Nomophiliac settlers: Liam Gillespie, ‘”Sovereign Citizen Gets Roasted”: On the Nomophilia of Sovereign Citizens and their Settler-Colonial Critics’, Social & Legal Studies, 2025 | settler colonial studies blog

Nomophiliac settlers: Liam Gillespie, ‘”Sovereign Citizen Gets Roasted”: On the Nomophilia of Sovereign Citizens and their Settler-Colonial Critics’, Social & Legal Studies, 2025

03Apr25

Abstract: Sovereign Citizens have gained mainstream attention by refusing to recognise law. This attention often entails ridicule, as illustrated by viral Sovereign Citizen arrest videos. This article critically examines both Sovereign Citizen ideology and the voyeuristic enjoyment of their humiliation. First, I propose that although Sovereign Citizen ideology is premised on rejecting law, it nevertheless paradoxically exhibits ‘nomophilia’, a love of law, insofar as its rejection attempts to secure precisely what law affords Sovereign Citizens: namely, possession of expropriated lands. Next, I argue that the widespread ridicule of Sovereign Citizens also tends towards nomophilia insofar as it facilitates the enjoyment of seeing the law ‘done’ to others by subjects who, through their enjoyment, can position themselves on ‘the right side’ of the law. I argue that while this ridicule works to pathologise Sovereign Citizens, it also attempts to discursively counteract Indigenous sovereignty by reinforcing the putative supremacy of law.

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