The unbearable rightfulness of being human: citizenship,displacement, and the right to not have rights

Claims to human rights protection made by displaced persons are displaced from the universe of humanity and rendered ineffective by the geopolitical character of modern international human rights law, in favour of the protection of citizens' rights claims. In response, there is increasing interest in leveraging respect for and protection of the rights of displaced persons through extension of the rights enjoyed and supposedly borne by emplaced citizens. However, it is a mistake to assume that humans as citizens bear human rights or that the freedoms that they may be able to extend beyond state boundaries are universalisable. The extension of the right to citizenship functions to displace questions of human rights themselves. The question of the human in rights is in fact always displaced, as long as the human subject is acted upon as if it could possess rights. In paying attention to the critical perspectives with which displaced persons confront the citizen, she or he may come to appreciate the fact that the universality of human rights is served where one does not claim to have rights but, rather, actively engages, without limits, with others in the struggle for rights and their respect.     

From citizenship to human rights: the stakes for democracy

A review of the literature on citizenship shows a trend away from anchoring citizenship practices to the nation-state and a move towards recasting the concept in universal terms. The paper examines this trend by focusing on the writings of Held, Bohman, and Benhabib. It distinguishes their ‘deliberative’ approach to citizenship, and suggests that this leads them to reformulate citizenship in a way which differs little from human rights. Although the paper shares in the view that a move to a human rights politics would pave the way for a more equitable order, it argues that there is also a risk. By drawing on the agonistic perspective on democratic politics, the paper shows that the risk is that we might undermine democratic politics by reducing it to a single principle.     

Vernacular rights cultures and the ‘Right to Have Rights’

We use a case study of the Landless Workers Movement (MST) in Brazil and the Via Campesina network of which they are part to develop the concept of ‘vernacular rights cultures’. Vernacular rights cultures calls attention to the way in which demands for the right to have rights call on particular cultures, histories and political contexts in a manner that can transform the rights inscribed in constitutions and political imaginaries. What Ranciere (1999) and Balibar (2002) call the democratisation of democracy, we therefore argue, does not just involve a logic of equality and inclusion through which dispossessed groups demand already existing rights. Rather, it also occurs as mobilisations alter the means through which rights are delivered and transform the content and meaning of the rights demanded.     

‘Kat Mai Ploi’ – bite and don't let go: motherhood and pursuits of justice in Thailand

This article examines the long-term struggles of two Thai mothers to define and attain their visions of justice: one to recover land flooded by a state dam project and the other to defy a municipal order to demolish her house for a vehicle turn-around. In particular, it studies how tropes and institutions of motherhood and human rights articulate with, and provide social and political resources to one another as these two women fight to lay claim to traditions of rights specific to Thai society.     

Beyond the state? Civil sociality and other notions of citizenship

Social scientists generally begin with a definition of citizenship, usually the rights-bearing membership of nation-states, and have given less attention to the notions of citizenship held by the people whom they study. Not only is how people see themselves as citizens crucial to how they relate to states as well as to each other, but informants' own notions of citizenship can be the source of fresh theoretical insights about citizenship. In this article I set out the four notions of citizenship that I encountered during interviews and participant observation across two contrasting regions of Mexico in 2007–2010. The first three notions of citizenship were akin to the political, social and civil rights of which social scientists have written. I will show that they took particular forms in the Mexican context, but they did still entail a relationship with nation-states – that of claiming rights as citizens on states. But the most common notion of citizenship, which has been little treated by social scientists, was of civil sociality – to be a citizen was to live in society, ideally in a civil way. I argue that civil sociality constitutes a kind of citizenship beyond the state, one that is not reducible to the terms in which people relate to states.     

International marriage in East and Southeast Asia: trends and research emphases

This paper gives an overview on international marriage in East and Southeast Asia. It first reviews the available data on the incidence and trends of transnational marriage. It then discusses the factors generally cited as contributing to the rising incidence of international marriage in the region: the increased mobility of population, particularly with respect to tourism, business travel, short-term employment and international study; and marriage market issues in a number of countries of the region, leading to deliberate and targeted search for spouses in other countries. It also reviews the types of international marriages in the region, including the national, ethnic and social characteristics of spouses in such marriages. Finally, it discusses the issues and problems covered and not (or inadequately) covered in the literature of international marriage in East and Southeast Asia in relation to the questions of rights and of the boundaries and sovereignty of the state.     

