Migrant Aspirations and New Models of Citizenship: A Changing Landscape
Organizers: HIDDEN COST Action and GAPs Horizon Europe Project
Thursday, 20 February 2025, University of Glasgow, in person (no hybrid), 10:00-18:00
Participants: 8-10 researchers
The university of Glasgow invites submissions for an upcoming workshop that will examine the intersections of citizenship aspirations, belonging, ID documentation, climate change, and migration, with a focus on how these dynamics are evolving in the face of contemporary global challenges. The international effort to provide universal legal identity by 2030, as outlined in Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16.9, is a major focus of contemporary citizenship debates. Yet, significant barriers to ID remain for migrants who often face discrimination, racism and increasing calls to return to their countries of origin. Further, it is not clear how the rights of vulnerable populations will be protected if a legal ID also leads to augmented governmentality and more state surveillance. Beyond these important concerns: what do people on the ground want in terms of their own citizenship identity? What meanings do they give to citizenship? And how do they negotiate with formal citizenship structures? We need more research on migrants’ ID experiences and their goals and worries with regards to belonging. Scholars are encouraged to contribute original research addressing the following topics.
The papers may answer, but not be limited to, one of the following questions:
● Citizenship as Legal and Emotional Membership: How does citizenship encompass both legal membership and emotional attachment and how does this impact migration projects? Is there a preference for hope-filled uncertainty over hopeless certainty? Do we see a capacity to move on with life/resilience in the absence or loss of ID? How do emotions and social relations affect daily life and decision making about mobility? How do migrants engage in the social and / or political lives of their countries of residence?
● The Role of Identification (ID) in Everyday Life: What is the role of ID in daily life? When, where and how does gaining or losing an ID impact belonging? How do migrants see themselves and their struggles to obtain IDs (are their self-perceptions that they are cunning, strong, clever or humiliated)?
● ID and Migrant Agency: How do the regimes which bestow or withhold passports (and other ID) determine trajectories of migrants and the autonomy of migration processes? How do migrants “use policies” to their own advantage and not as intended by governance actors as creativity, hustling and improvisation ? In what ways has global migration transformed the prominent role of territorial citizenship, place of residence, and access to core rights?
● Colonial Legacies and Contemporary Barriers to Accessing Citizenship: What are the ongoing effects of colonial legacies on citizenship laws, including the gendered impacts of hereditary citizenship laws? How have civil registries, national identification systems, welfare states, passport offices, and citizenship tests historically shaped who gains access to services, territories, and opportunities? How do emerging technologies, such as biometrics and data collation, impact access to legal identity today?
● Climate Change and Citizenship Models: How is climate change influencing the development of new citizenship models? What emerging trends are reshaping the relationship between individuals and states as environmental challenges alter global migration patterns? Why do migrants engage / do not engage with citizens’ assemblies addressing climate change?
A range of interdisciplinary approaches and theoretical perspectives are welcomed, including but not limited to sociology, anthropology, political science, law, migration studies, and environmental studies. Selected papers will be published in a special issue of a peer-reviewed journal. Travel funding and generous daily allowance for accommodation and meals is available on a limited and competitive basis and involves joining the HIDDEN COST Action. For co-authored papers, only one author can participate at the workshop.
Submission Guidelines:
To apply, please fill in the application form until 15 November 2024. The form requires details about paper (title, abstract of 200 words) and author (name and affiliation). The results of the selection process will be communicated within 10 days after the application deadline. Full papers of the accepted presenters will be due by 14 February.