Citizenship agendas for the abject: The production of distrust in Amsterdam's youth and security domain

Abstract

In this article I explore the seemingly contradictory notion of citizenship agendas for the abject. While abjection suggests a casting off or expulsion, citizenship implies inclusion. The youth and security policies that I argue can be read as citizenship agendas for the abject evidence this contradiction and the concomitant ambiguity. This article focuses on the workings of the youth and security assemblage' in the Amsterdam South District. This policy assemblage primarily targets unruly' young Moroccan-Dutch men from Amsterdam's notorious Diamantbuurt. In Amsterdam and elsewhere in the Netherlands, such young men have been portrayed as the ultimate troublemakers who have made urban lives unsafe and terrorized' entire neighborhoods. Through an ethnographic analysis of a public event that brought together various members of the youth and security assemblage, this article examines the tensions and organized distrust that these citizenship agendas for the abject carry within them.