The anthropology of citizenship has sought to understand citizenship beyond formal-legal definitions, including a focus on how those who are legally without citizenship rights also engage in... Show moreThe anthropology of citizenship has sought to understand citizenship beyond formal-legal definitions, including a focus on how those who are legally without citizenship rights also engage in everyday acts of political claims-making. While this emphasis on the enactment of citizenship has expanded our understanding of who counts as a political being, it has also been obviously human centered. Might we also understand animals’ acts, their presence and movements, as having the potential to constitute political constituents? This article develops a more-than-human perspective on political claims-making by connecting insights from human-animal studies to the anthropology of citizenship. We draw on research on rats in Amsterdam to propose an understanding of these animals’ interventions in the urban built environment as more-than-human “acts of denizenship.” Focusing on different forms of rat behavior, we analyze rats’ mundane interactions and relations with the city's residents, infrastructure, and other animals as forms of claims-making. We see the behavior as efforts that are partially recognized by humans and that, as such, can be understood as enacting a relation of denizenship. Such attention to how rats act in and on urban space, we suggest, can help us conceptualize political agency and the formation of political belonging in ways that extend beyond the human. Show less
The determinants of whether or not an immigrant seeks to become a citizen are still largely invisible to scholars; as are the decisions made during the naturalization process by street-level... Show moreThe determinants of whether or not an immigrant seeks to become a citizen are still largely invisible to scholars; as are the decisions made during the naturalization process by street-level bureaucrats. Research on the acquisition of citizenship has incorporated a number of determinants of naturalization outcomes over the past decades, but lacks the contextualization of immigration law in its relation to criminal law. This systematic literature review of the 140 most-cited papers across the naturalization and crimmigration literatures seeks to construct a theoretical bridge between the disciplines in an effort to illuminate the blind spots challenging naturalization scholarship. I argue that the inclusion of crimmigration as a factor impacting naturalization is essential for scholarship in order to accurately use citizenship policies as an indicator of a state’s overall approach to immigration - particularly regarding residence requirements. The conceptual utilization of crimmigration in the context of citizenship acquisition offers new insights into the underexplored relationship between citizenship policy and the individual migrant, potentially uncovering some of the factors hindering immigrants’ ability to seek formal membership. Evidence within recent crimmigration scholarship points towards the role played by racialization within the functioning of a crimmigration system. This paper reviews the prominent streams of both strands of literature first utilizing a bibliometric analysis of the respective citation networks and second, diving into the substantial developments and parallels in naturalization and crimmigration research. Show less
In October 2019, massive demonstrations took place in the streets of Santiago, Chile. The demands were varied, addressing several aspects of the acute social inequalities that characterise Chilean... Show moreIn October 2019, massive demonstrations took place in the streets of Santiago, Chile. The demands were varied, addressing several aspects of the acute social inequalities that characterise Chilean society. Protests were met with a brutally violent response by the police forces deployed to control them. What was more difficult to regulate was the explosion of graffiti and street art that accompanied the social unrest. These mobilisations speak of the repolitisation of the civil sphere through the occupation of public spaces. In this article, I propose to look at the role public spaces have played in these events not only from the perspective of public spaces as sites of political encounter and counter-hegemonic mobilisations, but mostly as borders. I contend that public spaces act as material and symbolic borders where the struggles over practices of ordering and othering take place. By looking at the history of a square in Santiago’s city center—Plaza de la Dignidad—and a selection of the graffiti in its surroundings, I explore how the square acts as a border and, in doing so, enables an alternative spatial imagination that feeds new possible political and social orders. Show less
Since the fall of the authoritarian New Order regime in 1998, the indigenous movement in Indonesia has become one of the world’s largest national movements to champion the cause of rural... Show moreSince the fall of the authoritarian New Order regime in 1998, the indigenous movement in Indonesia has become one of the world’s largest national movements to champion the cause of rural communities. Its advocacy has pushed the government to implement legal reforms that have widened the scope for recognition of collective land rights. In the context of Indonesia’s widespread land conflicts, an important question is who gets to benefit from laws that grant land rights on the basis of indigeneity? By design, such laws are limited in their scope, given that they only grant rights to those that qualify as indigenous. In order to explain how indigeneity can actually empower local communities, this book adopts the perspective of actors at the local level. Focusing on how local land users in South Sulawesi invoke indigeneity in their struggles over land, this book explores the local processes through which claims to indigenous adat land rights succeed or fail to be recognized. The book combines case studies, legal analysis, and theories on social movements and collective action frames. The book alarmingly shows that by making indigeneity a prerequisite for land rights, the most vulnerable people may actually be excluded from obtaining such rights. Show less
This study examines the links between the state and civil society in Chile and the ways social policies have contributed since 1990 to the construction of democratic governance in that country. The... Show moreThis study examines the links between the state and civil society in Chile and the ways social policies have contributed since 1990 to the construction of democratic governance in that country. The main transformations in the link between the state and civil society in the period under consideration took shape in public policies, particularly in the social area. This was the top priority in government management and constituted the main difference from the previous neoliberal stance adopted by the Pinochet regime (1973-1990). On the basis of such policies, furthermore, participatory guidelines were set forth and efforts were directed to ensure social inclusion of the poorest sectors in society. The study discusses the role of public policies and the opportunities they provide for civil society in a scenario of political stability and economic growth based on opening to the foreign sector and the predominance of market economy. Given a broad notion of governance, it is argued that public policies have been the main instrument for transformation resorted to by democratic administrations since 1990 to amend the circumstances inherited from the military regime. However, the ability of these policies to expand democratic governance has proved to be limited, to the extent that such policies have become subordinate to an elitist model of democracy and adopted a restricted form of citizen participation. In this context, the following are discussed: (a) major social policy agendas; (b) selected innovations in the link between civil society and public policies; and (c) personal trajectories from civil society to positions of government power. Show less
This thesis investigates the highly complex issue of cross-border marriages between Mainland China and Taiwan in the period from early 1990 to 2004. The objectives of this research is to... Show moreThis thesis investigates the highly complex issue of cross-border marriages between Mainland China and Taiwan in the period from early 1990 to 2004. The objectives of this research is to investigate three aspects of cross-border marriage migration: 1) factors and motivations for cross-border marriage, that is, Why do mainland Chinese women choose to leave China and to come to Taiwan and why do Taiwanese men marry mainland Chinese women? 2) formation and justification of borders of exclusion, that is, Why and how are mainland brides constructed as “others”? 3) negotiation of gender and intra-familial relations among members of cross-border families. These questions are answered by looking at the perspectives of different actors and by examining how these perspectives are formed and whether and how they are substantiated. These actors include the state and the media, the marriage brokerage industry, and cross-strait couples and family members. Multiple research methodologies and sources of data are used, including ethnography, discourse analysis of policy and media representation and participant observation. Show less
