171 72 2MB
English Pages 230 Year 2011
Citizens of the World Pluralism, Migration and Practices of Citizenship
At the Interface
Series Editors Dr Robert Fisher Dr Daniel Riha
Advisory Board Dr Alejandro Cervantes-Carson Professor Margaret Chatterjee Dr Wayne Cristaudo Dr Mira Crouch Dr Phil Fitzsimmons Professor Asa Kasher Owen Kelly Dr Peter Mario Kreuter
Dr Martin McGoldrick Revd Stephen Morris Professor John Parry Dr Paul Reynolds Professor Peter L. Twohig Professor S Ram Vemuri Revd Dr Kenneth Wilson, O.B.E
Volume 74 A volume in the At the Interface series ‘Pluralism, Inclusion, Citizenship’
Probing the Boundaries
Citizens of the World Pluralism, Migration and Practices of Citizenship
Edited by
Robert Danisch
Amsterdam - New York, NY 2011
The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of “ISO 9706:1994, Information and documentation - Paper for documents Requirements for permanence”. ISBN: 978-90-420-3255-2 E-Book ISBN: 978-90-420-3256-9 ©Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam - New York, NY 2011 Printed in the Netherlands
Table of Contents Preface Robert Danisch PART 1
Redefining Citizenship The Postmodern Liberal Concept of Citizenship Sanja Ivic
PART 2
PART 3
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Citizenship and Agonism Paulina Tambakaki
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Jane Addams, Pragmatism and Rhetorical Citizenship in Multicultural Democracies Robert Danisch
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Redrawing the Lines of Inclusiveness MulWLculturalism in the Service of Capital: The Case of New Zealand Public Broadcasting Donald Reid
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Exclusive Inclusion: Japan’s Desire for, and Difficulty with, Diversity Julian Chapple
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German Politicians with Turkey Origin: Diversity in the Parliaments of Germany Devrimsel Deniz Nergiz
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Enacting Citizenship Economic Migration, Disaggregated Citizenship and the Right to Vote in Post-Apartheid South Africa Wessel le Roux
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Portuguese Civil Society and the Relation with the State Sonia Pires
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PART 4
Liminal Subjectivities Living Between Nation-States and Nature: Anthropological Notes on National Identities Humberto Dos Santos Martins
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Empowering Gypsies and Applied Anthropology Elisabetta Di Giovanni
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Transnational Practices of Care: The Portuguese Migration from Azores to Quebec (Canada) Ana Gherghel & Josiane Le Gall
Preface Robert Danisch This volume is the result of an interdisciplinary conference on ‘Pluralism, Inclusion, and Citizenship’ held in Salzburg, Austria in November 2009. The essays contained within this volume represent the results of a series of conversations that unfolded at the conference and in the months afterward. These conversations were not governed by the idiosyncrasies of any one discipline, nor were they governed by a series of methodological preoccupations concerning the ways in which one produces academic knowledge about a subject. Instead, these conversations tried to develop some insight into a concept in flux. The very idea of what it means to be a ‘citizen’ in our global, cosmopolitan world is no longer as clear as it may have been for an Athenian democrat of the fifth century BC, a Roman Republican of the first century BC, a British coloniser of the eighteenth century, or an American patriot of the nineteenth century. Given the now undeniable fact of pluralism highlighted by globalisation and the massive movement of peoples across borders (alongside the legal expansion of rights to minority groups in Western democracies throughout the twentieth century), the idea of citizenship now immediately implicates the problem of inclusion. Pluralism and migration also make identity an increasingly fragile and important concept that is only loosely tethered to the meaning of citizenship. Over the course of the conference it became increasingly apparent that the very idea of what it means to be a citizen of a state was complex and uncertain. And that the concept of citizenship was being actively rethought from the different disciplines represented at the conference: sociology, anthropology, literary studies, communication studies, and political science to name a few. One of the major themes that emerged as an important interdisciplinary touchstone concerned the exhaustion of Enlightenmentbased models of citizenship (brought about by globalization, migration, pluralism and other sociological and intellectual trends). Enlightenmentbased models of citizenship emphasize the possession of rights to be protected by a national constitution. I often think that citizenship can be understood in three ways: 1) as a matter of who we are (identity); 2) as a matter of what we have (rights); and 3) as a matter of what we do (participation in democratic politics). It seemed that many of the papers demonstrated how, in each of these three ways, contemporary 21st century notions of citizenship do not (and cannot) offer Enlightenment-based descriptions of these three categories. If that is the case, why? And what then? Explaining why Enlightenment-based conceptions of citizenship have failed to deliver what they promised (namely freedom and equality) was less
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______________________________________________________________ the focus of the papers then was an interest in articulating emerging practices of citizenship that cannot be described in classic Enlightenment terms. It is almost as if all of the participants had already agreed to the argument that equality has not been (and cannot be) produced by constitutional rights, nor can freedom be secured in such a manner. We are witness to too much suffering to believe such a tale. Such a realization only makes the search for a way forward more pressing. In different ways, each of the essays in this volume provides a glimpse at potential ways forward. In the first section, ‘Redefining Citizenship,’ the three essays attempt to cull intellectual resources in order to offer alternative theoretical accounts of what citizenship might be. Postmodernism, agonism, and pragmatism all offer a rich store of tools for pushing past older models of citizenship and offering alternative grounds for new suggestions. The purpose of this section is to make it clear that we must rethink the very category of citizenship. In the first essay, Sanja Ivic takes on the explicit task of critiquing older models of citizenship that contain embedded hierarchies. She then explores ways beyond these traditional notions of citizenship and ways out of the forms of domination and oppression that older notions of citizenship entail. In the second essay, Paulina Tambakaki relies on the work of Chantal Moouffe and Seyla Benhabib to argue for an agonistic model of citizenship that would promote a different kind of democracy that would depart from theories of citizenship that champion universal inclusion as a kind of panacea. In the third essay, I use the tradition of American pragmatism to argue for the importance of a ‘rhetorical citizenship’ that emphasises the communicative practices necessary for collective decisionmaking. I go on to claim that deliberative ecologies condition the kinds of rhetorical citizenship available to us and that pragmatism makes recommendations for the establishment of a social democracy that can cope with the conditions of pluralism and the problem of inclusion. In the second section, ‘Redrawing the Lines of Inclusiveness,’ the three essays describe the problem of inclusion in contemporary plural societies. In the case of New Zealand, the media attempts to represent inclusiveness, but what are the means and the consequences of such attempts? Donald Reid argues that multiculturalism and discourses of inclusion actually aid neo-liberal and capitalist agendas. In the case of Japan, a legal and cultural tradition of remaining closed is challenged by demographic and sociological facts and looks for a way of coping with inevitable pluralism and multi-culturalism that seem necessary for the very maintenance of Japanese society. Julian Chapple argues that Japan must develop a set of policies capable of coping with diversity in different, better ways than it has historically. In the case of Germany, parliamentarians of Turkish origin articulate their own understanding of the ways in which they have become part of German culture. Devrimsal Nergiz argues that the
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______________________________________________________________ inclusion of Turkish-origin peoples into German parliaments is an example of both the move to include considerations of culture in the determination of citizenship and the pursuit of political office by migrant groups for the purposes of demonstrating belonging to a society. In the third section, ‘Enacting Citizenship,’ the two essays focus on specific ways in which citizens can and do act within the civil, social, legal, and economic structures of South Africa and Portugal. These essays are concerned with the performance of citizenship through two specific examples of the many groups of people migrating across borders all over the world. Wessel le Roux argues that migration within the region of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) has altered post-apartheid conceptions of citizenship. In particular, he argues that the extension of voting rights to economic migrants is a critical moment in the further disaggregation of citizenship rights, a process that already characterises postapartheid human rights discourse. Sonia Pires argues that successive governments in Portugal and their immigration laws have created a strong state that has co-opted civil society actors. The result has been the provocation and production of a consensual type of political mobilisation. In both cases we see the development of new citizenship practices in response to the movement of peoples. In the fourth and final section, ‘Liminal Subjectivities,’ the focus on practices of citizenship is extended to consider the ways in which such practices consolidate in the formation of subjects. In the case of those that live on, or between, the border between Portugal and Spain, the very negotiation of the border becomes a touchstone for the formation of subjectivities and the practices of citizenship available to those borderdwelling people. Humberto Dos Santos Martins argues, through the use of a long-term ethnographic study, that physical borders between Spain and Portugal have dissolved and been replaced by new, less territorial and less political borders that implicate questions of identity and social practices more deeply. In the case of the Gypsies, the question of how to include those subjects that already reside within a country but are outsiders anyway shows how difficult the formation of subjectivity is in the face of the challenge of inclusion. Elisabetta Di Giovanni argues for the use of community psychology and applied anthropology so as to facilitate the access of Gypsy peoples to the knowledge and tools of the dominant Italian society. In the case of Portuguese migration to Canada, practices of care and solidarity are invented in such a way that those practices become resources for the invention of a subjectivity tied to two places at once. Ana Gherghel and Josiane Le Gall argue that these practices of caring have been critical to the successful migration of Portuguese to Canada while maintaining significant ties, in terms of identity and social practice, between both Portugal and Canada. These three essays demonstrate how new practices of citizenship
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______________________________________________________________ among migrant populations lead to the development of new forms of subjectivity. All four parts of this volume, therefore, react to the fact of pluralism and the challenge of inclusion, but also seek to articulate the means by which alternative conceptualizations and practices of citizenship can or should be invented for the twenty-first century. It is clear that the movement of people across borders and the realization of pluralism will continue to drive politics and law over much of the globe in this century. As such, the problem of inclusion and the capacity to find ways to reconcile pluralism will be central features of any notion of citizenship in this century. Equality cannot be secured by rights alone – that seems obvious now. Nor can freedom be secured through the legal protection of such rights – this seems equally obvious. Perhaps equality and freedom will not even be the goal of our contemporary democracies. Perhaps inclusion and reconciliation will be enough. Whatever the case may be, citizenship will be practiced, thought about, and enacted in different ways. These essays represent one attempt at trying to understand some of those new, different kinds of citizenship. Surely more work will be done, alternative perspectives (not seen here) will be offered and the conversation will go on. The contributors to this volume seem acutely aware of the extent to which the process of rethinking citizenship in the light of migration and pluralism will have to be a discussion. Perhaps no consensus will emerge from that discussion – this is always a risk in the face of irreducible pluralism. But the conversation itself is a kind of enactment of inclusion. It performs what it seeks. For that reason, such conversations are of vital importance. The challenge of weaving together harmonious societies with common interests and goals has never seemed so difficult. To compare our circumstances to an Ancient Athenian land-owning male who lived in Athens in the fourth century BC is to realize just how difficult this task is for modern democracies. The Ancient Greeks developed sophisticated methods for arriving at collective decisions and producing common values through the participation of citizens in various socio-political events. Contemporary democracies, however, face challenges of scale, size, cultural pluralism, and relentless movement that make such a task seem almost impossible. For those reasons, our vary idea of citizenship remains uncertain and undecided, and socio-political practices become sites for negotiation difference. This means that projects of reconciliation are fundamental to contemporary democracies. When one performs sociological, anthropological, political, or literary analyses of these practices of reconciliation, one finds how delicate and difficult it becomes to produce any kind of consensus. Homogeneity seems impossible in the twentieth century, and when sought seem to be a reactionary political movement, ignorant of important demographic facts. Heterogeneity, as a norm, will continue to both complicate our notions of
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______________________________________________________________ citizenship and drive the evolving definitions or basic understanding of what it means to be a citizen. This collection of essays is a clear, detailed testament to that fact.
PART 1
Redefining Citizenship
The Postmodern Liberal Concept of Citizenship Sanja Ivic Abstract The purpose of this inquiry is to show that the concept of ‘citizenship’ in modern liberal political thought is fixed and essentialist. This conception of citizenship is derived from Western metaphysics, which establishes homogeneous categories. The modern liberal idea of citizenship is derived from the notions of ‘freedom’ and ‘equality’, which are considered as absolute truths, based on the universal concept of reason. These essentialist notions include a number of binary oppositions, such as: we/they, citizen/foreigner, self/other and so forth (where the first term is perceived as dominant because it is considered to be derived from reason) which leaves room for excluding and marginalizing. However, with the development of the information society, new perspectives on citizenship emerge. Citizenship can be viewed as a state of mind and need not be tied to borderlines or residence. .
Key Words: Care, citizenship, ethics, identity, justice, liberalism, modern, postmodern, rights. ***** 1.
Introduction In the following essay, a postmodern concept of citizenship, which is not tied to fixed notions of borders, nations, culture and common heritage, will be explored. In this way, the concept of citizenship will be considered as unbounded and constructed. It will embrace various identity possibilities. Thus in postmodern liberal thought, citizenship is perceived as a contingent cultural (narrative) construct. This postmodern conception of citizenship requires a new ethics of citizenship, which will not be based on the modern liberal idea of priority of right over the good. A new ethics of citizenship will reject the idea of ‘one size fits all’ ethics, and it will leave room for ‘empathy’ (not only reason) and different notions of good. 2.
The Modern Liberal Concept of Citizenship – Ethics of Justice The first exact definition of citizenship is given by Aristotle in his Politics. This first political and philosophical definition of citizenship is based on a dichotomy of we/they, because it emphasizes the distinction between those individuals who are considered as members of the demos and those who are not. Aristotle regards a citizen as a virtuous man. He perceives citizenship as an instrument of virtue. Aristotle excludes workers, slaves and
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______________________________________________________________ women from the category of citizenship, because he argues that they are not governed by virtue.1 On the other hand, Aristotle’s idea of citizenship aims at creating a common cultural ground for all Helens. Aristotle excludes representatives from local religions and tribes from his conception of citizenship. Consequently, Aristotle’s idea of citizenship includes binary oppositions, which sharply divide citizens from strangers, women, slaves and workers. Aristotle argues that this exclusion is rational. Aristotle promotes active citizenship and attempts to develop moral norms and a conceptual framework, which could produce the skills and wisdom necessary for political decision-making. He defines citizenship as participating in governments’ decision-making2 and argues that his idea of citizenship can only be implemented within the democratic political order. Robert Danisch in his article ‘Pragmatism and Rhetorical Citizenship in Multicultural Democracies’ (in this volume) argues that Ancient Greek democracy required deliberative rhetoric. Aristotle’s account of citizenship is founded on this idea, as he emphasizes rhetorical ability as the key element of political power. Aristotle makes a distinction between universalist reason (sophia) and practical judgment (phronesis) which implies ethics and politics within particular political associations. He argues that the idea of citizenship is different in different political orders. Subsequently, it represents a contingent and not essentialist category. Aristotle does not define citizenship by birth or territory. Otherwise, slaves could also be regarded as those who possess the status of citizenship. The modern liberal political idea of citizenship introduces citizens as passive subjects of rights. This conception of citizenship rejects Aristotle’s idea of active citizenship. However, both conceptions of citizenship are exclusive. They both emphasize the distinction between citizens and non-citizens. According to Thomas Bridges, modern liberal political thought is based on a universalist concept of reason which is considered the main characteristic of all human beings.3 Notions of ‘freedom,’ ‘equality’ and ‘rights’ on which the modern liberal conception is built, are considered as having developed from human rationality. These concepts are perceived as founded on absolute truths based on reason, which transcends all particularistic, contingent conceptions of good. Bridges argues that: ‘Modernist liberals offered theoretical discourses designed to show that liberal democratic norms are founded upon or derived from universal principles and objective truths.’4 The modern liberal idea of citizenship can be considered as metaphysical because it emphasizes a universalist and essentialist standpoint of citizenship.5 According to Bridges: In different ways, both Lockean and Kantian styles of liberal theory made the standpoint of citizen, the standpoint
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______________________________________________________________ of free and equal individuality, appear to be the natural and essential human standpoint.6 This concept of citizenship emphasizes homogeneity and sameness and transcends cultural, historical, social and other particularities. It is founded on a universalist conception of morality which is based on reason, considered to be the same for all human beings. This concept of citizenship (as well as rights) is emphasized by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is asserted by the Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights7 that: ‘All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in spirit and brotherhood.’ The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was inspired by the Declaration of American Independence (1776) and the Declaration of the Rights of Men and Citizen (1789). In both of these documents the primacy of reason is emphasized. The Declaration of American Independence8 asserts that the rights it declares are ‘self-evident’. The Declaration of Rights of Men and Citizen is based on the doctrine of natural rights. It was influenced by the Enlightenment and modern liberal political principles. These principles are founded on a universalist concept of knowledge and reason, which transcends all contingent beliefs derived from historical or cultural circumstances. The universality of human rights is also emphasized by the Vienna Declaration and the Program of Action in 1993, which claims that: All human rights are universal, indivisible and interdependent and related. The international community must treat human rights globally in a fair and equal manner, on the same footing, and with the same emphasis. 9 This statement was confirmed at the World Summit in New York in 2005. It is argued that, ‘universal nature of human rights and freedoms is beyond question.’10 However, this concept of universalist human rights, which are granted to every individual is perceived by a number of authors as fixed. The concepts that define human rights in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, such as ‘inherent,’11 ‘inalienable,’12 ‘endowed with reason,’13 and so forth, point to a metaphysical origin14 of human rights. This idea of rights creates a universal concept of citizenship. According to Young: ‘Equal treatment requires everyone to be measured according to the same norms, but in fact there are no ‘neutral’ norms of behaviour and performance.’15 The modern liberal concept of citizenship originates from ethics based on the principle of priority of right over good. These ethics are often perceived as an ‘ethics of justice,’ where rights are perceived as universal, rational concepts, which are independent of any particularistic conception of good.
