MA Seminar Series: BURNING ISSUES

WEEK 2CITIZENSHIP

REIKO SHINDO

Introduction

Any new students?

Last week: Course overview / What does it mean to be critical in IR?

This week: What is the difference between traditional and critical citizenship? What kinds of political issues can be best analysed through the

perspective of citizenship? What are cosmopolitanism debates? What is ‘acts of citizenship’?

Quick exercise!

What does citizenship mean to you?

List three words that come to your mind when thinking about citizenship?

How does your answer to this question help you to define citizenship?

Citizenship and the state

The relationship between ‘men’ and ‘citizens’

The state obligation to protect ‘citizens’

The conflict between ethical responsibilities and state obligations: the difference between cosmopolitanism and communitarianism

Two different ideas of citizenship 1. Citizenship as a bundle of legal rights

T.H. Marshall

Civil, political, and social rights

Rights are given by the states

Denizens

Two different ideas of citizenship

2. The idea of ‘acts of citizenship’

Engin F. Isin

Citizenship as practices

Rights are claimed and taken by people from others

Bearers of rights are not limited to people with rights

Examples of claim-making moments of citizenship

The ‘acts of citizenship’

Forms of political community other than the state The sense of belonging to community is cultivated through

different forms of community (e.g. dual citizenship, multiple citizenship)

What kinds of community can you think of as providing a form of belonging other than the state?

Political struggles at the centre of citizenship The right to claim rights (instead of the right to have rights) Noncitizens’ claim-making What kinds of struggles can you think of as instances where

people claim citizenship?

‘Migration crisis’ in Europe

‘Migration crisis’ in Europe; triggered by the conflict in Syria (March 2011)

More than 12 million Syrians have been displaced: 7.6 million people are internally displaced; About 4 million have fled their country; more than 130, 000 killed; 4 million registered/awaiting for registration with the UNHCR.

Majority of Syrian refugees fled to neighbouring countries: Turkey 2 million; Lebanon (1 in 5) 1.2 million; Jordan 1.4 million; Egypt 130, 000; Iraq 250, 000

‘Migration crisis’ in Europe 5 percent of the total number of

displaced Syrians have arrived in Europe: 200,000 Syrians have arrived in Europe in 2015 (adding to the 230,000 Syrians already in Europe); The British government has recently expressed its intention to resettle 20,000 over the next 5 years

the US has resettled around 1,500 Syrians have been resettled in the US; 2,000 in Russia; Russia refuses to take part in any resettlement scheme)

(Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34329825)

‘Migration crisis’ in Europe

40,000 migrants currently staying in Greece and Italy will be relocated to other EU states.

The EU has yet to achieve an agreement on mandatory quotas for 120,000 displaced Syrians.

Germany and the European commission are pushing the plan of the mandatory quotas forward.

(Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34329825)

Who are the 120,000?

They are "in clear need of international protection" to be resettled from Italy, Greece, Hungary to other EU member states

15,600 from Italy, 50,400 from Greece, 54,000 from Hungary, it is unclear though how many are still in Hungary

Initial screening of asylum applicants carried out in Greece, Hungary and Italy

Syrians, Eritreans, Iraqis prioritised

Financial penalty of 0.002% of GDP for those member countries refusing to accept relocated migrants

Relocation to accepting countries depends on size of economy and population, average number of asylum applications

Transfer of individual applicants within two months

(‘Migrant crisis: EU ministers approve disputed quota plan’, BBC, 22 September 2015)

‘Migration crisis’ in Europe

Some key categories

Citizen: an individual with legal status as member of a particular territorial political unit

Foreigner: an individual outside of his or her country of citizenship

Stateless person: an individual without legal protection of any state

Immigrant: an individual who settles in a country other than that of his or her country of citizenship (second/third generation immigrants)

Refugee: an individual who is formally recognized as requiring protection in a state other than his or her own, due to persecution in his or her home state

Migrant: an individual who has moved (across international state borders?), usually for the purpose of work, or to join family members

Asylum seeker: an individual who seeks protection as a refugee

Some key distinctions

Forced/voluntary; political/economic; legal/illegal

What is at stake by defining people based on the aforementioned categories?

‘Migrant’ crisis or ‘refugee’ crisis?

What is at stake in calling the current human movement as ‘migration’ ‘crisis’?

‘Migration crisis’ in Europe

In pairs, please discuss the following questions:

How do you call them? Migrants? Refugees? Something else (e.g. ‘humanitarian migrants’)?

What is at stake by defining people based on the aforementioned categories?

What kinds of solutions can be conceivable?

There are people who welcome migrants; and those who are hesitant to accept them. Is conversation between them possible? How do you talk to people who hold different views on the issue of migration crisis?

In what way, does the ‘acts of citizenship’ help us to understand migration crisis?

How differently migration ‘crisis’ would be discussed if it is understood by using the idea of ‘acts of citizenship’?

Please prepare feedback to the group as a whole.

Group exercise

Recommended readings Nyers, P. and Z. Sleiman (2016 forthcoming) ‘Citizenship’, in Ní Mhurchú, Aoileann. and

Shindo, Reiko. (Eds) Critical Imaginations in International Relations, Oxon: Routledge.

Isin, E.F. (2009) ‘Citizenship in Flux: the Figure of the Activist Citizen’, Subjectivity 29: 367-388.

Marshall, T.H. (1950) Citizenship and Social Class and Other Essays, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

McNevin, A. (2011) Contesting Citizenship: Irregular Migrants and New Frontiers of the Political, New York: Columbia University Press.

Nyers, P. (2008) ‘Community without Status: Non-Status Migrants and Cities of Refuge’ in D. Brydon and W. Coleman (Eds) Renegotiating Community: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Global Contexts, Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.

Rygiel, K. (2010) Globalizing Citizenship. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.

Stevens, J. (2010) States without Nations: Citizenship for Mortals, New York: Columbia University Press.

Tyler, I. and K. Marciniak, (Eds) (2014) Protesting Citizenship: Migrant Activisms, London: Routledge.