Isin - Citizens Without Frontiers

CITIZENS
WITHOUT
FRONTIERS

CITIZENS
WITHOUT
FRONTIERS

ENGIN F. ISIN

Bloomsbury Academic

An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

50 Bedford Square London WC1B 3DP UK

175 Fifth Avenue New York NY 10010 USA

www.bloomsbury.com

First published 2012

Engin F. Isin, 2012

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers.

No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury Academic or the author.

The Unknown Citizen, copyright 1940 and renewed 1968 by W.H. Auden, Thanksgiving for a Habitat: VIII: Grub First, Then Ethics, copyright 1963 by W.H. Auden and renewed 1991 by The Estate of W.H. Auden, from COLLECTED POEMS OF W. H. AUDEN by W.H. Auden. Used by permission of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Isin, Engin F. (EnginFahri), 1959

Citizens without frontiers / Engin F. Isin.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4411-8583-9 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-4411-1605-5 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. World citizenship. 2. CitizenshipPhilosophy. 3. Globalization. I. Title.

JZ1320.4.I85 2012

323.6dc23

2012020484

ISBN: 978-1-4411-2929-1

For Evelyn

To JS/07 M 378

This Marble Monument Is Erected by the State

He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be

One against whom there was no official complaint,

And all the reports on his conduct agree

That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word,

he was a saint,

For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.

Except for the War till the day he retired

He worked in a factory and never got fired,

But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc.

Yet he wasnt a scab or odd in his views,

For his Union reports that he paid his dues,

(Our report on his Union shows it was sound)

And our Social Psychology workers found

That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink.

The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day

And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in

every way.

Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured,

And his Health-card shows he was once in hospital but

left it cured.

Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare

He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Instalment Plan

And had everything necessary to the Modern Man,

A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire.

Our researchers into Public Opinion are content

That he held the proper opinions for the time of year;

When there was peace, he was for peace: when there

was war, he went.

He was married and added five children to the population,

Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of

his generation.

And our teachers report that he never interfered with

their education.

Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:

Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.

W. H. Auden, The Unknown Citizen (1939)

CONTENTS

PREFACE

In the last 40 years, there has been an enormous focus on people who move between countries for work, travel, and I should add, escape. Whether treated as legal or illegal, these mobilities for business, education, tourism, refuge or migration involve the relocation and sometimes permanent resettlement of people. The proliferation of regimes and apparatuses to control and regulate such mobilities has been widely discussed. Less well documented is another development that has required little or no relocation. The growth of humanitarian politics, international volunteerism and transnational activism has changed politics on a global scale. These have enabled or mobilized people to act across frontiers without necessarily making claims to mobility or resettlement. Of these, perhaps the most remarkable has been what came to be known as without frontiers signifying the provision of professional expertise and services without remuneration. Although the most prominent of these has been Mdecins Sans Frontires (MSF), there have been others such as Reporters Without Borders and Lawyers Without Borders. Moreover, although it has not been identified as such, we could add celebrities without frontiers, as we have seen the emergence of high-profile entertainment figures involved in cross-border politics, such as Madonna, Bob Geldof, Sean Penn, Bono, Angelina Jolie and many others. Despite significant differences, their shared premise is fame converted into professional status. It is very difficult to sift through these complex terrains of politics that enable people to act across frontiers and articulate what citizens without frontiers might mean. There are many activities that do not fall under the existing categories of activism and yet possibly indicate something just as significant about our present age. To begin with, citizens without frontiers is a paradox. By definition, citizens are members of nation-states and they do not have the capacity to act under that name outside the nation-state of which they are members. Citizenship, in other words, does not cross frontiers. Yet, for all the reasons I already mentioned, citizens of nation-states are either implicated or deliberately involved in all those things that cross nation-state frontiers. But if citizens are to act across frontiers, they always have to leave their citizenship at home and act under the disguise of professional expertise, privilege and accreditation. To put it another way, for those who have accumulated cultural and symbolic capital associated with their professional fields, moving across frontiers is much less of an issue and is broadly accepted if not encouraged. What happens if citizens act without disguise? What if citizens act across frontiers as citizens? This happens a lot more than we realize but we have yet to recognize and name it. Having failed to recognize and name it, we criminalize and punish it. I aim to identify such acts, develop a vocabulary appropriate for recognizing and investigating them, and, hopefully, contribute to our understanding of this emerging politics without disguise; or the politics of those whose acts traverse frontiers.

I have accumulated considerable debt to colleagues and institutions for which I am grateful and without which this book would not be possible. For the invitation to deliver a keynote at Royal Geographical Society with the Institute of British Geographers (RGSIBG) Annual International Conference in 2003 to Luke Desforges, Rhys Jones and Mike Woods. (Until recently, I had forgotten that it was entitled citizens without frontiers.) For inviting me to write it as a book to Marie-Claire Antoine at Bloomsbury and her subsequent guidance and counsel. For participating in the 17 June 2011 (London) workshop to Linda Bosniak, Enrica Rigo, Vicki Squire; for participating in the 8 July 2011 (London) workshop to Claudia Aradau, Stuart Elden, Sandro Mezzadra, Zaki Nahaboo and Jackie Stevens; for participating in the 7 September 2011 (Toronto) workshop to Mariana Valverde, Audrey Macklin, Kim Rygiel and Peter Nyers; for participating in the 28 October 2011 (London) workshop to Alessandra Marino, Deena Dajani, Zaki Nahaboo, Lisa Pilgram, Dana Rubin, Aya Ikegame, Leticia Sabsay and Jack Harrington; and, for participating in the 8 December 2011 (Milton Keynes) workshop to John Allen, John Clarke, Jef Huysmans, Raia Prokhovnik and Michael Saward. I am also grateful to Jef Huysmans and the Centre for Citizenship, Identities and Governance (CCIG) in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Open University for providing wonderful intellectual support and for funding these workshops. Cynthia Weber kindly read and made sense of senseless fragments and provided critical comments. Zaki Nahaboo provided brilliant research assistance on the acts including drafting many original narratives and feedback on these acts. Kim Rygiel, Anne McNevin and Rada Ivekovi asked penetrating and stimulating questions during two interviews. I am grateful to Lisa Pilgram and Anne Paynter for their brilliant attitude and fortitude in keeping things moving and creating spaces for me to write. For providing a brilliantly close and attentive copy-editing, I thank Jack Harrington. For engaging with theorizing acts during