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______________________________________________________________ Modern liberal thought emphasizes the inclusion of all persons in full citizenship status. According to Bridges: Modern political thought generally assumed that the universality of citizenship in the sense of citizenship for all, implies a universality of citizenship in the sense that citizenship status transcends particularity and difference.16 Some authors emphasize difficulties in the project of determination of the cognitive basis for philosophical ethics. It is hard to prove that the idea of the good is rationally grounded and how any universalist account of human nature could be grounded in reason.17 According to Young, modern liberal concepts of citizenship are based on the priority of universality and sameness over particularity and difference and the idea that ‘one size fits all’ in ethics and law. This means that the rules are the same for all and ‘apply to all in the same way’.18 However, this conception of citizenship is founded on general will and implies homogeneity. Universal citizenship is a myth, which denies diversity. This concept of citizenship is exclusionary, because it does not recognize difference. According to Young, a universal concept of citizenship should be rejected and a new group differentiated citizenship, based on a heterogeneous concept of public should be established.19 Young does not emphasize heterogeneity based on multiple identities as the fundamental trait of the group itself. She argues that different social groups have different historical and social understanding and imply different narratives and conceptions of identity. She concludes that one group cannot entirely understand the experience of the other groups. However, this point of view represents a homogeneous understanding of the group itself. The modern concept of citizenship (after World War II) is defined by T.H. Marshall (1950). Marshall attempts to specify the set of effective rights proper to citizenship. He also emphasizes that these rights tend to evolve with different social changes. Marshall argues that there are three categories of rights that should be ascribed to citizens: civil, political and social rights. Civil rights are based on the idea of freedom, political rights are grounded on the idea of justice, while social rights are founded on the idea of equality. According to Marshall, these rights are derived from history, not logic. He argues that civil rights are developed in the eighteenth century, political rights in the nineteenth century, while social rights are developed in the twentieth century. However, the main problem of Marshall’s evolutionary theory of citizenship is that it can be characterized as homogeneous and static. Marshall perceives rights as homogeneous groups, which once developed in the certain historical period do not transform and change. He does not analyze how different social movements and changes affect the nature and
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______________________________________________________________ scope of citizenship. Consequently, Marshall’s idea of citizenship is universalist. Marshall does not explain how the meaning of citizenship and rights ascribed to citizenship are transformed by wars and various crises: economic, ecological, political and so forth. That is why his concept of citizenship can be considered as static. On the other hand, Marshall does not analyze the possible conflicts between those three categories of rights. They are not always complementary. The basic problem of Marshall’s idea of citizenship is that it lacks a cultural dimension. Marshall does not acknowledge the fact of cultural and political pluralism. That is why his conception of citizenship is not relevant within the context of contemporary societies. This problem could be solved by a postmodern notion of citizenship. According to Benhabib, Aristotle’s concept of citizenship is founded on membership and certain privileges. Thus it differs from the modern idea of citizenship defined by Marshall. Marshall does not affirm active citizenship. He presents the citizen as a passive subject of rights. Aristotle’s concept of citizenship points to the domain of praxis, while the modern idea of citizenship only guarantees status. Citizenship as status means that individual’s powers and rights are inseparable from citizenship. On the other hand, citizenship as praxis requires active participation in the political life of the community. Aristotle’s concept of citizenship is a contingent category, however, it is exclusive. The modern idea of citizenship is inclusive, however, it is essentialist. Postmodern citizenship requires an idea of citizenship as an inclusive but contingent category. Bryan Turner argues that the idea of citizenship is inseparable from the sociological context. Citizenship represents a set of different practices: legal, political, economic, cultural, etc. Turner argues that the nature of citizenship is historically conditioned. Thus it is contingent, as a result of different social and political movements and changes. Turner emphasizes that citizenship is continually affected and reinterpreted by different social changes. Subsequently, it is a dynamic category. Turner’s conception of citizenship is very close to the postmodern idea of citizenship, because it does not perceive citizenship as a fixed category. However, this conception of citizenship is not postmodern because it does not question sharp distinctions. The idea of an ‘agonistic conception of citizenship’ presented by Paulina Tambakaki (in this volume) is another example of the conception of citizenship which is very close to postmodern citizenship. The ‘agonistic conception of citizenship’ rejects modernist binary oppositions. However, this concept of citizenship cannot be equated with a postmodern notion of this term, because it is not founded on the postmodern idea of identity (which will be presented in the following lines). Modern liberal political thinkers create a number of binary oppositions, such as right/good, essential/contingent, citizen/stranger,
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______________________________________________________________ nature/culture, reason/emotion and so forth. The first term is considered dominant, because it is perceived as based on reason and the idea of ‘right,’ which is considered universal. The second term in those binary oppositions is often neglected and denied, because it is considered to be based on the concept of ‘good,’ which is regarded as contingent. Carol Gilligan and a number of feminist authors make a distinction between the ‘ethics of justice’ and ‘ethics of care’. The ethics of justice is represented as an ethics of modernity, which advocates priority of the universal concept of right over the particular notion of good. The ethics of justice is mostly founded on Kant’s deontological ethics, based on his categorical imperative, which advocates the priority of ‘right’ over ‘good’. Justice (which represents the domain of ‘right’) is prior to interests based on the cultural or religious diversity, or conception of a good life (which represents the domain of ‘good’). The proponents of the ethics of justice argue that all human beings endowed with reason can agree upon what ‘right’ is. The origins of this universalist ethics can be traced back to Aristotle. In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle argues about the existence of universal and natural moral order, which represents the foundation for a true and rational system of justice. Aristotle makes a distinction between ‘natural justice’ (based on reason) and ‘legal justice’, which is determined by social and historical conventions. Aristotle gives priority to ‘natural justice’, because he considers it the same in different societies. He argues that this conception of justice is essential and does not depend upon acceptance. The fundamental idea of the ethics of justice is that citizens cannot agree upon the definition of the good. Subsequently, they have different conceptions of the good life. The proponents of the modern ethics of justice argue that justice is prior to the interests based on cultural and religious diversity, or conceptions of the good life. Consequently, this ethics gives priority of right over good, universal over particular, essential over contextual and so forth. In this way, the ethics of exclusion is produced which denies women, minorities, strangers, etc. because it perceives human experience as universal and based on absolute truths and denies diversity and pluralism. The ethics of justice rejects the idea of narrative and the contextual character of human experience. Therefore, it does not embrace the pluralism of contemporary societies. 3.
Towards a Postmodern Conception of Citizenship - Ethics of Care A postmodernist critique of the modernist conception of citizenship leads to a new, more inclusive conception of citizenship. However, it should be emphasized that ‘postmodernism’ is still a vague notion and some authors who are considered postmodernists, such as Derrida, reject this label. They argue that the nature of categorizations is modernist.
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______________________________________________________________ Postmodern theorists argue that the subject is produced by discourse. They argue that language constructs reality, so it does not reflect it as it was argued by modernist theorists. According to postmodernist thinkers, biological traits such as race or sex, which are considered as natural and essentialist by modernist theorists, are constructed by discourse. Consequently, a new postmodern form of contingent and dynamic identity is produced. This notion of identity offers new understanding of the concepts such as ‘nation’, ‘citizenship’, ‘society’, ‘power’ and so forth. Subsequently, these concepts are perceived as socially and historically constructed, and thus, constantly reinterpreted and reconstructed by different historical conditions as well as social movements and changes. Postmodernism is based on the idea that reason is not transhistorical and universal, but historical and contingent. Reason is socially and historically constructed as are all other modernist concept. Thus, postmodern citizenship, perceived as based on the postmodern notion of identity, is not defined by nation or culture. It is a state of mind, a mental construct, which is founded on the subjective feeling of belonging. This conception of citizenship implies a more fluid notion of space. Rejection of the modernist notion of the unified subject includes more fluid idea of boundaries. Foucault criticizes the idea of space as undialectical and fixed. He emphasizes that space and borders are constructed. Thus, ‘belonging to a common space’ can be perceived as a mental construct, which is determined by feeling and belief. In his Of Grammatology, Derrida criticizes Western discourse and thought because it gives priority to identity over difference, universality over particularity, necessity over contingency, nature over culture, etc.20 He emphasizes that the existence of these binaries shows that the Western discourse is founded on metaphysics. Derrida’s deconstruction exposes assumptions that underlie these binary oppositions and create discrimination and inequality at a metatheoretical level. Derrida argues that the two terms in binary oppositions present in Western discourse (signifier/signified, objective/subjective, male/female, etc.) cannot be opposed, because every term in such binary opposition contains in itself the phantom of the other. He introduces the concept of ‘differance,’ which overcomes the fixed identity of ‘difference’ and represents a constant interplay of meanings. The postmodern concept of citizenship should be based on Derrida’s critique of essentialist and universalist conceptions of identity. Modern liberal concepts of citizenship imply sameness. This idea of identity is the origin of all binary hierarchies. The concept of citizenship based on fixed identity constructs a public sphere that does not embrace difference. Williams argues that:
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______________________________________________________________ Identity has been used as a focus for gathering people together under the banner of some unifying notion or characteristic … The development of collective identities in this way has always been fundamentally concerned with acts of power.21 According to Hall, identities are based on ‘the unchanging oneness’ that overcomes ‘superficial differences.22 However, citizenship should embrace the concept of a fluid identity, which represents dynamic, hybrid and changeable categories.23 Therefore, a postmodern concept of citizenship requires a postmodern notion of identity, which represents a critique of the modernist rational and unitary self. The postmodern idea of the self represents an alternative to the Cartesian idea of the unitary subject. The postmodern idea of identity represents a fragmentary, hybrid and dynamic notion of the self. Postmodernists argue that ‘identity processes are fundamentally ambiguous and always in a state of flux and reconstruction.’24 The postmodern concept of identity is based on the idea that identity is constructed by discourse. Consequently, it is multiple and changeable category. The idea of fluid identity does not imply a stable, unitary, conscious and self-identical subject. Fluid identity is based on the assumption that the subject is produced by discourse. Consequently, identity is shifting, fragmented and multiple.25 It cannot be considered rational and it is always in the process of reconstruction.26 This approach emphasizes that meaning is not fixed, it is deferred and represents an interplay between two opposites. Thus concepts such as ‘identity’, ‘difference,’ ‘equality,’ ‘nature,’ etc. are always open to different interpretations. According to Derrida, the politics of a (fixed) identity, which privileges unity, represents dangerous ethics and politics.27 Derrida rejects identity based on totality and unity as an illusion. He argues that linguistic, cultural and national identities are different from themselves. On the other hand, the person is being different from itself. This means that identity should not be perceived as a homogeneous category. Derrida emphasizes: Once you take into account this inner and other difference, then you pay attention to the other and you understand that fighting for your own identity is not exclusive of another identity, it is open to another identity.28 A fragmentary notion of identity introduced by postmodernists emphasizes that ethnic groups are not monolithic and essentialist categories. They should be perceived as heterogeneous, because they consist of different individual narratives and experiences, which are dynamic and constantly in a
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______________________________________________________________ process of refiguration. Thus, they include multiple and often different and opening voices. Consequently, the term ‘difference’ should also be perceived as fluid and changeable. It should not be perceived as a term to which all marginalized groups can be assimilated, becuse in this way it is perceived as a modernist, homogeneous and monolithic term.29 Braidotti argues that even neo-liberal notions of ‘difference’ imply new forms of exclusion on national, regional and local levels.30 For this reason Derrida introduces his concept of ‘differance’, which is open to different meanings and reinterpretations.31 This concept overcomes the homogeneity of modernist notion of ‘difference’, which perceives marginalized groups as homogeneous. Derrida’s concept of ‘differance’ represents a pluralist notion of difference, which moves beyond binary hierarchies. Consequently, heterogeneity and dissociation are promoted. He argues that the concepts of borders, nations, culture, citizenship, etc. do not have fixed meanings. Rather, the meaning is a free interplay between two opposites.32 Thus, it is always open to different interpretations. Derrida’s idea was not to make new binary oppositions in which difference will have priority over identity, heterogeneity over homogeneity, dissociation over association, etc. He argues these concepts have to be rewritten and not perceived as fixed.33 In this way, the concept of citizenship would be considered unbounded and will embrace various identity possibilities. Subsequently, states and nations are also not fixed entities. The concepts by which people define who they are – in which they articulate their sense of identity – are all of them concepts without sharp borders, and hence cannot provide a basis for sharp demarcations such as political boundaries between states.34 On the other hand, Derrida does not argue that all forms of unity and gathering need to be overcome.35 He rejects the politics that grants rights to the homogenous groups based on fixed identity. The idea of the European Union as a very specific political category requires the notion of a fluid identity. Thus, the developments in the European Union have brought forth the possibility of membership in various overlapping and strategically interacting political communities on supranataional, national and subnational levels and have unleashed the potential of rethinking citizenship, community and identity.36
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______________________________________________________________ According to Kostakopolou, the idea of EU citizenship should be based on the assumption that citizens have multiple identities. It should not be based on the foundationalist notion of the community or the essentialist conception of identity.37 The values of political pluralism and cultural multiplicity require breaking with homogeneity and sameness, citizenship is composed of many narratives and different worldviews, it is a dynamic category, which continually changes, and cannot be reduced to membership or a territory. Stychin criticizes essentialist conceptions of the politics of modernity within the EU and makes a case for a ‘politics of affinity’ and a flexible notion of Union citizenship that accommodates multiple identities. The ‘politics of affinity’ avoids homogenizing assumptions and unitary conceptions of European, national regional, sexual and other identities. It promotes diversity, otherness and fluid character of the postmodern European citizenship. It also advocates a more fluid idea of boundaries. The politics of affinity grounds European politics and citizenship discourse on affinity ( not identity ). This new, postmodern account of citizenship requires a new ethics of citizenship. Bridges argues that the postmodern ethics of citizenship should not only explain what it means to be a citizen, but also make clear why it is good to be a citizen. This is the main difference between ethics based on the priority of the principle of right (which gives only a normative standpoint to citizenship) and the ethics in which the right and the good intertwine (which also promotes difference, and thus gives a substantive standpoint to citizenship). These ethics are based both on justice and care. It applies rules accompanied with empathy, i.e. care. ‘Social and moral phenomena are bound in terms of interpersonal relations, context and values, and are multifaced and dynamic in nature.’38 The proponents of the ethics of justice argue that morality is impartial, which is denied by the proponents of the ethics of care. On the other hand, an ethics of care is often represented as a particularist ethics, while the ethics of justice is perceived as universalist ethics. Consequently, ethics of care is often represented as a contextual ethics, while the ethics of justice is described as an essentialist ethics. However, this perspective produces binary oppositions: care/justice, particularist/universalist, contextual/essential, etc. If this point of view is employed, the ethics of care is understood only as another point of view, which produces inequalities on a metatheoretical level. Understood in this way, an ethics of care would be a reflection of a new metaphysics. However, the ethics of care denies sharp binary distinctions and implies a postmodern notion of identity. The ethics of care emphasizes the particular individuals and their concrete needs and points of view in specific circumstances. It recognizes the ‘other’ and promotes pluralism and diversity. Thus it represents a path towards more inclusive citizenship, which includes different voices.
