how coloniality remains constitutive of citizenship even after empire has formally ended. Tracing histories of indigeneity, segregation, assimilation, and exclusion, it makes a major contribution to critical citizenship studies." Maarten Vink Tibúrcio, European University Institute

"Loureiro’s Colonial Citizenship is an impressive exegesis on citizenship in the Portuguese empire, exposing the throughline from the laws of slavery and empire to those governing citizenship today. The book is grounded in his careful analysis of centuries of law, informed by his deep dive into the archives to uncover these laws’ origins. Loureiro does not merely recount this fascinating history, he interrogates it in order to deconstruct contemporary laws and policies. Colonial Citizenship is an invaluable work of legal history that is sure to be cited by citizenship scholars from around the world for decades to come." Amanda Frost, University of Virginia



"The book exposes the coloniality of citizenship since the oldest modern colonial empire through a rare mix of gripping tale, historical perspective, political urgency and poetic style. A must read" Manuela Boatcă, University of Freiburg

M. C. Loureiro is a Lecturer at Leicester Law School.

0. Introduction: Critical Citizenship Theory: Coloniality, Race and Empire

Part I: Colonial Contexts

1. Pre-Constitutional Subalternity: Building the Self through Negatory Nationality

2. Constitutionalising Subalternity: Legal Ccategories, Global Empires and the Transitions of Slavery

Part II: Colonial Developments

3. Creating the Indigene: Race and Formal Belonging

4. Living in Indigeneity: Surviving Constitutional Segregation and Material Restrictions

5. Leaving Indigeneity Behind: The Reality of Total Subalternity and the Lisbon Applications

Part III: Colonial Ends

6. Becoming Foreigner: Postcolonial Nationality Law and Racial Summoning

7. 7. Between Nostalgia and Utopia: Citizenship as Correctness and Finitude