What Limits for Government Control? Civil Liberties and Anti‐terror Measures after the Heathrow Bomb Plot

The threat posed by transnational terrorism has excited debate about how best to calibrate relations between government, the courts and parliament: how can the provision of internal security be facilitated, whilst respecting freedoms and ensuring that policies enjoy broad legitimacy? Attention has focussed primarily on the power of the courts. Sections of the government have mooted a curtailment of judicial competencies; by contrast, a broad range of actors calls for ‐ at the least ‐ the maintenance of current judicial powers as the best means to prevent government from exploiting its already large scope for manoeuvre, as well as to overcome public scepticism. Yet the current debate misses the point that relations between government, courts and parliament have already been altered. Government has gained extra political resources thanks to its participation in forms of international counterterrorist cooperation. This shift of power, and associated problems, were clear during the recent ‘Heathrow bomb plot’.     

Constructions of migrant rights in Canada: is subnational citizenship possible?

Devolutionary trends in immigration and social welfare policy have enabled different levels of government to define membership and confer rights to people residing within the political boundary of a province or municipality in ways that may contradict federal legal status. Drawing upon theories of postnational and deterritorialized citizenship, we examined the legal construction of social rights within federal, provincial, and municipal law in Toronto, Ontario. The study of these different policy arenas focuses on rights related to education, access to safety and police protection, and income assistance. Our analysis suggests that the interplay of intra-governmental laws produces an uneven terrain of social rights for people with precarious status. We argue that while provincial and municipal governments may rhetorically seek to advance the social rights of all people living within their territorial boundaries, program and funding guidelines ensure that national practices of market citizenship and the policing of non-citizen subjects are reproduced at local levels.     

The quest for inclusion and citizenship in Ghana: challenges and prospects

Ghana's tortuous journey to democracy received a major boost in the year 2006 with the enactments of two human-rights-related pieces of legislation. In this article the author contends, on the one hand, that the recent enactments of an amendment to the law on representation of the people and the persons with disability law in Ghana constituted a noteworthy landmark in the search for inclusive citizenship. On the other hand, the relation between society and the political authority during the processes of the enactments highlighted characteristics of a post-colonial African state. The author explores the antagonisms that surrounded the enactments of these laws. The article concludes that although the Ghanaian experience represents a new wave of re-thinking of rights in Africa, it also underscores the deep-seated issues of contestation and negotiations that unavoidably accompany the expansion of democracy and extension of rights to the excluded and the marginalized.     

Struggles over the rights of foreign domestic workers in Malaysia: the possibilities and limitations of ‘rights talk’

Abstract

The publication of Max Weber's early lecture notes on economic theory as Volume III/1 of the Max Weber Gesamtausgabe (MWG) reveals for the first time how much his teaching in Freiburg and Heidelberg from 1894 to 1898 was influenced by the ‘modern economics’ of Carl Menger and his students, Friedrich von Wieser and Eugen Böhm-Bawerk. This review essay examines the significance of this volume, and also presents a brief history and assessment of the ongoing Gesamtausgabe project.     

On the durability and the decomposition of citizenship: the social logics of forced return migration in Cape Verde

This article explores the impact of deportation, a state practice increasingly applied by European and North American governments, on notions of sociality in transnational social fields. In particular, it concentrates on the dynamics between formal citizenship on the one hand and the moral economies of belonging and membership on the other. Drawing on anthropological fieldwork in Cape Verde, where deportation is producing a new social minority, this article examines the confluence of social and formal legal practices of exercising membership in transnational fields. After summarising the constitutive features of Cape Verdean transnational social formation, the trajectories and perspectives of deportees are highlighted in relation to their family networks, as well as in their encounters with the wider society and state structures. It is argued that understandings of social inclusion and perceptions of membership are embedded in moral discourses on ‘law’ and ‘justice’ as they circulate within transnational social fields. In the context of forced return migration, citizenship emerges as an arena for claiming legitimacy and integration and likewise becomes a key mode of the formulation of conditionalities for integration and social exclusion.     

