Abstract This commentary explores the politics of refusal as it plays out in struggles for citizenship. Refusals of noncitizenship involve a dialectic of negation and affirmation. They are at once acts of protest against an injustice or wrong, while also generative of new forms of political subjectivity and community. The refusals of noncitizenship found in the articles of this special forum involve acts of world building that involve new rights, responsibilities, and communities in the making.