Immigration is continuously and rapidly changing the face of Western countries. While newcomers are harbingers of change, host nations also participate in how new populations are incorporated into their social and political fabric. Bringing together a transcontinental group of anthropologists, this book provides an in-depth look at the current processes of immigration, political behavior, and citizenship in both the United States and Europe. Essays draw on issues of race, national identity, religion, and more, while addressing questions, including: How should citizenship be defined? In what ways do immigrants use the political process to achieve group aims? And, how do adults and youth learn to become active participants in the public sphere? Among numerous case studies, examples include instances of racialized citizenship in “Algerian France,” Ireland’s new citizenship laws in response to asylum-seeking mothers, the role of Evangelical Christianity in creating a space for the construction of an identity that transcends state borders, and the Internet as one of the new public spheres for the expression of citizenship, be it local, national, or global.
Interest in citizenship has never been higher. But what does it mean to be a citizen in a modern, complex community? Richard Bellamy approaches the subject of citizenship from a political perspective and, in clear and accessible language, addresses the complexities behind this highly topical issue.
Contrary to predictions that it would become increasingly redundant in a globalizing world, citizenship is back with a vengeance. The Oxford Handbook of Citizenship brings together leading experts in law, philosophy, political science, economics, sociology, and geography to provide a multidisciplinary, comparative discussion of different dimensions of citizenship: as legal status and political membership; as rights and obligations; as identity and belonging; as civic virtues and practices of engagement; and as a discourse of political and social equality or responsibility for a common good. The contributors engage with some of the oldest normative and substantive quandaries in the literature, dilemmas that have renewed salience in today's political climate. As well as setting an agenda for future theoretical and empirical explorations, this Handbook explores the state of citizenship today in an accessible and engaging manner that will appeal to a wide academic and non-academic audience. Chapters highlight variations in citizenship regimes practiced in different countries, from immigrant states to 'non-western' contexts, from settler societies to newly independent states, attentive to both migrants and those who never cross an international border. Topics include the 'selling' of citizenship, multilevel citizenship, in-between statuses, citizenship laws, post-colonial citizenship, the impact of technological change on citizenship, and other cutting-edge issues. This Handbook is the major reference work for those engaged with citizenship from a legal, political, and cultural perspective. Written by the most knowledgeable senior and emerging scholars in their fields, this comprehensive volume offers state-of-the-art analyses of the main challenges and prospects of citizenship in today's world of increased migration and globalization. Special emphasis is put on the question of whether inclusive and egalitarian citizenship can provide political legitimacy in a turbulent world of exploding social inequality and resurgent populism.
Political turmoil surrounding immigration at the federal level and the inability of Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform have provided an opening for state and local governments to become more active in setting their own immigration-related policies. States largely dictate the resources, institutions, and opportunities immigrants can access: who can get a driver’s license or attend a state university, what languages are spoken in schools and public offices, how law enforcement interacts with the public, and even what schools teach students about history. In States of Belonging, an interdisciplinary team of immigration experts – Tomás R. Jiménez, Deborah J. Schildkraut, Yuen J. Huo, and John F. Dovidio – explore the interconnections among immigration policies, attitudes about immigrants and immigration, and sense of belonging in two neighboring states – Arizona and New Mexico – with divergent approaches to welcoming newcomers. Arizona and New Mexico are historically and demographically similar, but they differ in their immigration policies. Arizona has enacted unwelcoming policies towards immigrants, restricting the access of immigrants to state resources, social services, and public institutions. New Mexico is more welcoming, actively seeking to protect the rights of immigrants and extending access to state resources and institutions. The authors draw on an original survey and in-depth interviews of a cross-section of each state’s population to illustrate how these differing approaches affect the sense of belonging not only among immigrants, but among the U.S.-born as well. Respondents in Arizona, regardless of whether they were foreign- or native-born or their ethno-racial background, agreed that the state is unwelcoming to immigrants, and they pointed to Arizona’s restrictive policies as the primary factor. The sense of rejection perceived by Latinos in Arizona, including the foreign-born and the U.S.-born, was profound. They felt the effects of administrative and symbolic exclusions of the state’s unwelcoming policies as they went about their daily lives. New Mexico’s more welcoming approach had positive effects on the Latino immigrant population, and these policies contributed to an increased sense of belonging among U.S.-born Latinos and U.S.-born whites as well. The authors show that exposure to information about welcoming policies is associated with an improved sense of belonging across most population groups. They also find that the primary dividing line when it came to reactions to welcoming policies was political, not ethno-racial. Only self-identified Republicans, Latino as well as white, showed reduced feelings of belonging. States of Belonging demonstrates that welcoming policies cultivate a greater sense of belonging for immigrants and other state citizens, suggesting that policies aimed at helping immigrants gain a social, economic, and political foothold in this country can pay a broad societal dividend.