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______________________________________________________________ Contextual ethics of care is based on the broader notion of identity, which is not fixed. It requires a postmodern notion of identity, which is perceived as multiple, shifting and fragmented. This idea of identity embraces multiple conceptions of culture, experiences and narratives, which are considered as infinite sources of meanings and identities. It reflects the hybridity of the ‘self’ and ‘other’, which are constructed categories, which are constantly open to interpretation. Thus, identity, within the framework of the care ethics, is not perceived as static, but as a dynamic concept. Both an ethics of care and deliberative democracy offer a new form of citizenship, which is not essentialist. Young argues that ethics based on the principle ‘one size fits all’ should be rejected because it implies that instead of always formulating rights and rules in universal terms, that are blind to difference, some groups sometimes deserve special rights.39 Legal and judicial reasoning should also include empathy. This is necessary because every case is unique and particular. This idea has been expressed by many feminist theories. They have seen the ‘objectiveness,’ ‘rationality’ and emotional distance that judges are supposed to inhabit not only as unattainable, but also as not to be aspired. For example, Lynne N. Henderson has called for empathy in judicial reasoning, arguing that legality gives judges a way to escape responsibility, and Carrie Menkel-Meadow has called for an inclusion of ‘ethics of care’ in the judicial processes.40 Applied to citizenship, such ethics do not recognize borders, and promotes diversity. In recent studies, the distinction between an ethics of justice, which is based on the principle of the priority of right over the good, on the one hand, and an ethics of care, which is based on empathy has been emphasized. The ethics of justice is based on reason, which is considered the same for all human beings, while the ethics of care embraces contextuality and feeling. Some authors argue that modern liberal political thought is mostly based on the ethics of justice, while postmodern thinkers may be considered as representatives of the ethics of care. This point of view is flawed, however, because the ethics of care rejects all dichotomies. Although it is based on empathy, it does not completely deny reason. However, the question of how empathy can be incorporated into the framework of the legal system is often asked. First, the autonomy of individuals and the notion of a fluid and dynamic identity should be recognized. Only in this way would rights not be applied in an abstract manner and the particular situation of the applicant would be recognized. The postmodern ethics of citizenship in which right and
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______________________________________________________________ good interweave rejects false dichotomies between ‘rationality’ and ‘irrationality,’ reason’ and ‘emotion,’ ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ and so on. It rejects the picture of law as a rational and neutral instrument of justice. 4.
Conclusion This paper compares modern and postmodern liberal theories of citizenship. The postmodern liberal concept of citizenship is based on the idea that citizenship is a dynamic category, which is socially and historically constructed. It is based on the fluid notion of identity and it is constantly reinterpreted and revised by different social movements and changes. However, while the postmodern liberal concept of citizenship is part of our lives, reality and experience, it is still not part of the legal discourse and norms, which continue to rely on the modern liberal idea of citizenship and notion of identity. Notes 1
Aristotle, Politics, 1278a Aristotle, Politics, 1275 b 3 Although Thomas Bridges correctly identifies some fundamental problems that can be identified from modern liberal political thought, he oversimplifies this point of view. Modern liberal political thought cannot be perceived as a totality. However, a number of authors fall in this trap and misinterpret the point of view of some modern liberal political thinkers. This can be perceived in the example of Kant’s understanding of morality. Kant’s idea of morality is based on freedom (i. e. autonomy of will), not on reason. This was not recognised by Bridges, Gaut, Korsgaard and a number of other authors. 4 T Bridges, The Culture of Citizenship: Inventing Postmodern Civic Culture, State University of New York, New York, 1994, . 5 ibid. 6 ibid. 7 The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly (10 December 1948 at the Palais de Chaillot, Paris ). 8 The Declaration of American Independence was adopted by Continental Congress on July, 4, 1776. 9 World Conference on Human Rights, 1993. 10 World Summit in New York, paragraph 120. 11 The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Preamble 12 ibid. 13 ibid, Article 1 2
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This was also argued by Václav Havel in his speech in Geneva on the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: ‘I am convinced that the deepest roots of what which we now call human rights, lie somewhat beyond us, and above us, somewhere deeper than the world of human covenants – in a realm that I would, for the simplicity sake, describe as metaphysical.’ C Gaerty, ‘Are Human Rights Truly Universal?’, . 15 IM Young, ‘Polity and Group Difference: A Critique of the Ideal of Universal Citizenship’, Ethics 99, 1989, p. 269 16 T Bridges, The Culture of Citizenship: Inventing Postmodern Civic Culture, State University of New York, New York, 1994, . 17 R Plant, ‘Antinomies of Modernist Political Thought: Reasoning, Context and Community’, in Politics of Postmodernity, Good, J & Velody, I (eds), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1988, p. 77 18 IM Young, ‘Polity and Group Difference: A Critique of the Ideal of Universal Citizenship’, Ethics 99, 1989, p. 250 19 ‘Different social groups have different needs, cultures, histories, experiences and perceptions of social relations which influence their interpretation of the meaning and the consequences of policy proposals and influence the form of their political reasoning. These differences in political interpretation are not merely or even primarily a result of differing or conflicting interests, for groups have differeing interpretations even when they seek to promote the justice and not merely their own self-regarding ends.’ ibid, p. 257 20 According to Derrida, logocentrism gives priority to identity over difference and priority to speech over writen word. Therefore, logocentrism expresses priorityof the signified over the signifier, i.e. priority of the presence/speech over the absence/writing. 21 A Williams, EU Human Rights Policies: A Study in Irony, Oxford University Press, London, 2005, p.184 22 ibid, p. 185 23 The modern idea of identity is based on the Cartesian idea of the unitary subject. Descartes employs the ‘method of systematic doubt’ to examine all knowledge in order to get firm and certain knowledge. He states: ‘I noticed that, during the time I wanted this to think that everything was false, it was necessary that I, who thought this, must be something. And noticing that this truth – I think, therefore I am – was so firm and so certain that the most extravagant suppositions of the sceptics were unable to shake it, I judges that I could accept it without scruple as the first principle of the philosophy I was seeking.’ Descartes makes a distinction between the mind and body, which produces binary oppositions: self/other, objective/subjective, and so forth. He
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______________________________________________________________ emphasizes the difference between the rational, conscious, unified and knowing subject, on the one hand, and an object, on the other hand. See R Descartes, Discourse on Method and Meditation on the First Philosophy, Indianapolis, Hackett, India, 1993, p. 19 24 This notion of identity is emphasied in the part A of the AER’s Udine Declaration, adopted in Udine on November, 2007. 25 ‘Rather than viewing self as an objectificable, cognitive essence, poststructuralists argue that identity processes are fundamentally ambiguous and always in a state of flux and reconstruction.’ D Collinson, ‘Rethinking Followership: A Post-Structuralist Analiysis of Follower Identities’, The Leadership Quarterly, 17, 2006, p.182 26 JD Caputo, Deconstruction in a Nutshell: A Conversation with Jacques Derrida, 2006, p. 13, . 27 ibid, p. 13 28 ibid, p.13 29 ‘Derrida moves from the Sausserean focus on speech to a concern with writing and texuality and replaces the fixed signifieds of Saussure’s chains of signs with a concepts of differance in which meaning is produced via dual strategies of difference and diferral. For Derrida, there can be no fixed signifieds (concepts) and signifiers (sounds and written images), which have identity only in their difference from one another (...) Signifiers are always located in a discursive context and the temporary fixing of meaning in a specific reading of a signifier depends on this discursive context.’ C Weedon, Feminist Practice and Poststructuralist Theory, Blackwell, Cambridge, 1987, p. 25. 30 Derrida rejects logocentrism which he considers as the main characteristic of the Western thought. Logocentrism associates discourse with logos and creates the philosophy of identity, which establishes binary oppositions: identity/difference, speech/writing, signified/signifier, etc. The first term is considerd as dominant because it represents values of westerm thought and discourse, while the other is perceived as subordinated and defined only through the negation of the first term, 31 ‘Reconsider all the pairs of opposites on which philosophy is constructed and on which our discourse lives, not in order to see the opposition erase itself but to see what indicates that each of the terms must appear as differance of the other, as the other differed and differed.’ P Kamuf (ed), A Derrida Reader: Between the Blinds, Columbia University Press, New York, 1991, p. 61 32 O O’Neil, ‘Justice and Boundaries’, Political Restructuring in Europe: Ethical Perspectives, ed. by C Brown, Routledge, London, 1994, p. 78 33 JD Caputo, Deconstruction in a Nutshell: A Conversation with Jacques Deririda, 2006, p. 13, .
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ibid. ibid. 36 T Kostakopolou, ‘Towards a Theory of Constructive Citizenship in Europe’, Journal of Political Philosophy, Vol. 4, Number 4, 1996, p. 344 37 ibid, p. 344 38 A Botes, ‘A Comparision Between the Ethics of Justice and the Ethics of Care’, Journal of Advanced Nursing, 32 (5), 2000, p. 1073 39 I M Young, ‘Polity and Group Difference: A Critique of the Ideal of Universal Citizenship’, Ethics 99, 1989, p. 269, 27037 40 I Radacic, ‘What is Feminism and Feminist Jurisprudence?’, . 35
Bibliography Aristotle, Politics. trans. by H. Rackham, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1932. Benhabib, S., ‘Democracy and Difference: Reflections on the Metapolitics of Lyotard and Derrida’. Journal of Political Philosophy. Vol. 2, No. 1, 1994. Botes, A., ‘A Comparision between the Ethics of Justice and the Ethics of Care’. Journal of Advanced Nursing. 32 (5), 2000. Bridges, T., The Culture of Citizenship: Inventing Postmodern Civic Culture. State University of New York, 1994, . Derrida, J., The Other Heading: Reflections on Today’s Europe. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1992. _____, Politics of Friendship. Verso, New York, 2006. Jakobs, D. & Mair, R., ‘European Identity: Construct, Fact and Fiction’. Gastelaars & Ruijter (eds), A United Europe: The Quest for a Multifaced Identity. Shaker, Maastricht, 1998. Kostakopolou, T., ‘Towards a Theory of Constructive Citizenship in Europe’. Journal of Political Philosophy. Vol. 4, No. 4, 1996. Kroes, R., Them and Us: Questions of Citizenship in a Globalizing World. University of Illinois Press, Urbana & Chicago, 2000.
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______________________________________________________________ Lilla, M., ‘The Politics of Jacques Derrida’. New York Review of Books. No. 11, June, 1998. Marshall, T.H., ‘Citizenship and Social Class’. Class, Citizenship, and Social Development. Doubleday & Company, Inc, Garden City, New York, 1964. Radacic, I., ‘Gender Equality Jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights’. European Journal of International Law. Vol. 19, No. 4, 2008. Stychin, C., ‘Desintegrating Sexuality: Citizenship and the EU’. Citizenship and Governance in the European Union. Bellamy, R. & Warleigh, A. (ed) Continuum, London and New York, 2001. Turner, B., Citizenship and Capitalism: New Debate over Reformism. Allen and Unwin, London, Boston, 1986. Williams, A., EU Human Rights Polices: A Study in Irony. Oxford University Press, London, 2005. Young, I.M, ‘Polity and Group Difference$ Critique of the Ideal of Universal Citizenship’. Ethics. 99, 1989. Sanja Ivic is a Research Assistant at the Institute for European Studies in Belgrade (Serbia). Her research interests include European studies, political theory, ethics and hermeneutics.
Citizenship and Agonism Paulina Tambakaki Abstract The discourse over citizenship, the vehicle of democratic politics, has been fraught with tensions and dilemmas, which have left political theorists puzzled as to the task ahead. For example, while citizenship presupposes solidarity and a common bond which holds the demos together, growing apprehension towards the nation raises serious questions about the ways in which civic solidarity could be engendered, if at all, within contemporary plural societies. With suggestions hence ranging in the literature from citizenship as friendship to constitutional patriotism and liberal interpretations of ethnic principles, the question lingering is how (and whether) citizenship could reinscribe democratic unity in constitutively plural settings.1 More that that, growing political disengagement and apathy at the state level coupled with the rise of cross border activism reinforce scepticism about the continuing relevance of nationally and territorially bound citizenship. Finally, calls for democratising layers of governance other than the state to which citizenship is necessarily tied as a term expose further its vulnerability. Still, although it would appear from this brief exposition that citizenship as a concept loses gradually its appeal, what we concurrently witness in the wake of restrictive citizenship practices and the emergence of a ‘citizenship of residence’2 is paradoxically the return of citizenship. How are we to address these tensions and dilemmas? And can agonistic theory make a contribution to citizenship debates? Key Words: Held, Benhabib, Mouffe, global citizenship, human rights. ***** 1.
Introduction Although there is significant disagreement among agonistic theorists, we could identify the following four assumptions as central to their perspective. The first assumption is that democracy involves and presupposes an ethos, which ‘affirms the contingency and openness of political life.’3 Democracy does not solely rely on exchanges of reason, as deliberative democrats suggest, but requires also the cultivation of its ethos. Second, conflicts and disagreements, frontiers between ‘us’ and ‘them’ are constitutive of democratic politics according to agonistic theorists, and cannot be resolved through appeals to common reason. As Mouffe puts it, ‘the task of democracy is to tame antagonism, to transform it into agonism,’ because antagonism is ever present and ineradicable.4 The third assumption is
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______________________________________________________________ that contestations channelled through democratic institutions drive politics. Contestations ensure for agonistic theorists that power relations are challenged and that democratic politics remains dynamic and alert. Fourth, commonality, which citizenship embodies, is necessary but not given. It is constructed and contingent upon the availability and development of common forms of identification, practices and discourses.5 Such political discourses argue agonistic theorists, bond democratic citizens and secure that democratic politics happens. Given therefore these four assumptions the question that arises is in what precise way could agonistic theory make a contribution to citizenship discourse? To address this question the paper pursues the following structure: first, it examines the challenges confronting citizenship discourse. Second, it looks at how these challenges have been addressed in the relevant literature by looking at the arguments of Held and Benhabib. And finally, it examines the agonistic take on citizenship by recovering Mouffe’s conception of citizenship from the early 1990s. The paper argues that the answer to the problems currently confronting citizenship discourse is not to move in the direction of universal inclusion and privilege human rights (on the grounds that they are now more relevant as a means to making politics), but to reassert citizenship by reconsidering it in agonistic terms. 2.
