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.     

农民工公民意识现状分析及对策研究

公民意识是社会意识形态的形式之一，它是公民对自身的政治地位和法律地位、应履行权利和应承担义务的自我认识。现阶段，农民工公民意识普遍薄弱，主要表现为公民身份意识、权利义务意识、法律意识以及民主平等意识的缺乏。因此，政府应为农民工创造更多的政治参与机会，加强农民工公民意识教育工作，加快和完善政治社团建设，提高农民工自身的整体素质，从而使其成为建设好公民社会的重要因素。     

Intersex/variations of sex characteristics and DSD citizenship in the UK,Italy and Switzerland

ABSTRACT

Citizenship studies is highly relevant to understanding intersex, variations of sex characteristics (VSC), and Disorders of Sex Development (DSD), yet little scholarship exists to date about intersex citizenship. This article outlines and develops the foundations for a distinctive intersex citizenship studies, addressing health citizenship, children’s citizenship, legal rights, and breaches of human rights experienced by intersex people and those with DSD. The paper presents original qualitative data from research in the UK, Italy and Switzerland with intersex people and their advocates, medics, and policy stakeholders. It shows that asserting citizenship is crucial for intersex people and those with VSC or DSD. This extremely marginalised population require social, intimate, children’s and health citizenship. Intersex citizenship addresses both medical and human rights issues in an integrated way.     

For ‘common struggles of migrants and locals’. Migrant activism and squatting in Athens

ABSTRACT

This article analysis the socio-political form of the migrant squats, and the socio-spatial interactions they foster and generate. Drawing on empirical research, it focuses on the Athenian context where, since September 2015, political groups belonging to the anti-authoritarian and Left-libertarian movement, occupied some empty buildings to host migrants in transit through the country. From a political perspective, the squats are interpreted here as strategies of struggle to gain access to the space of the city and they also constitute instances of migrant activism and resistance to the European border regime. Moreover, migrant occupations represent practices and sites for contesting citizenship, intended as a category of political status; as such, they exceed the limits of this category and move beyond the boundaries of the nation-state, originating practices of citizenship ‘from below’, while at the same time they produce subjectivities that choose to ‘opt out’ of citizenship as a legal status. This article is situated within the contextualisation of space and autonomy. Migrant squats are looked at from the angle of the ‘gaze of autonomy’, since they are aimed both at contesting citizenship as an exclusionary feature, and at revindicating the activists’ (both migrants and non) presence in the space of city.     

Social innovation driven by citizen-led digital innovation: technologies of citizenship and the war on unemployment in Flanders

ABSTRACT

Citizens’ participation in technology design is increasingly deployed as a means to tackle social issues and a technique of empowerment. Techniques of empowerment belong to a set of strategies and methods employed by governmental and nonprofit organizations to constitute active, participatory citizens. This contribution exposes the political rationalities underpinning emerging initiatives that perpetuate citizens’ subjection by deploying participation as their essential governing technology. It analyses an initiative developed by a Belgian nonprofit organization to involve citizens in the design and development of digital tools to tackle unemployment. Findings unveil the potential downsides of participatory practices of technology design for social innovation. Critical reflections invite practitioners to pay greater attention to their design and implementation towards making them truly empowering processes.     

Global citizenship as a national project: the evolution of segye shimin in South Korean public discourse

The idea of global citizenship in contemporary South Korean public discourse has revolved mainly around a national endeavor to boost the county's stature and competitiveness amid economic globalization. Based on a review of two decades of published media references to segye shimin (‘global citizen’ in the Korean language), this article shows that the specific usages of segye shimin – mainly by elites from government, academia, and journalism – underscore how the ‘developmental citizenship’ that marked South Korea's past authoritarian military regimes has carried on since the transition to civilian-led democracy. In contrast with the burgeoning academic discourse on cosmopolitanism that focuses heavily on moral responsibilities to humanity and the planet, South Korea's discourse of global citizenship has been closely aligned with neoliberalism and filled with exhortations to the domestic population to overcome numerous perceived liabilities seen as impeding the country's advancement. While global citizenship discourse in South Korea has emphasized top-down national strategic imperatives, a bottom-up approach to cosmopolitanism is also emerging as the country gains confidence and the notion of segye shimin gradually gains traction across the wider society.     

Autonomous peasant struggles and left arts of government

I argue that self-organisation cannot account for how grassroots struggles can pursue transnational political change. I develop an account of some ‘left arts of government’ through which resistance is facilitated and organised without reintroducing oppressive and hierarchical forms of rule. I do so by focusing on the practices of autonomous peasant mobilisations. Land occupation movements facilitate the ability of people to engage in ongoing resistance on their own behalf. They organise resistance through horizontal communication and through transnational networks involving representative structures. Finally, peasant mobilisations engage with states and international institutions to solidify gains made.     

Participación política de los migrantes. Reflexiones sobre la extensión de la ciudadanía en Argentina

Political participation for both, foreigners living in Argentina as well as nationals living abroad, is the topic of this paper. Through legislation, both groups have limited, in whole or in part, voting rights. An empirical study is carried out in order to identify that discrimination. The study of the legal framework allows us to verify whether or not migrants are considered political actors, empowered to participate actively in public life, and become part of the common will. This review reveals that there is a heterogeneous landscape of the legislative framework that enables the vote in national, provincial and local elections. It is argued that restricting citizenship to nationality or residence is a simple and unrealistic approach to contemporary human mobility. An open, inclusive and flexible citizenship is more consistent with a true democratic order.     

ʽYou’re not getting rid of usʼ. Performing acts of citizenship in times of emigration

This article uses academic literature on acts of citizenship and performative citizenship to investigate the contestation, protest, and resistance actions carried out by the Marea Granate collective in defence of the citizenship rights of Spanish citizens living abroad. Marea Granate (Maroon Wave) is a transnational network of young Spanish emigrants that emerged in 2013 as a result of the recent widespread emigration provoked by the economic crisis and austerity politics in Spain. Based on their shared identity as economic exiles and demanding the right to participate in Spanish political life to change the conditions that led them to emigrate, the members of this organization have been carrying out innovative, creative citizenship acts that are breaking conventions and causing ruptures in the Spanish citizenship regime. These ‘transformative acts of recovering’, the term used to refer to Marea Granate’s demands and struggles for citizenship, have proven to be capable of being a driving force for change and also reveal the fluid and contested nature of citizenship in the contexts of austerity and emigration.     

American citizenship and expatriatism: identity and politics outside the state

This article seeks to interrogate the concept of global citizenship through the disruptive lens of the American expatriate. The goal of this inquiry is to use empirical research done on American expatriates, including the results of a survey conducted by the authors, to better understand issues of citizenship and politics amongst American expatriates. The theoretical literature on citizenship and transnationalism argues that immigrants and expatriates help challenge the hegemony of the nation-state, a claim that can be tested by investigating how expatriates view their own experiences. By juxtaposing the empirical work of researchers focused on American expats with the theoretical work of citizenship and globalization theorists, we find that political affinity and national identity continue to matter for those living outside the USA, but within a larger global context. Thus, if the path envisioned by those who embrace globalization is to be followed, how might concepts of citizenship and national policy towards their citizens need to change?