This book investigates politics of denaturalisation as a system of thought that influences seminal cultural political values, such as community, nationality, citizenship, selfhood and otherness. The context of the analysis is the politics of citizenship and nationality in France. Combining research insights from history, legal studies, security studies, and border studies, the book demonstrates that the language of denaturalisation shapes national identity as a form of formal legal attachment but also, and more counter-intuitively, as a mode of emotional belonging. As such, denaturalisation operates as an instrumental frame to maintain and secure the national community. Going back to eighteenth-century France and to both World Wars, periods during which governments deployed denaturalisation as a technology against “threatening” subjects, the analysis exposes how the language of denaturalisation interweaves concerns about immigration and national security. It is this historical backdrop that helps understand the political impact of denaturalisation in contemporary counterterrorism politics, and what is at stake when borders and identities become affective technologies.
This book offers a comparative analysis of the political agency of British migrants in Spain and France and explores how they struggle for a sense of belonging in the wake of Brexit. With the UK's departure from the European Union (EU), Britons are set to lose EU citizenship as their political rights are redefined. This book examines the impacts this is having on Britons living in two EU countries. It moves beyond the political agency of underprivileged migrants to demonstrate that those who are relatively well-off also have political subjectivities: they can enter the political fray if their fundamental values or key interests are challenged. This book is based on ethnographic inquiry into the political agency of Britons in the Spanish Province of Alicante and South West France in the twenty-first century. Themes such as Britons becoming elected as local councillors in their countries of residence, migrants’ reactions to Brexit, organisation of anti-Brexit campaigners, and claims for residency and citizenship are examined. The book foregrounds the contemporary practice theory built on the work of Pierre Bourdieu, as well as Engin Isin’s approach to enacting citizenship, to provide empirical insights into the political participation of Britons. It does so by demonstrating how the elected councillors stood against gross moral inequity and fought for a sense of local belonging; how campaigners emoted digitally in reaction to Brexit; and how some migrants, keen to remain without worry, learnt both to navigate and to contest the policy and practice of national bureaucracies. This book makes a first-ever contribution to the fields of anthropology and geography in the study of impacts of Brexit on British migrants within Europe. It is also the first study into lifestyle migrants as political agents. It will thus appeal to anthropologists, human geographers, sociologists, as well as academics and students of citizenship studies, migration studies, European studies, and political geography.
This book explores the extent to which the varied political status of Latinos is changing the meaning of citizenship and belonging in the United States. It brings together broad theoretical considerations of citizenship with discussions of historical and contemporary case studies pertaining to Latinos and current debates on citizenship. Focusing on Latinos' historical and continuing struggles against exclusion, the authors of this anthology discuss issues such as Latinos' multiple national allegiances, dual citizenship, the changing meaning(s) of belonging, their transnational political and social participation, the question of language and citizenship, regional cultural citizenship and loyalties, and the mobilization of Latino youth in their struggle to affirm their rights and belonging in US society.
This collection of articles critically examines legal subjectivity and ideas of citizenship inherent in legal thought. The chapters offer a novel perspective on current debates in this area by exploring the connections between public and political issues as they intersect with more intimate sets of relations and private identities. Covering issues as diverse as autonomy, vulnerability and care, family and work, immigration control, the institution of speech, and the electorate and the right to vote, they provide a broader canvas upon which to comprehend more complex notions of citizenship, personhood, identity and belonging in law, in their various ramifications.
In the most recent Democracy Index, the Economic Intelligence Unit downgraded the United States from a “full democracy” to a “flawed democracy.” Democracy, Civic Engagement, and Citizenship in Higher Education takes a hard look at the state of American democracy today through the lens of one of the nation’s most important actors: colleges and universities. Democracy is more than voting: it includes a wide range of democratic practices and depends on a culture of civic participation. Critical for strengthening democracy is the role that higher education leaders play in educating their constituencies about their responsibilities of citizenship. During a period of time when higher education is under pressure to meet 21st century workforce needs, the authors here exhort to remember the public mission of education to serve the needs of the democracy, a government by the people means that the people must be ready to govern. It is in this spirit that these stories are offered to show how institutions across the country are reclaiming and reinvigorating one of the essential pillars upon which American democracy is based.
In this groundbreaking book, Nira Yuval-Davis provides a cutting-edge investigation of the challenging debates around belonging and the politics of belonging. Alongside the hegemonic forms of citizenship and nationalism which have tended to dominate our recent political and social history, the author examines alternative contemporary political projects of belonging constructed around the notions of religion, cosmopolitanism, and the feminist ‘ethics of care’. The book also explores the effects of globalization, mass migration, the rise of both fundamentalist and human rights movements on such politics of belonging, as well as some of its racialized and gendered dimensions. A special space is given to the various feminist political movements that have been engaged as part of or in resistance to the political projects of belonging.