What is the Problem with Citizenship There are three reasons why citizenship appears currently problematic. The first concerns its boundedness with the national and territorial state. Given that the role and functions of the state are changing as a result of the intensification of processes of globalisation, citizenship still remains tied to it. It is granted by territorial states – even though states are not as central as they used to be. It is exclusively exercised within states’ delimited territories, even though politics increasingly takes place at the global level (in intergovernmental institutions where citizens do not currently participate). And citizenship is still accorded to the members of the nation, despite large numbers of aliens residing within state territory. Growing apprehension towards the nation, moreover, all the more prevalent in the face of transnational migration and a multicultural politics, raises serious questions about the exclusionary dynamics of the nationally bound citizenship – about the idea that only nationals access immediately the rights and privileges of membership. And this is precisely where in a nutshell the problem with citizenship lies. Within the context of a postnational and deterritorialised politics, where calls for all-inclusion abound, citizenship transpires as too particular, too exclusive, and too divisive. In contrast, human rights, which as we will later see appear more prominent than citizenship as political means, are universal. They are not particular – for the law is general and neutral. Human rights are not exclusive – since the law
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______________________________________________________________ derives from the will of all and applies to all. And human rights pace citizenship are not divisive – because the law addresses disagreements and promotes a more equitable order. Could it then be that by virtue of the solution they offer to the challenges confronting citizenship, human rights could take on the political function of citizenship? Brysk and Shafir comment: human rights promise more than nation state citizenship. Implicitly, and sometimes explicitly, they suggest not only the possibility of an international order, which a well ordered state sovereignty system also promises, but a global community.6 Indeed, if we consider that the world today is increasingly depicted as a global community then it becomes apparent why human rights could be now more relevant than citizenship. But the case in not simply that human rights surface as most relevant political means. There is also significant disaffection with citizenship as a political institution. This is the second reason why it appears problematic. In particular, growing disenchantment with parliamentary politics, manifest in low voter turnouts and lack of engagement with formal political institutions such as political parties indicate that citizenship as an institution means less and less to the citizens save a right to participate in elections where choice is curtailed. Although for some theorists as for example Mark Warren this disenchantment is an indication of citizens’ changing expectations from their state, of their growing criticism rather than mere indifference, we also have to recognise that it is citizenship as a formal state institution which transpires as weak in this context. Warren notes: increasing disaffection from formal political institutions seems to be paralleled by increasing attention toward other ways and means of getting collective things done. Certainly, part of the reason that individuals are ‘apathetic’ about politics is that they conceive ‘politics’ as equivalent to the state. If the state becomes less significant as a site of collective action, then individuals . . . are likely to be organised around work, family and friends, schools, clubs, recreation, and other kinds of associations.7 Far from signalling therefore the end of political activism, current disenchantment with formal channels of participation opens the way for local initiatives and DIY politics – not a citizenship politics. At the same time, a lack of identification with citizenship in the face of its link with nationality
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______________________________________________________________ explains further why political disengagement prevails at the state rather than local level – especially within multicultural societies. Finally, a widespread sense that citizenship is not as effective a means for promoting democratic struggles confirms further why its practice appears today discredited. The third reason why citizenship seems problematic has to do with its value and exclusivity. To understand this problem we need to reflect on the varying statuses of political membership created in European counties. For example, there are citizens of member states of the European Union who enjoy a privileged set of rights except the national vote (denizens), dual citizens who hold a double allegiance to different nation states, citizens of Commonwealth countries (in Britain) who can also vote in national elections, and permanent as well as temporary third country residents who enjoy an array of civil and social rights. What these varying statuses of political membership thus demonstrate is, first, that the rights and privileges accompanying access to citizenship are no longer dependent upon its conferment; second, that the centrality and exclusivity of citizenship as an institution is weakened and challenged. Benhabib offers an additional insight into these developments. She notes in the process of rearticulation of rights through different regimes of residency and membership, citizenship rights are transformed . . . While admittance policies into EU member countries get stricter, for those foreigners who are already in the EU, the progress of Union citizenship has given rise to discrepancies between those who are foreigners and third country nationals [enjoying various social and civil rights], and those who are foreign nationals but EU members [and have the right to vote in local elections and elections of the European Parliament] . . . The consequence of these developments is that a situation has emerged in which divergent normative principles are at work in different contexts. I would like to name this process the disaggregation of citizenship rights. While civil rights are increasingly universalised . . . political and social rights show great variation across national boundaries.8 By thus astutely capturing the emergent situation in terms of a ‘disaggregation of citizenship rights,’ Benhabib points to the increasing importance attached to the status of residence. Since it is residence rather than citizenship, which appears to condition full or partial access to the rights and privileges of citizenship. Jacobson also confirms this shift when he says that ‘social, economic and even political rights have come to be predicated on residency. Citizenship, consequently, has been devalued in host countries.’ 9
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______________________________________________________________ Of course, the reason why citizenship appears devalued is now clear: it is no longer that excusive institution conferring rights on the members of the nation. But is there a way out of these challenges confronting citizenship? Before we explore this question in the fourth section, it is important to first have a look at how these challenges have been addressed in the relevant literature. 3.
Citizenship as Human Rights Rethinking citizenship in all inclusive and therefore human rights terms has been one influential way within the literature of addressing some of the challenges confronting state citizenship. It comes as part of a wider case for universal democratisation as a solution to two specific challenges confronting democratic practice at the turn of the century: the first challenge, which we have already made references to, revolves around the topos of politics. By reformulating democracy across state borders, its proponents show us that diminishing state sovereignty does not irreversibly weaken democracy. Rather, defining democratic markers such as transparency and accountability could be secured at the global layer of governance. The second challenge revolves around political logos or participation. By invoking the cross border activism of a nascent civil society, democratic theorists show us that political action could develop out of global concerns. And by valorising the potential of institutionalised deliberation to empower and emancipate individuals qua human beings, they identify a way in which political agency could be actualised beyond nation state borders. Yet what the proponents of universal democratisation appear to pay less attention to is the implications of their thesis for citizenship. To explore these implications later on in the section, we need to first introduce the arguments put forward. To this end, the section focuses on the writings of David Held and Seyla Benhabib who suggest that the way forward for reinvigorating democratic practice lies in the direction of universal or global inclusion. Held and Benhabib unite around their deliberative approach to democratic politics. Influenced by the work of Jürgen Habermas, both authors suggest that a deliberative account of democracy that gives centre stage to processes of communication, to public exchanges of reason, could apply to settings other than the nation state. This is partly because rational exchanges presuppose neither national nor territorial borders. But it is also because public reasoning is eo ipso empowering. Public reasoning could be used as justification for exclusions, according to Benhabib. And is the vehicle for promoting legitimacy in institutions of global governance, according to Held. More notably, pubic expressions of reason promise an intersubjective agreement on the terms of democratic cooperation beyond nation state borders. Notwithstanding therefore their significant differences and disagreements about (global) democracy, Held and Benhabib agree that public reasoning, by
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______________________________________________________________ virtue of its inclusivity, potential for empowerment and intersubjective results, holds the key to reinvigorating democratic practice in the face of the problems currently confronting it. This is one marker of the deliberative approach to citizenship. The second marker of deliberative proposals is that they have a strong proceduralist orientation. Institutionalised processes of deliberation, impartial and all-inclusive, conducted at diverse levels and settings are seen to consolidate democratic practice by facilitating global decision-taking and agreements about common concerns. Moreover, according to Held and Benhabib, a cosmopolitan framework of law secures both justice and democracy. This is because law and democracy are cooriginal, as Habermas argues: processes of deliberation (democracy) give birth to constitutional principles (basic legal rights) and constitutional principles (the legal system) entrench such processes of deliberation (democracy). The implicit and sometimes explicit endorsement of the co-originality thesis provides the third marker of the deliberative approach to a global or transnational democracy. For it leads Held and Benhabib to recast citizenship in very similar terms. To retain citizenship as a notion, yet to paradoxically dissolve it into those legally codified human rights, which it is co-original with – precisely because, as discussed below, they disentangle citizenship from dynamics of exclusion. Of course, the perspectives of these authors differ with respect to the suggestions they make. While Held speaks of a global citizenship which denotes the idea that self determined citizens deliberate at a variety of settings for issues directly affecting their lives, Benhabib disagrees with the idea of a global demos and suggests that we renegotiate inclusions and exclusions through processes of democratic iteration. But what are the concrete suggestions, which the two authors make, leading us to argue that they end up identifying citizenship with human rights? Held’s defence of a global citizenship comes first. In particular, Held’s conception of global citizenship comes as part of his project for a cosmopolitan or global social democracy, which aims at recovering legitimacy in institutions of global governance where participation, transparency, and accountability are often seen to be lacking.10 Aligned, therefore, to his proposals for further institutionalisation and a cosmopolitan framework of law, citizenship plays a central role in his project as a means to securing democratic legitimacy. How then does Held approach citizenship? On the surface, there is little doubt that citizenship which Held understands both as rights and participation becomes dissociated from dynamics of national and territorial exclusion. This is besides what the cosmopolitan model of democracy promotes: deliberations open to all, in a variety of settings. On closer inspection, however, we notice that Held in fact
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______________________________________________________________ employs three different, yet interrelated, conceptions of citizenship. On the one hand, he speaks explicitly of a global citizenship, a new conception that reconfigures democratic practice in the face of growing interdependence. A global citizenship, pace nation state citizenship, is ‘built on the fundamental rights and duties of all human beings . . . recognising their capacity for self governance at all levels of human affairs.’11 It follows, that a global citizenship which draws on common humanity, unavoidably subsumes the member/non member distinction characteristic of democratic practice. On the other hand, however, Held is more ambivalent about approaching citizenship in universal terms. Rather, he speaks of empowering rights, which provide for equality of status and, in effect, for equality of deliberation.12 According to Held, empowering rights can be identified neither with citizenship nor with human rights. While citizenship is no longer relevant because it remains confined to the nation state, human rights seen by some as Western constructs, give rise to disagreements over their exact content and definition. Empowering rights by contrast, argues Held, are not necessarily tied to the nation state and do not make any claim to universality, but to democracy. Here, we notice that Held refrains from using the term citizenship. Sensitive to citizenship’s historical link to the nation state, he settles with the notion of empowering rights. However, on a third level, Held is unwilling to even concede as much as the idea of empowering rights concedes. Instead, he speaks of multilevel or multiple citizenships which, in the light of ‘overlapping communities of fate,’ develop along with nation state citizenship. ‘People would come to enjoy multiple citizenships,’ he says. That is, ‘political membership in the diverse political communities which significantly affected them.’13 If we now look closely at these related accounts, we could delimit the three minimum features of Held’s approach to citizenship: first, it denotes the autonomy and equal status of each and every human being; second, it is a process of deliberation, a participatory activity enabling citizens to exchange reasons for (global) issues affecting their lives; and third it is not exclusively tied to the nation state. In a nutshell, citizenship is construed in Held’s account as an all-inclusive notion: all-inclusive in terms of who participates (all autonomous agents), where they participate (in different arenas) and how they participate (under a cosmopolitan framework of law which secures autonomy and impartiality). In Held’s words, the new conception of citizenship is based on general rules and principles . . . [Its] meaning shifts from membership in a community which bestows, for those who qualify, particular rights and duties, to an alternative principle of world order in which all persons have equivalent rights and
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______________________________________________________________ duties in the cross cutting spheres which affect their vital needs and interests.14 Although it could be objected that Held’s conception of global citizenship insofar as it coexists with, and adds to, nation state citizenship does not directly entail universal inclusion, we could argue that this appears to be the case only in the short or medium term. In the long term, Held does anticipate, as the last citation clearly indicates, that a global citizenship would override exclusive democratic practices. But is a global, all-inclusive, citizenship possible? In her latest effort to rethink political membership in the face of transnational migration, Seyla Benhabib astutely points out that democracies require borders and thus relations of both inclusion and exclusion.15 This is partly because democratic legitimacy presupposes representation of a specific people and accountability to a specific constituency. But it is also because the tension between the practices of the particular demos and cosmopolitan norms, such as human rights principles, is not something that we could do away with, according to Benhabib, but is constitutive of liberal democracies. Rather than developing therefore the idea of a global demos, which by implication undermines that which is constitutive of liberal democratic politics – the tension between sovereign self determination and universal norms – Benhabib suggests that through democratic iterations we can renegotiate relations of inclusion and exclusion and thus mitigate the tension between the two. At its most basic, the idea of democratic iterations denotes that deliberations, which require that participants give justifications for exclusions, open the way for the demos to reiterate the conditions for just membership. Benhabib explains: democratic iterations are linguistic, legal, cultural and political repetitions in transformation, invocations that are also revocations. They not only change established understandings but also transform what passes as valid or authoritative precedent . . . [By engaging therefore in such processes] a democratic people, which considers itself bound by certain guiding norms and privileges, reappropriates and reinterprets these.16 What Benhabib suggests, therefore, is that through processes of democratic iteration, the citizenry progressively revises relations of inclusion and exclusion. More importantly, she expounds that through rational argumentation in acts of democratic iterations, new norms emerge with respect to nation state practices, and these new (universal) norms would be
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______________________________________________________________ incorporated into democratic processes of will formation, thereby acquiring positive legal status. In this way, the spread of cosmopolitan norms, all the more prominent today, comes to be reconciled with popular sovereignty. No longer referring ‘to the physical presence of a people gathered in a delimited territory,’ popular sovereignty would now refer ‘to the interlocking in the global public sphere of the many processes of democratic iteration in which peoples learn from one another.’17 Certainly, Benhabib does not seem in the first instance to reassert citizenship, the vehicle of democratic politics, in all-inclusive terms. A tension in her argument, however, reveals that she actually does. The tension surfaces once we consider that while democratic iterations uphold the idea of the citizenry which decides on its own affairs, they necessarily lead to, if not presuppose, revision of (exclusive) practices and legalisation of human rights norms – otherwise, they would be short of ‘iterations’ in the Derridean sense which Benhabib uses. But if the point of democratic iterations is to renegotiate and revise exclusive nation state practices, so to reconcile cosmopolitan norms with particular politics, then their implication is that the citizenry that iterates such potentially universal norms comes to unavoidably embrace everyone. Because if the citizenry were not to embrace all human beings who are of equal moral worth, then there would be little point in processes of democratic iteration. Since Benhabib does not, therefore, justify why the second or third generation citizenry which comes into being after iterative acts have taken place is not all inclusive, we are led to the conclusion that Benhabib does embrace, if not anticipate, the possibility of a universal citizenry. Of course, two questions arise at this point. The first is this: How exactly does the argument for universal inclusion lead to a defence of human rights? The second question is the following: What is precisely the problem with this argument? To address the first question we need to return to the emphasis which Held and Benhabib place on deliberation. For it is their deliberative approach to democratic practice which provides us with cues as to how exactly they end up identifying citizenship with human rights. Two underlying assumptions of the deliberative perspective which we have already examined, are relevant for us here. The first is that a procedural understanding of democratic practice which gives centre stage to public reasoning could secure global democratisation – since, as we have seen, public reasoning is inclusive and empowering. The second assumption is that human rights which entrench processes of democratic deliberation cofound the democratic order with citizenship. Both of these assumptions, we are now in a position to show, lead Held and Benhabib to effect the same theoretical move: to first empty citizenship of all substantive bonds, by identifying it with public exchanges of reason – a necessary step in the process of dissociating the concept from the exclusive nation state politics
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______________________________________________________________ which today appear problematic. And then to embrace the prospect of such a minimal citizenship which differs little from human rights, on the implicit presupposition that human rights which co-found the democratic order could come to reinvigorate it. For example, this seems to be case with Held’s argument. For why wouldn’t basic human rights, which valorise common reason among other humane properties, not secure public exchanges of reasoning at the global level – which is how Held defines citizenship? The point, therefore, is not that Held implicitly envisions human rights as the main principle of politics. Nor that he simply effaces the difference between citizenship and human rights, and identifies the former with the latter. Rather, that his conception of citizenship is so minimal that human rights could assume its role. To be sure, there are two conceptual difficulties with this argument. The first difficulty surfaces when we consider that neither Held nor Benhabib, for example, clearly explain why exactly individuals would deliberate at the global level (Held) or why they would iterate cosmopolitan norms (Benhabib). Although common reason dictates so, surely rationality could not be enough for grounding participation at levels other than the state. Might it not, therefore, be the case that democratic practice, at the global age to be certain, requires something more, some sort of common allegiance? This brings us to the second difficulty confronting deliberative arguments, which end up privileging human rights. Envisaging citizenship in universal terms is possible, theoretically, only if we play down the need for a collective ‘we consciousness,’ what Habermas calls ‘civic solidarity.’18 Curiously, both Held and Benhabib do not explore this in detail. Thus the question arises: Are human rights the only option when it comes to addressing the challenges currently confronting democratic practice? Addressing this question comprises the focus of the next section. 4.
