Ambiguous Citizenship in an Age of Global Migration

by Aoileann Ní Mhurchú

Overview

Many people see citizenship in a globalised world in terms of binaries: inclusion/exclusion, past/present, particularism/universalism. Aoileann Ní Mhurchú points out the limitations of these positions and argues that we need to be able to take into account the people who get caught between these traditional categories. Using critical resources found in poststructural, psychoanalytic and postcolonial thought, Ní Mhurchú thinks in new ways about citizenship, drawing on a range of thinkers including Kristeva, Bhabha and Foucault. Taking a distinctive theoretical approach, she shows how citizenship is being reconfigured beyond these categories.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780748692774
Publisher:	Edinburgh University Press
Publication date:	07/15/2014
Pages:	280
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.30(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Aoileann Ní Mhurchú is Lecturer in International Politics at the University of Manchester. Her research is located at the intersection of three areas: citizenship studies, international migration and contemporary political and philosophical thought.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements; Abbreviations; Translations; Introduction; 1. Exploring The Citizenship Debate: The Sovereign Citizen-Subject; 2. A Lens: The 2004 Irish Citizenship Referendum; 3. Trapped in the Citizenship Debate: Sovereign Time and Space; 4. Interrogating Sovereign Politics: An Alternative Citizen-Subject; 5. Challenging the Citizenship Debate: Beyond State Sovereign Time and Space; 6.Traces rather than Spaces of Citizenship: Retheorising the Politics of Citizenship; Conclusion; Bibliography.

What People are Saying About This

Peter Nyers

Few studies rethink citizenship with the creativity, imagination, and nuance of this book. Aoileann Ní Mhurchú investigates the politics of citizenship in relation to the struggles of intergenerational migrants, and reveals the value of seemingly fragile, impermanent and transient forms of political subjectivity. Highly recommended.

R.B.J Walker

This book builds on the challenges posed by recent critical analyses of citizenship. It shows not only that many contemporary forms of citizenship exceed national and territorial boundaries but, more significantly, resist the conventional opposition between claims to particular citizenships and claims to a common humanity. It does so by treating citizenship as both process and experience, especially in relation to intergenerational migration. It is a compelling and provocative intervention.

Editorial Reviews

Few studies rethink citizenship with the creativity, imagination, and nuance of this book. Aoileann Ní Mhurchú investigates the politics of citizenship in relation to the struggles of intergenerational migrants, and reveals the value of seemingly fragile, impermanent and transient forms of political subjectivity. Highly recommended.

Peter Nyers

This book builds on the challenges posed by recent critical analyses of citizenship. It shows not only that many contemporary forms of citizenship exceed national and territorial boundaries but, more significantly, resist the conventional opposition between claims to particular citizenships and claims to a common humanity. It does so by treating citizenship as both process and experience, especially in relation to intergenerational migration. It is a compelling and provocative intervention.

R.B.J Walker

An ambitious contribution to ‘critical citizenship studies’ – where the author herself places the work alongside the oeuvre of Étienne Balibar, Engin Isin and RBJ Walker, the book’s main intellectual influences – shifting our thinking back to the ontological foundations of ‘citizen’ … the book will have achieved its highest aim if all those working on migration and citizenship from various disciplinary perspectives take account of and engage with the challenge of understanding ‘ambiguous’ forms of citizenship.

Sociology - Chris Moreh