The danger of any biological model of social formation is that it obscures the hierarchies implicit in that formation, thereby undermining the potential for critical introspection and political change. In its current incarnation across the fields of American studies and cultural studies, the keyword “naturalization” names that danger, serving, somewhat colloquially, as a synonym for “biologization.” In all of its usages, “naturalization” evinces the alchemy of the state: the transformation of the many, if not into one, then at least into an intricate relatedness that hovers uncertainly between kinship and citizenship. In this modern concept of the nation, political affiliation (citizenship) and common descent (kinship) are interfused rather than sedimentary modes of belonging. Kinship, no less than citizenship, is a taxonomic construction that registers, even as it masks, social and political hierarchies. The interweaving of the two is evident in early-twentieth-century debates over topics ranging from eugenics to migration policy. As a primary mechanism of non-sexual state reproduction, naturalization thus offers an important site of inquiry for scholars who are committed to understanding the legacy of those debates in our contemporary moment (Weinbaum 2004). 

This is an excerpt from Priscilla Wald’s entry in Keywords for American Cultural Studies (pp. 173-174).