An Agonistic Conception of Citizenship Looked at from an agonistic angle, the prospect of an all inclusive, human rights politics, which Held and Benhabib seem to suggest, is not only impossible but also risks undermining democratic politics. Why? Because if citizenship, the vehicle of democratic politics, becomes reformulated in all inclusive terms, drawing on common humanity instead of the discourses and practices that bind democratic citizens together, then it is likely that we risk both political disengagement and apathy. We risk disengagement because humanity, an all-inclusive notion, might not sustain democratic participation. As Mouffe insightfully captures: mobilisation requires politicisation, but politicisation cannot exist without the production of a conflictual representation of the world, with opposing camps with
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______________________________________________________________ which people can identify.. In order to act politically people need to be able to identify with a collective identity which provides an idea of themselves they can valorise.19 Could common humanity provide this idea? Given that humanity functions as the lowest common denominator for collective identifications, let alone the disputes surrounding the origins and validity of human rights, it seems unlikely at the moment that it can. In a similar fashion, we could argue, still from an agonistic angle, that we risk apathy when we postulate that by politicising humanity we can still secure democratic contestations. Because, what would be there to contest, if there are no divisions and no frontiers – which for agonistic theorists define democratic politics? In other words, the argument here is that for democracy to happen, citizenship needs to be reconceptualised in a way that remains faithful to its role as the vehicle for collectively contesting, and not simply deliberating about democratic politics. Because a universal citizenship potentially neutralises commonality and mutates contestation, it risks undermining democratic politics. This is one aspect to the danger confronting accounts of citizenship as a universal notion. Another aspect is that if there are no frontiers and thus no differences and disagreements separating ‘us’ from ‘them,’ then there is perhaps no politics from an agonistic perspective. Precisely because citizenship embodies such a politics, we need to be alert to the prospect of identifying it with human rights. Of course, this is not to deny that human rights is a form of politics. Insofar as human rights challenges and exposes exclusions, it is a necessary and indeed indispensable political principle. Yet it is one thing to argue that human rights further, strengthen, and promote democratic politics and quite another to suggest that such universal rights should be made the main driving force behind politics. To the end, therefore, of strengthening and promoting democratic politics, the remainder of this section examines the agonistic conception of citizenship – taking it as a second, alternative way in which we could address some of the challenges currently confronting citizenship discourse. More specifically, and in reformulating citizenship as agonistic, I am recovering Mouffe’s conception of citizenship – I apply it to the present setting and show its relevance. This is because Mouffe wrote about citizenship in the early 1990s with understandably different concerns in mind from those driving the present literature. At the same time, Mouffe was speaking at the time of a radical democratic citizenship, one particular, and politicised, interpretation of citizenship, in tune with her political project of a radical democracy. While an agonistic citizenship can of course be interpreted in radical democratic terms, it is a theoretical, not a political, conception. It, first, establishes a link between Mouffe’s early work on citizenship and her
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______________________________________________________________ latest, theoretical, work on agonistic politics. And it, secondly, addresses those emerging norms and practices, which presently puzzle theorists concerned with democratic practice. Mouffe defines citizenship as ‘a form of political identity that consists of an identification with the political principles of modern pluralist democracy, that is, the assertion of liberty and equality for all.’20 Citizenship is an articulating principle, according to Mouffe, that ‘affects the different subject positions of the social agent while allowing for a plurality of specific allegiances and for the respect of individual liberty.’21 In following therefore Mouffe’s conception of citizenship, we neither privilege the citizenry over humanity, nor humanity over the citizenry. Instead, we attend to what is specific to modern liberal democracy: unity (some sort of consensus) and a conflictual plurality. More specifically, as an articulating principle which brings together ‘the different subject positions of the social agent,’ citizenship is for Mouffe neither fixed nor unitary. It is a constructed identity, a form of identification with liberty and equality. Citizenship identity is constructed according to Mouffe through chains of equivalence. By annulling their differences and identifying with a common purpose, subjects collectively construct their identity as citizens. A corollary feature therefore of a constructed citizenship is that it is also a collective identity. For politics is a collective activity for Mouffe. It arises the moment when a ‘we’ becomes constructed and differentiated from ‘them.’ In transforming therefore this potentially antagonistic relation into an agonistic one, citizenship plays a useful role. As a constructed identity, citizenship ensures, on the one hand, that citizens share some common ground. On the other hand, it ensures that those citizens are adversaries. But a constructed citizenship identity is also precarious – an idea which connects with Mouffe’s argument that ‘democracy exists as a good only as long as it cannot be reached.’22 Because a constitutive antagonism prevents an allinclusive ‘us’ from realising, it also prevents citizenship from being permanently fixed around a single meaning. Thus citizenship remains open to many interpretations. The constructive, collective and precarious character of an agonistic citizenship leaves open for us here the possibility of a democratic practice that is not tied to the nation- state. Precisely because it is constructed, citizenship can be practiced below, for example, the level of a state. Precisely because a commonality drives its construction, this commonality does not need to derive only from national membership. Finally, precisely because it is precarious, citizenship identity is not fixed once and for all. In short, the constructed and precarious character of the agonistic citizenship makes room for pluralism. But how about (democratic) unity, which is also specific of modern democratic politics? Mouffe as we have seen designates citizenship as a form of
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______________________________________________________________ identification with the principles of liberty and equality, the second feature of her conception. By identifying therefore with the basics of liberal democracy, subjects otherwise different can create a common bond between them. Because this bond revolves around strictly political principles, the agonistic conception of citizenship brings us thus back to politics. Moreover, liberty and equality which function for Mouffe as a ‘grammar of conduct,’ an expression she borrows from Wittgenstein, are not simply procedural rules and specifications. Instead, they emerge out of common practices – out of passionate attachments. What Mouffe thereby tells us is that allegiance to democracy presupposes collective passion. Yet two questions arise at this point: Can we claim that a commitment to the nation, with which citizenship is currently tied, is one such passionate commitment – with the implication being of course that the agonistic conception of citizenship brings us back to square one? The second question which arises concerns the following idea: suggesting that passion secures allegiance to democratic institutions is plausible in the first instance with reference to state politics and institutions. What happens when deterritorialised processes weaken the authority of the state? Let us address these two questions in reverse order. Although the role and functions of the state are indeed changing, the prospect of an all-inclusive demos is impossible for those who follow Mouffe’s perspective on democratic politics. This is because politics always involves frontiers for Mouffe, acts of inclusion/exclusion. The moment therefore that frontiers are negated, the political disappears. Yet how can we square the need for a demos without bounding this demos to the territorial state? Since passion has for Mouffe both associative and dissociative effects (it both bonds the citizenry and distinguishes it from the non-members), the way forward for her is to try to multiply us/them relations so to avoid passion’s antagonistic edge. Relevantly, therefore, for us at this point, Mouffe’s idea of multiplying passions shows us that if we politicise spaces other than the state, for example, localities regions and sub-regions, if we delimit and multiply their frontiers, then we can secure a citizenry at additional levels to the state. But still, will this be a national demos? Here we need to repeat and stress that Mouffe says that citizenship identity consists of identification with principles of politics, not ethnic principles. At the same time, her argument for multiplying is suggestive as to the way in which we can approach nationality – as one among many forms of identification that people can feel strongly about; neither as the predominant form of identification nor as something to be dismissed. Could we then argue that Mouffe’s approach to democratic practice provides us with cues as to the way in which collective action could be reasserted in the face of a problematic politics? This paper has argued that in breaking with the trend which sees universal inclusion as a panacea to the problems confronting citizenship, the
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______________________________________________________________ agonistic perspective certainly provides us with valuable insights as to the democratic task ahead.
Notes 1
See D Kahane, ‘Diversity and Civic Solidarity: Diversity, Solidarity and Civic Friendship’, Journal of Political Philosophy, Vol. 7:3, 1999, pp. 267286; J Habermas, Between Facts and Norms. Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1996; J Habermas, The Postnational Constellation: Political Essays, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2001; D Miller, ‘Citizenship and Pluralism’, Political Studies, Vol. XLIII, 1995, pp. 432-450. 2 S Benhabib, ‘Twilight of Sovereignty or the Emergence of Cosmopolitan Norms? Rethinking Citizenship in Volatile Times’, Citizenship Studies, Vol.11:1, 2007, pp.19-36. 3 A Schaap, ‘Agonism in Divided Societies’, Philosophy and Social Criticism, Vol. 32:2, 2006, p.258. 4 C Mouffe, On the Political, Routledge, London, 2005, p.20. 5 ibid, pp.24-29. 6 A Brysk & G Shafir, ‘Introduction: Globalisation and the Citizenship Gap’, People Out of Place: Globalisation, Human Rights and the Citizenship Gap, A Brysk & G Shafir (eds), Routledge, New York, 2004, pp. 4-5. 7 M Warren, ‘What Can Democratic Participation Mean Today?’ Political Theory, Vol. 30:5, 2002, p.682. 8 S Benhabib, ‘Disaggregation of Citizenship Rights’, Parallax, Vol. 11:1, 2005, p. 14. 9 D Jacobson, Rights Across Borders: Immigration and the Decline of Citizenship, John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, Maryland, 1997, p.9. 10 Here I am concentrating on the following two books by D Held, Democracy and the Global Order: From the Modern State to Cosmopolitan Governance, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1995 and Global Covenant: The Social Democratic Alternative to the Washington Consensus, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2004. 11 ibid, 2004, p.115. 12 D Held, Democracy and the Global Order: From the Modern State to Cosmopolitan Democracy, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1995, pp.222-223. 13 ibid, p.233. 14 D Held, Global Covenant: The Social Democratic Alternative to the Washington Consensus, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2004, p.114. 15 S Benhabib, Another Cosmopolitanism, Oxford University Press, New York, 2006, p.33. 16 ibid, pp.49-50.
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______________________________________________________________ 17
S Benhabib, ‘Twilight of Sovereignty or the Emergence of Cosmopolitan Norms? Rethinking Citizenship in Volatile Times’, Citizenship Studies, Vol. 11:1, 2007, p.32. 18 J Habermas, Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1996, p.139. 19 C Mouffe, On the Political, Routledge, London, pp.24,25. 20 C Mouffe, The Return of the Political, Verso, London, 1993, p.83. 21 ibid, p.84. 22 C Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, Verso, London, 2000, p.137.
Bibliography Bauböck, R., Transnational Citizenship: Membership and Rights in the Face of International Migration. Edward Elgar Publishing, Adershot, Hants, 1994. Benhabib, S., ‘Disaggregation of Citizenship Rights’. Parallax. Vol. 11:1, 2005, pp.10-18. _______
, Another Cosmopolitanism. Oxford University Press, New York, 2006.
_______
, ‘Twilight of Sovereignty or the Emergence of Cosmopolitan Norms? Rethinking Citizenship in Volatile Times’. Citizenship Studies. Vol. 11:1, 2007, pp. 19-36. Brassett, J. & Smith, W., ‘Deliberation and Global Governance: Liberal, Cosmopolitan and Critical Perspectives’. Ethics and International Affairs. Vol. 22:1, 2008, pp. 69-92. Brysk, A. & Shafir, G., ‘Introduction: Globalisation and the Citizenship Gap’. People Out of Place: Globalisation, Human Rights and the Citizenship Gap. A. Brysk & G. Shafir (eds), Routledge, New York, 2004, pp.3-10. _______
, ‘The Globalisation of Rights: From Citizenship to Human Rights’. Citizenship Studies, Vol.10: 3, 2006, pp. 275-287. Connolly, W., Identity/Difference: Democratic Negotiations of Political Paradox. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 1991. Connolly, W., ‘Democracy and Territoriality’. The Ethos of Pluralisation. W. Connolly, (ed), University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1995.
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______________________________________________________________ Delanty, G., Citizenship in a Global Age: Society, Culture, Politics. Open University Press, Buckingham, 2000. Devaux, M., ‘Agonism and Pluralism’. Philosophy and Social Criticism. Vol. 25:4, 1999, pp. 1-22. Habermas, J., Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy. Polity Press, Cambridge, 1996. _______
, The Inclusion of the Other: Studies in Political Theory. Polity Press, Cambridge, 1998.
_______
, The Postnational Constellation: Political Essays. Polity Press, Cambridge, 2001. Heater, D., What is Citizenship? Polity Press, Cambridge, 1999. Held, D., Democracy and the Global Order: From the Modern State to Cosmopolitan Governance. Polity Press, Cambridge, 1995. _______
, Global Covenant: The Social Democratic Alternative to the Washington Consensus. Polity Press, Cambridge, 2004. Jacobson, D., Rights Across Borders: Immigration and the Decline of Citizenship. John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, Maryland, 1997. Kahane, D., ‘Diversity and Civic Solidarity: Diversity, Solidarity and Civic Friendship’. Journal of Political Philosophy. Vol. 7:3, 1999, pp. 267-286. Linklater, A., ‘A Cosmopolitan Citizenship’. Citizenship Studies. Vol. 2:1, 1998, pp. 23-41. Lupel, A., ‘Tasks of a Global Civil Society: Held, Habermas and Democratic Legitimacy Beyond the Nation State’. Globalisations. Vol. 2:1, 2005, pp.117133. Miller, D., ‘Citizenship and Pluralism’. Political Studies. Vol. XLIII, 1995, pp. 432-450. Mouffe, C., The Return of the Political. Verso, London, 1993. Mouffe, C., The Democratic Paradox. Verso, London, 2000.
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______________________________________________________________ Mouffe, C., On the Political. Routledge, London, 2005. Murphy, M. & Harty, S., ‘Post Sovereign Citizenship’. Citizenship Studies. Vol. 7:2, 2003, pp. 181-197. Parekh, B., ‘Cosmopolitanism and Global Citizenship’. Review of International Studies. Vol. 29, 2003, pp. 3-17. Schaap, A., ‘Agonism in Divided Societies’. Philosophy and Social Criticism. Vol. 32:2, 2006, pp.255-277. Warren, M., ‘What Can Democratic Participation Mean Today?’ Political Theory. Vol. 30:5, 2002, pp. 677-701. Paulina Tambakaki is a Senior Lecturer in Political Theory at University of Westminster, London, UK. Her main research interests are in democratic theory, citizenship, and human rights.
