This research aims to provide a bottom-up view of how immigrants approach, navigate, and act upon their statuses as citizens and noncitizens in their countries of residence. For this purpose, this paper presents an empirical case study of Mainland Chinese immigrants (MCIs) in Australia by integrating data sourced from Australia’s 2016 National Census as well as online and offline fieldwork. This paper develops the concept of strategic noncitizenship to understand MCIs’ responses to not only the constraining citizenship framework in China that prohibits dual citizenship, but also the changing framework in Australia that has sought to tighten its arrangements. This research argues that, just like citizenship, noncitizenship can also be a strategic self-chosen way of being; one that still allows room for agentic practices, claims-making, and political empowerment. Therefore, noncitizenship is not necessarily precarious and powerless as often claimed. This paper has two discussion sections. The first identifies and explains the distinctively low naturalisation rate among MCIs in Australia. The second part demonstrates how noncitizen MCIs have tactically responded to and even contested Australia’s initiatives to tighten its citizenship framework, and reflects upon their conditional political empowerment. The article concludes with future directions for research.

Qiuping Pan, Strategic noncitizenship: Mainland Chinese immigrants as noncitizens in Australia, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 2020.