Citizenship in a Migratory World

Abstract

In a migratory world, citizenship is no longer a symbol of exclusivity and permanence; rather, it has become portable, exchangeable and multiple. As Kim Barry observed, ‘Migration decouples citizenship and residence disrupting tidy conceptions of nation-states as bounded territorial entities with fixed populations of citizens. Today states are constituted increasingly by large numbers of resident noncitizens as well as non-resident, external citizens’ (Barry, 2006, pp. 17–18). As a consequence, the ‘transnationalized’ national citizenship that crystallized under the impact of migration became distinctively extraterritorial and non-residential, for immigrants residing outside their states are simultaneously subject to the legislation of multiple sovereigns.