Jane Addams, Pragmatism and Rhetorical Citizenship in Multicultural Democracies Robert Danisch Abstract Jane Addams’s Hull-House, and the American Settlement House movement more generally, is an instructive example in informal, socially oriented rhetorical education. Those that ran Hull-House and Settlement Houses across the United States in the early part of the twentieth century, saw their work as a precondition for citizenship in what Addams called a ‘social democracy’. The function of Hull-House was to cope with the conditions of pluralism in American cities marked by an enormous influx if immigrant populations by training new immigrants for life as citizens within American democracy. Therefore, as historical example, Jane Addams’s work is a useful resource for the beginning of a new century that must confront new challenges of pluralism and immigration. There are four questions about Addams’s work at Hull-House that this paper addresses: What called HullHouse into being, or, in other words, why the settlement house movement? What kind of civics education was offered there and how did this version of civics education embody a model of rhetorical citizenship? In what ways did this form of civics education and rhetorical citizenship ground a social democracy (and what’s unique about a social democracy)? What is the ongoing relevance of Addams as an exemplar of a specific version of political theory committed to the question of inclusion within pluralistic democracies? The first two questions are historical, the third is theoretical, and the fourth argumentative. Collectively, the answers to these questions demonstrate the ongoing usefulness of American pragmatism as a resource for thinking about life within large-scale, multi-cultural democracies. In addition, the answers to these questions point the way toward understanding the importance of rhetorical citizenship. Rhetorical citizenship is essential for the maintenance of democratic life, and the pragmatist tradition provides a useful and important resource for thinking about the importance of embodied communication for socio-political affairs. Key Words: Pragmatism, Jane Addams, rhetorical citizenship, pluralism, communicative practice, and multiculturalism ***** 1.
Introduction Contemporary conceptions of citizenship have been qualified in a number of different ways: social citizenship, multicultural citizenship,
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______________________________________________________________ citizen-soldiers, or citizen-workers are just a few examples.1 Although these are useful elaborations of the concept of citizenship, they fail to recognize the importance of communication practices in grounding habits of citizenship. The earliest Ancient Greek model of citizen was so closely tied to speech acts that the word ‘rhetor’ could be used as a placeholder for citizen. The implication was that citizenship required participation in the affairs of the Athenian city-state, and participation was a matter of rhetorical performance at the Ekklesia or in the courts. The myth of Protagoras demonstrated just how essential rhetoric was to the functioning of Athenian democracy, and how integral communication as public address was to the meaning of citizenship in Ancient Greece. Contemporary multicultural democracies tend to stress the role of rights for citizens. A citizen becomes someone in possession of a set of rights laid out in a constitution. Rights talk obscures the importance of rhetorical practice for citizenship. One of the reasons contemporary democracies have become so enamoured with rights is that rights are thought to be capable of securing equality for masses of citizens with plural backgrounds and interests. The ancient Athenian city-state never faced the problem of scale and fact of multiculturalism in the ways that we do. Legal protections granted by rights are our central mechanism for coping with the problem of scale and the fact of multiculturalism. However, I argue below that notions of citizenship ought to come with recommendations and requirements for rhetorical practice, otherwise they are insufficient. In other words, I argue that any meaningful notion of citizenship must entail and recommend a set of rhetorical practices, and that rhetorical citizenship must be cultivated in different ways to fit different democracies. Put simply, rhetorical citizenship is the search for, and practice of, methods of communication capable of guiding public decision and judgment. If a democracy is to be a government of, for and by the people, then it must allow its citizens a voice in the affairs of the state. The question, however, becomes how does one practice rhetoric in large-scale, multicultural democracies? Under what conditions? In what manner? Using what technologies? Toward what end? The ancient Greeks had simple and elegant answers to these questions, embodied in the notion of the orator-citizen, but our contemporary moment lacks such clarity. Instead, we have the responsibility of cultivating our own rhetorical practices suitable for our own moment. In what follows I recommend a way of developing a form of rhetorical citizenship that can cope with the fact of multiculturalism. This way of developing rhetorical citizenship is indebted to the tradition of American pragmatism broadly and to Jane Addams specifically.
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______________________________________________________________ 2.
Models of Rhetorical Citizenship Before beginning to explore Jane Addams’s contribution to our understanding of rhetorical citizenship, we can survey the other available models of rhetorical citizenship in more detail. The Ancient Greek model is the most well developed and easy to identify. Subsequently, four other models from the twentieth century have attempted to extend beyond the Greek model. I call these the Habermasian model, the Marxist model, the media spectacle model, and the Pragmatist model. Addams is a proponent of the pragmatist model, as I show below. Each model entails a set of recommendations about communication practices for participation in democratic life. In Ancient Athens, democratic politics, the practice of government and the management of public affairs, required deliberative rhetoric. When the political process implicates more than one person in decision-making, deliberative rhetoric, so the Athenians thought, becomes the primary practice through which decisions are reached. Through much of the fifth and fourth centuries BCE Athens was ruled by a democratic political system that implicated all of the ‘citizens’ of Athens in the political process of making decisions. According to Josiah Ober’s Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens, oratory, rhetoric, and deliberative speeches played a central part in defining Athenian politics and regulating relations between Athenians. Rhetorical ability and education helped distinguish orators as leaders and granted some citizens more political power than others. Although Ober identifies many other factors for effective participation in democratic decision-making, he argues that, ‘Athenians expected an individual politician to state his personal opinion on any given subject in open debate with individuals offering differing opinions’.2 That form of open debate was carried out in the Assembly. An issue was brought before an audience of citizens (whoever wanted to attend or participate) and after deliberation a decision would be made. Crowds at the Assembly averaged around six thousand citizens, and so deliberation could not proceed by means of discussion. To include all citizens equally, ‘the Athenians relied on mass communication by means of direct, spoken language.’3 The combination of the Assembly as the central decision-making institution, the number of citizens participating in the political process, and the need to arrive at a decision binding on the community and rendered by the citizens themselves functioned so as to link democracy inextricably to the practice of rhetoric. This meant that democracy and deliberative rhetoric were inseparable, and the connection between the two helped create competing rhetorical theories that vied for adherents and political power. Such competing perspectives demonstrated that in the Athenian experience the practice of rhetoric was considered the most useful means by which a citizen could participate in, and affect the political affairs of, the state.
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______________________________________________________________ This general model of rhetorical citizenship actually developed in slightly different, competing ways in Athens. Give the structural conditions of democratic life, several schools emerged to offer students an education suitable for participation in the public affairs of the state. The sophists, although never a formal group or formal school, travelled throughout the Ancient Greek world to teach students the art of rhetoric. The sophistic conception of rhetoric emphasized the timeliness and appropriateness of a message and compared the power of language to the effects of drugs on the body. This approach to rhetoric was grounded in an agnostic and anthropocentric orientation to the world that understood language as a dynamic force in shaping socio-political affairs and saw persuasion as the ability to make one view appear preferable to another. Isocrates was also a prominent teacher of rhetoric. He, however, departed from the sophistic perspective by emphasizing the importance of practical knowledge in building and maintaining communities. His formal school in Athens was explicitly designed to train political leaders by teaching students how to use knowledge to make decisions under difficult circumstances. Aristotle systematized much of the practical advice offered by the sophists and Isocrates by trying to control and order the power of rhetoric to guide decision-making. He did this by suggesting tools for the invention of arguments, the arrangement of discourse, and the understanding of an audience. These three schools of thought were all committed to the development of a form of rhetorical citizenship with public address as the key communicative practice. Even though public address was necessary for Athenian democracy, these early versions of rhetorical theory did not need to cope with the conditions of pluralism and immigration that contemporary democracies confront. Jürgen Habermas distrusts rhetoric completely. The sophists continue to unfairly suffer from the charge of being unscrupulous and nefarious. This is mostly due to Plato’s critique of sophistry in many of his dialogues. Nonetheless, Habermas does not trust public speaking as the best model of reaching good decisions. His theory of communicative action, his description of the public sphere, and his articulation of the ideal speech situation all contribute to a drastically different model of rhetorical citizenship. In fact, I would imagine Habermas would resist the pejorative connotations of using the word rhetorical to describe this mode of citizenship. However, I use the word rhetorical here to highlight the fact that Habermas believes in the importance of communicative practices for deliberation and democracy. The ideal speech situation, however, turns the contentious political debates of the Ekklesia into a philosophy seminar, in which reason triumphs. Rhetorical citizenship, from such a perspective, becomes a matter of obeying the structural orientation of the ideal speech situation, using reason to reach
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______________________________________________________________ consensus, and suppressing self-interest. According to Habermas, democratic public life thrives when institutions allow citizens to debate matters of public importance. How the debate is conducted, however, is essential to his model of rhetorical citizenship. In the ‘ideal speech situation,’ conversational partners are equally endowed with the capacity for argument, recognize one another’s basic equality, and engage in speech acts that are undistorted by ideology. Such a situation is capable of generating consensus about what is true or false instead of making one perspective appear better than another. Communicative action thus becomes a way of achieving mutual understanding and coordinating social action while remaining rational. When interpersonal linguistic communication becomes the site of rationality, then we no longer have to worry about irrational and dangerous forms of rhetorical discourse or the mystification caused by capitalism. At this point, I could offer a reading of the differences between Protagoras’s ‘Great Speech’ in Plato’s dialogue of that name and Habermas’s account of the ideal speech situation. Such a reading would nicely display the differences between how the two understand the role of communication in citizenship and democratic deliberation. The polite conversation of the public sphere could also be read against the litigious character of the Ancient agora to demonstrate those differences further. However, that is beyond the scope of this paper. The major advantage of Habermas’s model of rhetorical citizenship is that he is able to cope with pluralism and multiculturalism by turning substantive issues into administrative issues and hoping that reason transcends difference. This may or may not be a legitimate strategy (obviously debates have raged over the viability of his position). What is important for this essay, however, is that these are not the only two choices. Habermas is concerned with both the manner in which the media colonise the lifeworld and Marxism’s over-emphasis on the role of economic relations in causing oppression. But Marxism itself can be read as a model of rhetorical citizenship and coping with life in a media saturated world also creates other kinds of opportunities for the practice of rhetoric. These constitute third and fourth potential models of rhetorical citizenship. A Marxist model would obviously emphasize the role of ideology in distorting deliberation and public decision-making. From such a perspective communication matters to the extent that it is necessary to practice a specific form of critique. One might consider Cornel West to be an exemplary contemporary version of a Marxist concerned with rhetorical citizenship. West’s extensive public lectures are designed to bring attention to a system of oppression and the political-economic conditions within which the disadvantaged continue to live in our capitalist society. Critical analyses of the ways in which ideology distorts people’s understanding of the world in which they live are the necessary communicative means for the transformation of that world. Through some process of demystification the
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______________________________________________________________ proletariat may gain the kind of insight that would cause them to bind together and resist the global march of capital. From this perspective, therefore, rhetorical citizenship is a matter of communication as critique in the service of securing an objective view of the conditions of life in our democracy, a view untainted by ideology and unaffected by economic relations. This model reduces pluralism to a matter of class difference. Cultural differences can be explained away by reference to class status and place within the hierarchy of contemporary capitalism. The only project of reconciliation is over the conflict between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Obviously the mass media can be read as significant and important mechanisms for the dissemination of the ideology of capitalism (see the Frankfurt school). Communicative practices of critique are then essential for exposing the ways in which the media influence democratic politics. But political-economic analyses are not the only available option for using the mass media. Media spectacles themselves can be viable means for practicing a form of rhetorical citizenship. Many contemporary social movements, from Green Peace to Live Eight, have used the media as tools of public communication and suggestions for modes of citizen participation. Almost every contemporary citizen-led protest initiative (including the contemporary U.S. Tea Party activists) is cognizant of the manner in which their initiatives are represented on television and over the Internet. Attempting to control one’s message in a context dominated by such acts of representation becomes a key concern for contemporary citizenship. No authoritative account of this form of rhetorical citizenship exists at this point. However, many recent books, like Kevin Deluca’s Image Politics: The New Rhetoric of Environmentalism, attempt to track the ways in which the rhetorical practices of non-governmental social movements have developed strategies for politics in a media age. But these modes of rhetorical citizenship that are aware of the media spectacle rarely take into account the problems of pluralism and multiculturalism. Often times we assume that the media produces a homogenous mass public, and perhaps the media is dangerous for contemporary democracy because of its tendency to obscure difference in the name of producing the largest possible audience for an event. But for this model of rhetorical citizenship to advance beyond its initial conceptualization, it must account for the pluralism produced by large-scale immigration. What makes the tradition of American pragmatism special is that it understood both the importance of communication for democratic life and it was uniquely attuned to the problem of pluralism. In addition, the pragmatist tradition resonates more closely to the Ancient Greek tradition, while being alive to the same difficulties that Habermas, Marxists, and students of the media spectacle seek to address. In other words, American pragmatism has tried to offer a different mode of rhetorical citizenship, indebted to the Greek
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______________________________________________________________ tradition but fit to the problems of contemporary life. John Dewey and Jane Addams are the two figures most responsible for articulating this mode of rhetorical citizenship. For my purposes, I read Addams’s work at Hull-House as an embodied example of rhetorical citizenship. So far I have been searching for models of rhetorical citizenship that get beyond the rights/identity talk that controls most citizenship studies. I mean these models to be understood as hypothesis and not necessarily descriptions of facts. One could do a larger study that attempts a fine-grained analysis of what communicative practices are available in each. That is beyond the scope of this paper. Instead I want to do a close analysis of one possible form of rhetorical citizenship, one that I think is useful for coping with multiculturalism and pluralism. 3.
