This paper focuses on the possible transformation of the self in citizenship ceremonies in Western countries. It is argued that the transformation in these life defining moments is not only a question of ritual objectification or intentionality. The rituals are often experienced as emotional by the participants, but the emotional experience is often a matter of their own doing. From a performative approach the ritual agency is distributed, and as technologies of the civic self the subjectification is a heterogeneous and complex process, with multiple versions of transformations of the self. These transformations engage a so called ‘ontological choreography' in which processes of ritual objectification and subjectification are intertwined, involving materiality, performativity, structural constraint, and the co-dependence of the performers.