Reconfiguring citizenship and nationality: dual citizenship of Taiwanese migrants in China

Many researchers have redefined citizenship to better understand the membership status aspired and demanded by contemporary migrants. As a result, the concept of ‘membership’ as opposed to citizenship was proposed in delineating the decoupling between citizenship and nationality; immigrant demands for rights and state policies in response can thereby be interpreted without considering the political meanings of citizenship. However, the decoupling of citizenship and national identity can be challenged when it comes to dual citizenship, especially when the homeland and host states are engaged in political tensions. This article examines the shifting policies of China (the People's Republic of China, or PRC) and Taiwan (the Republic of China, or ROC) towards the citizenship conferred to Taiwanese migrants in China. The findings of this research suggest that political dimension (including political rights and obligations) should be regarded as an integral part of citizenship (i.e. national membership) especially in the rival-state context. The Taiwan–China case can contribute to our understanding of citizenship policy changes under the double pressure of inter-state rivalry and globalization. The globalizing forces help create conditions for ‘flexible citizenship’ in the ‘zones of hypergrowth’, while in the case of Taiwan–China inter-state competition draws governments and people back to zones of loyalty, the nationally defined memberships.     

Raising citizens in ‘mixed’ family setting: mothering techniques of Filipino and Thai migrants in Belgium

As states increasingly regulate ‘mixed’ family formation, self-positioning has become central to the lives of migrant spouses, including women. To understand this process, the present article investigates the mothering techniques of Filipino and Thai migrant women in Belgium, that is, the decisions, actions and ways of being they consciously enact in response to state policies ‘here’ and/or 'there' to secure the mother–child bond in space and time. Interviews and observations reveal these women’s main techniques: obtaining Belgian nationality for themselves, prioritising a single nationality (Belgian) for their children and staying at home (in the case of Filipino migrant women) or working (in the case of Thai women). This self-positioning sets these women’s own path and prepare their children’s route towards full, active membership in the nation. Mothering appears therefore as a fertile site of citizenship, which from afar echoes the public–private divide but in close-up reveals the porosity of such dichotomy.     

What can Post‐Democracy tell us about TNCs and Extraterritorial Violations of Human Rights?

This article considers the problem of extraterritorial human rights violations committed by transnational corporations (TNCs), and draws on Crouch's framework in Post‐democracy to illustrate why the issue has proved so difficult for states to regulate. I begin by examining the problem of corporate regulation more generally, and set out Crouch's analysis to show why and how corporations have become so influential. The second section considers the area of business and human rights, and explains why there is ‘a governance gap’ in relation to extraterritorial human rights violations committed by corporations. The third section describes efforts at the international and domestic levels to regulate corporations in relation to this issue. It concludes that while new international principles and innovative hybrid schemes are playing a valuable role in norm creation and standard‐setting, the enforcement of these principles remains limited. Corporations have largely succeeded to date in their lobbying efforts to remain free of any direct obligations under international law.     

Pedagogisation of nation identity through textbook narratives in China: 1902–1948

How to construct a national collective identity in a diversified population becomes a challenge for many nation states. Focusing on the tension between diversity, citizenship and national identity, this article adopts the lens of the pedagogical state to analyse national identity construction in Chinese political education textbooks published between 1902 and 1948. The purpose of this research was to explore the pedagogical mechanisms with which the textbook narratives accommodate the tensions of diversity in a culturally heterogeneous population and transmit a newly invented national identity (‘the Chinese nation’, Zhonghua minzu) to the masses. Two general rationales of persuasion are identified in the textbooks: narrative of origin and narrative of promise. Framing the analysis in China's citizenship project by the state, this study argues that the textbooks lead the general public into a citizenship identity contract on the grounds of the two rationales.