Jane Addams at Hull-House Hull-House, and the Settlement House movement more generally, is an instructive example in informal, socially oriented rhetorical education. Those that ran Hull-House and Settlement Houses across the country in the early part of the twentieth century, saw their work as a precondition for citizenship in what Jane Addams called a ‘social democracy’. There are four questions about Hull-House that I will try to address: What called Hull-House into being (or, in other words, why the settlement house movement? What kind of civics education is offered there? How does this form of civics education ground a social democracy (and what’s unique about a social democracy)? What is the ongoing relevance of Addams as an exemplar of a specific version of civics education and political theory? The first two questions are historical, the third is theoretical, and the fourth argumentative. Addams’s essay, ‘The Subjective Necessity for Social Settlements,’ identifies the ‘motives which constitute the subjective pressure toward social settlements,’ and argues for the importance of a social dimension in democracy.4 According to Addams, the major function of Hull-House (and the other settlement houses) was ‘to make social intercourse express the growing sense of economic unity of society . . . It [Hull-House] was opened on the theory that the dependence of classes on each other is reciprocal’.5 Challenging the notion that ‘political equality alone would secure all good to all men,’ Addams traces a litany of political abuses that separate and alienate citizens from one another and fail to demonstrate the economic unity of society. The political abuses she describes reflect the Progressive beliefs of her day and demonstrate her own political position. For example, she claimed that African Americans were free and possessed the right to vote but remained ‘in a practical social ostracism’. In addition, Immigrants were given the right to vote but Americans identified them ‘with epithets deriding [their] past life or present preoccupation, and [felt] no need to invite’ them into their ‘houses’.6 And finally, the voting system itself was corrupt, with entire ‘city
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______________________________________________________________ wards in which many of the votes [were] sold for drinks and dollars,’ and political ‘bossism,’ prone to scandal and corruption, ruled local politics. These abuses led Addams to claim that America was entering ‘the second phase of democracy’.7 The ‘French Philosophers’ entered the first by identifying the need for political equality and for natural rights (equality, liberty, and fraternity). But the French philosophical program had clearly stalled given the abuses in the American system. The second phase of democracy, then, must involve the social realization of the French philosophical goals and ideals. Settlement houses were a viable alternative because the ‘social organism’ had so severely and thoroughly ‘broken down through large districts’ of many American cities. Extreme poverty, total lack of fellowship or local tradition marred cities like Chicago. Social disintegration was coincidental with the political disintegration that Addams identified. Under such conditions, democratic ideals such as equality and the participation of all in the decision-making process were impossible – Addams did not believe that political parties alone could achieve such democratic ideals. The first phase of democracy had established political institutions with a guiding constitution and the right to vote. Although Addams identified the first phase as a fundamental step in the construction of a democratic state, she insisted that a second phase was necessary. This second phase must create social organizations capable of: 1) demonstrating the interdependence of all classes and types of people; 2) disseminating and interpreting information openly and fairly to all citizens; 3) educating all citizens; and 4) fostering a higher civic life through common social intercourse. Because Chicago and other cities were increasingly diverse and industrial, with ever-expanding populations, traditional assumptions about the effectiveness of democracy needed support from social organizations capable of those tasks. Without a ‘social’ aspect of democracy there was no way political institutions could live up to the ideal of collective decisions binding on all citizens. Generating the kinds of social conditions Addams thought necessary for democracy required a unique set of rhetorical practices. In what Addams identified as the ‘first phase of democracy,’ rhetorical practices had remained much closer to the practice of public address. Ideally, professional politicians persuaded citizens to vote for them, and then those professional politicians engaged in deliberation over specific courses of action as an embodied voice of their constituents. These politicians could be kept in check by the rules agreed upon in a constitution. A constitution could secure the rights of citizens and provide equal protection to those without a literal voice in the decision-making process. Addams demonstrated that this system could not work in an efficient, open, or successful manner. Poverty, inequality, corruption, class, race and sex discrimination all worked to prevent the mass of citizens from genuine participation in deliberation and politics. The
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______________________________________________________________ Constitution and the right to vote were meant as theoretical protection from these problems, but such problems persisted. Instead of relying on politicians to represent citizens, and instead of relying on constitutional rights for protection, Addams advocated the development of social structures and organizations capable of supporting the economic and social unity of citizens. Citizens could then work within those social organizations to begin to exercise their voice in political deliberation – voting and constitutional protections were supplemented with more proactive methods. Traditional deliberative rhetoric, then, cannot aid in the operations of a democracy without first attending to a sense of social unity among citizens. The challenge of large-scale democracy, according to Addams, is to find mechanisms and organizations capable of bringing diverse people together. Massive immigration and urbanization made this work especially important, as it was the only way to cope with the conditions of multiculturalism so as to maintain a democratic public culture. It was in the light of these conditions that Addams founded Hull-House. The clearest example of a social democracy is Addams’s belief that immigrants needed to respond to both a ‘family claim’ and a ‘social claim.’ The traditional ‘family claim’ required immigrants to maintain the home, care for and educate the children, and provide for the ‘the household.’ But the ‘family claim’ excluded women, in particular, from participation in public life outside the home, even if activities outside the home affected the maintenance of the home. One way to remedy this problem was for women to acquire the right to vote. For Addams, however, citizenship could not be reduced only to voting. With the recognition and response to the ‘social claim’ in place, the second aspect of citizenship was the creation of a self or an ‘identity’ through fellowship with other citizens. If Hull-House was to be a place of ‘civic education’ then it must serve as a ‘vehicle for the creation of community and the sustaining of identities. Indeed, the central role HullHouse played in generating identity is the hallmark of its mission’.8 For Addams, identity replaces the notion of an individual, literal voice in affairs because it is an essential part of participation in the ‘social aspect of democracy.’ But Addams’s notion of identity and selfhood is quite different than the claims of post-modern identity politics. Identity was not to be used as a rhetorical tool or topic for political debate, nor was identity to be contested, defended, or guarded. ‘For Addams, it is in giving the self that one truly discovers oneself. The self requires social and cultural forms and channels through which to flow’.9 Throughout Twenty-Years at Hull-House Addams consistently uses the pronoun ‘we’ or simply ‘Hull-House’ as an noun to describe various activities, signifying that her own identity was always bound to that of others and to the social and cultural organization to which she belonged.
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______________________________________________________________ The social space that Hull-House offered these residents made identity-formation possible. The goal of such cultural activities was ‘to develop new ways of being that underwrote forms of autonomy within relationships, not in opposition to them’.10 This meant that notions of selfhood were possible only within social relationships, not outside of or against others. It also meant that the task of selfhood, and it is a task if it requires social participation, was a key component of citizenship and, by extension, democracy. Such a task introduced a citizen into the wider social claims of the community, and made possible the orchestration of effective political bodies like labour unions. The door to Hull-House was always open because it signified hospitality, fellowship, and solidarity, all of which were necessary to forming an identity. This is a somewhat odd and ambiguous notion of civics education. At the centre of this form of education was interpersonal and intercultural communication in the light of local public culture. There are two primary functions of a rhetorical education, then, according to Addams. The first is to explain institutions to people, and to interpret one people to another. The second is to develop a collective voice so that action, the application of knowledge, can become possible. One central rhetorical task, then, was the act of interpretation that could result in the construction of a collective voice, or a ‘chorus.’ Hull-House’s role in founding and helping labour unions illustrates the power of the collective voice. The labour movement, in general, ‘may be called a concerted effort among the workers in all trades to obtain a more equitable distribution of the product, and to secure a more orderly existence for the labourer’.11 HullHouse attempted to aid in this endeavour through its ability to organize various trades-people. The simple act of providing a physical space for unions to meet and decide on actions and policies was a key part of organization. In addition, the act of bringing different trades-people into contact with one another to share ideas and solutions was also a simple but important task. The sewing trades (shirt-makers and cloak-makers) had immediate success by using Hull-House to organize and strike, which resulted in fewer hours and higher wages.12 But the settlement house also worked to infuse unions with higher ideals and a broader vision. Instead of insisting that a labour union work against the principal owners of capital, the settlement provided the labour movement with ‘a consciousness of its historical development’ and accentuated ‘the ultimate ethical aims of the movement’.13 ‘The ultimate ethical aim,’ according to Addams, is the realization of the economic and social unity of society – it is an understanding that what is best for all is best for the individual. Labour movements were always in danger of forgetting this ethical appeal and instead focusing on tactics of class warfare. When this happened, the rhetorical effectiveness of the collective voice was compromised. This is
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______________________________________________________________ exactly what occurred during the Pullman Strike. The task of the settlement was not to side with labour but to interpret each side to the other so that each side could see the economic interconnections of all parties involved. Hull-House combined a new sense of rhetorical education with a new sense of rhetorical action to have a significant impact on life in Chicago. This was a crucial aspect of the ‘second phase of democracy’: It is on behalf of the average workingmen that our increasing democracy impels us to make a new demand upon the educator. As the political expression of democracy has claimed for the workingmen the free right of citizenship, so a code of social ethics is now insisting that he shall be a conscious member of society, having some notion of his social and industrial value.14 This combination of rhetorical education and rhetorical action was undoubtedly a success. Hull-House as a collective voice was able to repair public sanitation problems, health problems, child-care problems, and child labour problems. For example, Hull-House demonstrated the close connection between typhoid cases in Chicago and bacteriological problems resulting from plumbing systems in the city. By extensive research and appeals to the city Sanitary Department and Department of Health, HullHouse instigated legislation to improve the plumbing system in the city in order to solve the typhoid problem. In addition, labour unions that actively met at Hull-House, and other international and national organizations that it supported, drew rhetorical effectiveness from Addams’s project for a social democracy. The impact that Hull-House had as an institution on deliberative debates in the city of Chicago cannot be questioned. From small reform projects like prohibiting the sale of cocaine to minors to larger issues concerning the Illinois State Bureau of Labour, Hull-House actively guided decision and judgment on a number of issues. Addams was able to generate rhetorical authority for herself and for her neighbours. On what grounds, though, did this rhetorical authority rest? How can we explain the success of Hull-House as a site for rhetorical education and rhetorical action? HullHouse’s rhetorical authority was supported by a ‘social ethic’ in combination with sociological knowledge. Rhetorical education, the act of interpretation, and rhetorical action, the persuasive power of the collective voice, relied on sociology and ethics for success. 4.
Why Communication Matters for Pragmatism One of the central characteristics of John Dewey’s work is his emphasis on the importance of communication for social and political life.
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______________________________________________________________ Dewey is perhaps the most important American pragmatist because of his farreaching and influential work in philosophy and education. Much of Dewey’s work in philosophy is indebted to his early experiences in Chicago. He met Jane Addams in Chicago and lectured frequently at Hull-House. There is little question that Addams’s notion of ‘social democracy’ lay close to the heart of Dewey’s pragmatism. In several of his most important works, including The Public and Its Problems, Experience and Nature, Democracy and Education, and Art as Experience, communication plays a central role. Thus, from its inception, pragmatism has understood embodied communication to be a central practice for life in a democratic society. From such a perspective, rights and national identity become secondary to figuring out what kinds of communicative practices will work to secure a better future and how communication ought to be conceptualized. Addams tackled the former task quite successfully and Dewey tackled the ladder. One of the most important features of Dewey’s pragmatism is that it understands communication as a fundamentally social activity. Democracy and Education begins by stating the connections between communication and social communities: ‘Men live in a community by virtue of the things which they have in common; and communication is the way in which they come to possess things in common.’15 Furthermore, ‘communication is a process of sharing experience till it becomes common possession. It modifies the disposition of both parties that partake in it.’16 In Art as Experience this position is elaborated even further: ‘Communication is the process of creating participation, of making common what has been isolated and singular.’17 This commitment to communication underpins his epistemology: ‘knowledge is a function of association and communication; it depends upon tradition, upon tools and methods socially transmitted, developed and sanctioned.’18 Both communication and knowledge, then, serve to bring people into association, the meaning of the world they share is produced and regulated through communication as a practical activity. From this perspective, communication becomes the means by which the world can be reorganized: ‘when communication occurs, all natural events are subject to reconsideration and revision.’19 Not only are all events subject to reconsideration, but they are also capable of ‘immediate enhancement’: Communication is an exchange which procures something wanted; it involves a claim, appeal, order, direction or request, which realizes want at less cost than personal labour exacts, since it procures the cooperative assistance of others. Communication is also immediate enhancement of life, enjoyed for its own sake.20
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______________________________________________________________ For social cooperation to happen, persuasion must play a key role, and Dewey acknowledges this. In fact, The Public and Its Problems ends with a call for better methods of persuasion: The essential need . . . is the improvement of the methods and conditions of debate, discussion, and persuasion. That is the problem of the public. We have asserted that this improvement depends essentially upon freeing and perfecting the processes of inquiry and the dissemination of their conclusion.21 Methods of persuasion allow for the participation of the public in the process of democratic decision-making. The centrality of communication for Dewey’s philosophy is further developed in his understanding of language as a form of symbolic action. Meanings are made, enhanced, or repaired in a community by using ‘channels formed by instrumentalities of which, in the end, language, the vehicle of thought as well as of communication is the most important.’22 In How We Think, Dewey elaborates on the use of language for persuasion and shows how the persuasive function of language is an integral part of education: The primary motive for language is to influence (through the expression of desire, emotion, and thought) the activity of others; its secondary use is to enter into more intimate social relations with them.’ This makes the problem of education into a problem of directing ‘pupils’ oral and written speech, used primarily for practical and social ends, so that gradually it shall become a conscious tool of conveying knowledge and assisting thought.23 The project of ‘modifying speech habits so as to render them accurate and flexible intellectual instruments’ is a precise description of an education in rhetoric. The persuasive function of language demonstrates that language is a method of action, not a reflection of the natural world: Language is always a form of action and in its instrumental use is always a means of concerted action for an end, while at the same time it finds in itself all the goods of its possible consequences . . . Language is specifically a mode of interaction of at least two beings, a speaker and a hearer; it presupposes an organized group to which these creatures
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______________________________________________________________ belong, and from whom they have acquired their habits of speech. It is therefore a relationship, not a particularity. 24 The Public and Its Problems includes a vision for a ‘great community,’ a community whose success would rely on ‘the perfecting of the means and ways of communication of meanings so that genuinely shared interest in the consequences of interdependent activities may inform desire and effort and thereby direct action.’25 Accordingly, pragmatism seeks methods of communication that would allow individuals in a democracy to participate in decision-making and realize the interconnectedness of the community to which they belong. Pragmatism suggests a version of rhetorical citizenship as communion and reconciliation, oriented toward the common good. Politics, democracy, and community are all tied intimately together in American pragmatism. They are tied together by the belief that communication as rhetoric is the primary means by which the connections between politics, democracy, and community can be realized and the promise of each fulfilled: The highest and most difficult kind of inquiry and a subtle, delicate, vivid, and responsive art of communication must take possession of the physical machinery of transmission and circulation and breath life into it . . . Democracy will come into its own, for democracy is the name for a life of free and enriching communion . . . It [democracy] will have its consummation when free social inquiry is indissolubly wedded to the art of full and moving communication.26 In other words, social democracy requires rhetorical citizenship. This pragmatist conceptualization of communication draws on aspects of the classical model of rhetorical citizenship, the Habermasian model, and the media spectacle model. Pragmatism values interpersonal conversation (although it is not as dependent on an Enlightenment version of reason), the arts of persuasion (although it does not view rhetorical practice in the agonistic terms of the sophists), and technologies of mass communication (although it does not worry as much about ideology and distortions of representation). It also works in response to massive immigration to new urban centres in the United States and a philosophical consideration of the fact of pluralism. Thus it is a useful resource for founding a model of rhetorical citizenship fit for the new century. 5.
