1. Citizenship and migration: mapping the terrain

Citizenship lies at the heart of modern democracies. As a result, scholars have addressed it from a variety of different angles, ranging from normative-philosophical reflections to more “positive” yet theoretically-oriented discussions, to analyses based on empirical evidence. Moreover, today migration represents both a key policy field and an important field of study in its own right. And yet, the two concepts aligned, as in this Handbook of Citizenship and Migration, might come across as in opposition. This contrast appears as all the more stark when we consider those characters which are seen to embody these two terms: while citizens are those who are generally ascribed as belonging to a specific place (originally, the city, today, more generally a country), migrants are by definition people who move from one place (a city, a country, and so forth) to another. Yet, citizenship and migration are so intimately linked that it is hard to theorize one without taking into account the other. Citizenship and migration in democracies are often seen as two different terms, bringing up belongingness, or a one-sided view of people and their situation (for example, see the search to identify and categorize individuals). The fact that the recently published Oxford Handbook of Citizenship (Shachar et al. 2017b) is co-edited by four scholars who have published extensively on migration is perhaps symptomatic of the state of affairs. This is all the more true in our increasingly globalized world. In such a context, the increasing flows of migrants – especially refugees and asylum-seekers – who escape poverty, violent conflicts or other difficult situations, are often used as scapegoats for a wide array of challenging social issues facing contemporary democracies, often by political entrepreneurs seeking to further their own ends. Moreover, consideration of the long-term patterns of exploitation, North‒South inequalities, conflict, and so forth, that lead to the increasing migration flows further challenges traditional conceptions of citizenship, putting these to a strenuous test, and in the process pushes the conceptual boundaries of what has hitherto been understood as a “citizen. ” There is no single all-encompassing definition of citizenship. Definitions can be narrower or broader, with some stressing certain aspects rather than others, depending on the perspective and the discipline. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines citizenship along two major lines: as the status of being a citizen, or as membership in a community. The first aspect focuses our attention on what or who is a citizen. According to the same source, a citizen is an inhabitant of a city or town (especially one entitled to the rights and privileges of a freeman), a member of a state (or a native or naturalized person who owes allegiance to a government and is entitled to protection from it), or a civilian, as distinguished from a specialized servant of the state. Scholarly work also abounds in definitions. While we agree with Shachar et al. (2017a) that articulating a single definition to suit all purposes is either a hopeless task or a sectarian project, here we would nonetheless like to adopt one. To do so, we follow that proposed by Bellamy (2008: 17):