Why Rhetoric Matters for Citizenship The claim that communication matters for American pragmatism helps to illustrate, and tie together, the pragmatic emphasis on methods,
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______________________________________________________________ practices, and progressive politics. Clearly, communication practices mattered for political engagement in the pragmatist tradition. However, the argument that communication, broadly, and rhetoric, as a specific form of communication, matters for citizenship is a larger, more ambitious claim. Much Enlightenment political philosophy, upon which contemporary democracies rely for justification and inspiration, rejected the role of rhetoric in political affairs. Thomas Hobbes is perhaps the foremost leader of the rejection of rhetoric, while Habermas remains the contemporary inheritor of the Hobbesian tradition. Eloquence and metaphor, so Hobbes thought, should be banned from the commonwealth and replaced with scientific methods of analyses.27 This is because Hobbes totally distrusts citizens’ capacities for exercising practical judgment, and he thought that public deliberations quickly devolved into wars. In some ways, documents like the U.S. Constitution legally instantiate this distrust by placing the deliberative procedures of governance outside or beyond ordinary citizens. The very notion that the Senate rightfully deliberates on the issues of the day is an indication that rhetoric, in the hands of ordinary citizens, could not, and should not, be trusted. Enlightenment visions of the place of rhetoric in political affairs mimic a Platonic perspective on rhetoric. From both perspectives, distrust is the central value associated with rhetorical practice. It is over against this tradition of distrust that natural rights and ethnic and national identities can be evaluated as pillars of modern and contemporary citizenship. If the very institutions of governance within which citizens reside distrust those citizens’ participation in political affairs, then by what means are people considered citizens of a state? Rights and identity became the two basic mechanisms of granting an individual citizenship in Enlightenment era democracies. Therefore, implicit in the idea of natural rights and national identity lies a distrust of the people granted those rights and that identity. That distrust amounts to a worry over the capacity of ordinary citizens to exercise practical judgment and engage in effective public deliberation about the issues of the day. Rights and identity produce equality and legal protection in abstract form. But rhetorical engagement is a different kind of equality. Rhetorical engagement only guarantees that each of us has an equal opportunity for participation. In such circumstances, citizens are not equal in terms of the advice they can offer or the knowledge that they possess (a Doctor can comment on public health from a more authoritative position than a plumber). But all citizens know that they can and should participate in political affairs. This kind of equality is displaced by natural rights and national identity, which provide a different kind of equality (legal as opposed to deliberative). The hidden component of that act of displacement is the implied distrust in citizen participation. This distrust would have been inconceivable to an Ancient Athenian democrat. The Athenians, instead,
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______________________________________________________________ relied so heavily on the participation of all of the citizens of Athens in the affairs of the state that a distrust of the people would have amounted to the end of the institutions of governance. American pragmatism does not share the Enlightenment or the Platonic distrust of the ability of ordinary citizens to exercise practical judgment and engage in public deliberation. Instead, just as the Athenians did, pragmatists believe deeply in the vast potential that lies within the citizenry and they sought methods capable of tapping into that potential for the betterment of American democracy. Rhetoric matters for citizenship because communicative practices are the means by which democratic societies can use the full resources of the communities that exist within those societies. It also matters because it alters the relationship between the state and the citizen by eliminating the distrust inherent in Enlightenment conceptions of democracy. In other words, it seeks the means of citizen participation in political affairs so as to prove the value and worth of citizens to the state instead of proving the danger of citizens to the state. Carrying the pragmatist tradition forward requires that we continue to seek the best available means of incorporating the rhetorical performance of citizens into political deliberations. This is the lesson that we learn from Jane Addams. In addition, it requires attending to the complexities and challenges of understanding communication as a central problem of contemporary large-scale democracies. Three of the problems of communication in such circumstances are the fact of pluralism, the scale and size of contemporary democracies, and the presence of technologies of mass communication. Pragmatism recommends strategies of communication aimed at mediation in the light of these facts - mediation between immigrant communities in Addams’s case, but also mediation between citizens at great distances from one another or mediation between government figures who can seem so distant from actual citizens. The essays collected in this volume demonstrate, to some extent, the manner in which Enlightenment-based conceptions of citizenship have exhausted themselves. Sanja Ivic and Paulina Tambakaki, in particular, seek to re-define citizenship without the Enlightenment baggage, and other essays face the challenge of reconciling and enacting forms of citizenship in the face of immigration and pluralism without necessarily being bound to an Enlightenment conception of subjectivity and citizenship. These are important projects for the advancement of democratic culture. It is difficult, however, to invent a new definition of citizenship without reference to the past. For that reason, outlining a theory of rhetorical citizenship, I think, uses the resources of history to push beyond the limitations of Enlightenmentbased thinking. Thinking about communication as a special form of action that is necessary for the practice of citizenship can re-awaken the role of ordinary people in the practices of governance and give new insight into the steps necessary for overcoming the diversity and plurality of contemporary
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______________________________________________________________ democracies. Specifically, one begins to see the importance of rhetorical practices for bridging distances and the necessity of rhetoric for weaving together, and holding together, communities through symbolic work. Jane Addams was acutely aware of the necessity of such work. Without a notion of rhetorical citizenship, citizens remain legally equal and protected from the abuses of the state but distrusted by that very state within which they live. To turn to rhetoric is to begin to believe in the potential of people to exercise practical judgment and engage in public deliberation. This may be a risk, and rhetorical practice is not always guaranteed to produce the best decisions. But this is a risk that twenty-first century democracy ought to take if it is to move beyond the limitations of the Enlightenment. 6.
The Rhetorical Citizenship-Deliberative Ecology Connection To argue for a model of rhetorical citizenship is also to hypothesize the existence of a deliberative ecology. Communication practices do not happen in a vacuum, but instead are made possible by a particular context. What Hobbes wrongly assumes is that rhetorical practice can be successfully banished from the commonwealth. This is not the case. Rhetorical practice is always present within political cultures. The question, however, is always a matter of the kinds of rhetorical practice that exist within specific political cultures.28 For this reason, the notion of a deliberative ecology becomes a partner term in elucidating a theory of rhetorical citizenship. A deliberative ecology refers to the ways in which specific public cultures are organized and managed by the laws, institutions, spaces, policies, and people that inhabit that public culture. The ecology metaphor highlights the ways in which organisms interact with, and can change, the environment within which they live. Citizens live within, adapt to, and sometimes change the political environments within which they live. In democratic societies, the word ‘deliberative’ properly describes a public ecology because any democracy relies on some form of collective, public decision-making. Surely there are public ecologies within dictatorships or monarchies, but they need not necessarily be deliberative ecologies. The important point, however, is that different ecologies make different kinds of rhetorical practice possible, and if we alter the conditions of the deliberative ecology we will also alter the kinds of rhetorical practice available to us. More important, the conditions of a deliberative ecology can change, and improve, the decision-making process. Without explicitly using the term ‘deliberative ecology,’ Josiah Ober has done a wonderful job illustrating the context within which Athenian citizenship was practiced. In Democracy and Knowledge: Innovation and Learning in Classical Athens, he argues that the Athenians crafted an institutional design for their democracy that emphasized the values of aggregation, alignment, and codification. In other words, the Athenians sought the best means to tap into the knowledge of the community of citizens
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______________________________________________________________ in three ways. First, they set up networks and teams through Demes and Tribes that could serve the function of aggregating knowledge that was dispersed throughout the city-state. Second, they then sought a series of rules and commitments to make sure that public decisions were carried out effectively. Third, they sought the means to codify the outcomes of collective deliberations so that the knowledge gained from experience could be used to guide future endeavours. Accomplishing these three tasks required an array of both legal and social rules, as well as training in particular communication practices, and a citizenry committed to the project of civic engagement. Ober argues that the deliberative ecology set up by the Athenians was tremendously successful in generating innovative solutions to pressing public problems and at giving the Athenians an advantage over the other city-states with whom they were in competition. The Athenian deliberative ecology set up conditions in which particular kinds of rhetorical practice were possible, and this benefitted Athenian democracy. These were the same benefits that John Dewey and Jane Addams sought in their work. Hull-House was an institutional attempt to establish a particular deliberative ecology that could foster particular kinds of rhetorical citizenship. At this point, it is beyond the scope of this paper to take up the many ways in which deliberative ecologies can foster different modes of rhetorical citizenship. But it is enough to stipulate the importance of coping with pluralism and immigration within contemporary deliberative ecologies. The Athenians never faced such a problem. Addams, however, did. She knew that the success of American democracy and political deliberation within that democracy turned on the ability to set up a deliberative ecology within which pluralism could be reconciled and differences overcome through communication practices. At the heart of her notion of social democracy lies a unique vision for a deliberative ecology and a commitment to specific forms of rhetorical citizenship. The value of thinking about citizenship as a matter of rhetorical practice is that it can highlight the manner in which deliberative ecologies are shaped by laws, policies, and institutions. One might ask: How is rhetoric practiced in this, or any other, democratic society? To ask that question is also to ask: What are the conditions within which deliberation and public decision-making take place and how do those conditions implicitly recommend specific forms of rhetorical practice? And finally: Are these the kinds of conditions and the kinds of practices that we want for twenty-first century democracy? Will these conditions and these practices really improve democratic culture or will they threaten it? And how do these conditions and practices promote equality? Once one stipulates a connection between deliberative ecologies and rhetorical citizenship, these become important interdisciplinary lines of thought to pursue.
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______________________________________________________________ 7.
Rhetorical Pragmatism in Multicultural Democracies We must continue to confront the question of whether Addams is right in her understanding of the two phases of democracy. If she is, a rhetorical education that focuses squarely on the first mistakes the more pressing problems that stem from the second. Those pressing problems are often times the result of immigration and multiculturalism, and thus rhetorical education would be expected to take on the task of reconciliation and the promotion of social cohesion within a context of relentless pluralism. In addition, Addams is a pragmatist and offers a useful example of the great benefit of adopting a pragmatist political theory. Recently elected American President Barack Obama has often been called a pragmatist by the popular press, but with little critical reflection on the meaning of that term. Reading Obama’s presidential campaign in the light of the example of Addams may help clarify that and set up a standard for his policy-making now that he is in office. If Obama is to live up to the label of pragmatist he must have the ability to promote a social democracy founded on a social ethics and be able to deploy social scientific knowledge for the solving of local, communitybased problems. Pragmatism had its roots in Chicago, and perhaps that same soil has produced a new generation of pragmatism. Addams also gives us a way to think about the importance of rhetoric for democracy. A more traditional understanding of rhetoric’s role in citizenship amounts to instruction in public speaking (as a necessary component of a civic education). Addams seems to suggest that this is insufficient, and that an education in interpersonal and intercultural communication is relevant, rhetorically, for citizenship. Thus, she leaves us with the question: to what extent, and how, should a civics education prepare students for life in a plural multi-cultural, large-scale democracy by demonstrating tactics and techniques for generating social cohesion in such contexts? The answers to this question lie in the articulation of a model of rhetorical citizenship fit for the twenty-first century and the establishment of a deliberative ecology capable of creating the conditions for reconciliation and mediation. American pragmatism provides us with a useful resource for that task (as does Athenian democracy), but it is not enough. Enlightenmentbased notions of citizenship committed to rights and identity may also provide some useful suggestions, but surely it is not enough either. We must move beyond the distrust of rhetoric articulated by people like Thomas Hobbes to find a conception of rhetoric that allows citizens a chance to participate in the political affairs of the state. By doing so we tap into the resources of the community that makes up the state and we begin to trust the capacity of that community to exercise good, practical judgment. This may seem like a risk, and it may need to be supplemented with strategies of rhetorical education that could cultivate such good judgment. But it is, at the least, a way to move beyond the limitations of the Enlightenment to a place in
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______________________________________________________________ which equality becomes something more than the possession of some rights or some legal document like a passport. Equality, along these lines, is in terms of practices and not possessions.
Notes 1
See G Shafir (ed), The Citizenship Debates: A Reader, University of Minnesota Press, 2008. 2 J Ober, Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens: Rhetoric, Ideology, and the Power of the People, Princeton University Press, 1989, p. 123. 3 H Yunis, Taming Democracy: Models of Political Rhetoric in Classical Athens, Cornell University Press, 1996, p. 1. 4 J Elshtain (ed), The Jane Addams Reader, Basic Books, 2001, p. 15. 5 Elshtain, The Jane Addams Reader, p. 14. 6 Elshtain, The Jane Addams Reader, p. 15. 7 Elshtain, The Jane Addams Reader, p. 16. 8 J Elshtain, Jane Addams and the Dream of American Democracy, Basic Books, 2002, p. 153. 9 Elshtain, Jane Addams and the Dream of American Democracy, 153. 10 Elshtain, Jane Addams and the Dream of American Democracy, p. 174. 11 Elshtain, The Jane Addams Reader, p. 49. 12 J Addams, Twenty Years at Hull-House, New American Library Classics, 1999, p. 151. 13 Elshtain, The Jane Addams Reader, p. 60. 14 J Addams, Democracy and Social Ethics, University of Illinois Press, 2002, p. 192. 15 J Dewey, Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education, Free Press, 1917, p. 4. 16 Dewey, Democracy and Education, p. 9. 17 J Dewey, Art as Experience, Perigree Books, 1934, p. 244. 18 J Dewey, The Public and Its Problems, Swallow Press, 1927, p. 158. 19 J Dewey, Experience and Nature, Dover Publications Inc., 1925, p. 166. 20 J Dewey, Experience and Nature, p. 183. 21 J Dewey, The Public and Its Problems, p. 208. 22 J Dewey, The Public and Its Problems, p. 210. 23 J Dewey, How We Think, Dover Publications Inc., 1911, p. 179. 24 J Dewey, Experience and Nature, p. 185. 25 J Dewey, The Public and Its Problems, p. 174. 26 J Dewey, The Public and Its Problems, p. 184. 27 See B Garsten, Saving Persuasion: A Defence of Rhetoric and Judgment, Harvard University Press, 2006.
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Hobbes wanted a version of rhetorical practice that left devices like metaphor and eloquence out and prevented ordinary citizens from participation.
Bibliography Addams, J., Twenty Years at Hull-House. Signet Classic, New York, 1961. _______
, Democracy and Social Ethics. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1964. Deluca, K., Image Politics: The New Rhetoric of Environmental Activism. Routledge, New York, 2005. Dewey, J., How We Think. Dover Publications, Inc, New York, 1911. _______
, Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education. Free Press, Free Press, 1916. _______
, Experience and Nature. Dover Publications, Inc., New York, 1925.
_______
, The Public and Its Problems. Swallow Press, Athens, Ohio, 1927.
_______
, Art as Experience. Perigree Books, New York, 1934.
Elshtain, J., The Jane Addams Reader. Basic Books, New York, 2002. _______
, Jane Addams and the Dream of American Democracy. Basic Books, New York, 2002. Garsten, B., Saving Persuasion: A Defence of Rhetoric and Judgment. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2006. Ober, J., Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens: Rhetoric, Ideology, and the Power of the People. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1989.
______
, Democracy and Knowledge: Innovation and Learning in Classical Athens. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 2010. Shafir G. (ed), The Citizenship Debates: A Reader. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 2008.
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Jane Addams, Pragmatism, and Rhetorical Citizenship
______________________________________________________________ Unis, H., Taming Democracy: Models of Political Rhetoric in Classical Athens. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 1996. Robert Danisch is an Assistant Professor in the General Studies Unit at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. He is also the author of Pragmatism, Democracy, and the Necessity of Rhetoric, University of South Carolina Press, 2007.
PART 2
Redrawing the Lines of Inclusiveness
Multiculturalism in the Service of Capital: The Case of New Zealand Public Broadcasting Donald Reid Abstract Within media scholarship public broadcasting is often viewed as serving the cultural and social needs of a particular audience not accommodated by commercial broadcasters. In this respect, public broadcasting is seen as a state intervention into a free-market media system and represents a clear demarcation between the state sector and commercial interests. Examining the New Zealand system in particular, I challenge the orthodox assumption and argue that public broadcasting functions to promote, rather than disrupt, the neoliberal paradigm in both its method of funding and delivery, and in the texts that are sanctioned and aired. Public broadcasting in New Zealand is delivered via statutory gatekeeping bodies and operates through a set of regulatory guidelines. However rather than existing outside New Zealand’s determining neoliberal ethos, such bodies represent a mode of neoliberal governmentality where the activities of government are ‘recast as nonpolitical and non-ideological problems’.1 The representation of minority cultures and the airing of voices and concerns of such cultures – a primary stipulation of public broadcasting - can only exist at the authority of the state. Alongside the mechanisms for delivering public broadcasting, this chapter also examines the relationship between the representation of a multicultural society and state power. Adopting an argument devised by Slavoj äiåek, I argue that the discourse multiculturalism serves the neoliberal hegemony by promoting trans-global capitalism as a reaction to the archaic hierarchies of race and class associated with colonialism. Key Words: Public broadcasting, multiculturalism, television, neoliberalism, governmentality. ***** 1.
Introduction In June 2010 Television New Zealand (TVNZ), New Zealand’s state broadcaster, celebrated fifty years on air. To raise public awareness of the approaching milestone the broadcaster launched a station identification campaign featuring montages of memorable moments from the preceding half-century. These montages, with clashing film stocks showing people and events from bygone eras, were intended to evoke nationalism and nostalgia in an assumed knowledgeable viewer. The presentation of such a ‘snapshot’ of New Zealand’s (media framed) history serves to convey how the broadcaster
Multiculturalism in the Service of Capital 62 ______________________________________________________________ perceives New Zealand’s national characteristics, or what the public’s idealized version of those characteristics might be. So alongside yesterday’s news anchors and sets from forgotten game shows, the sequences displayed a range of faces and races designed to represent New Zealand’s ethnically and socially diverse society. The stipulation to represent diversity is a contemporary convention of public service broadcasting, however as a state-owned but commercial network TVNZ’s role is fraught with a variety of contradictions and tensions. The network is structured as a Crown-owned company with a statutory obligation to pay an annual dividend to the government (as sole shareholder) built into the institutional regulations. TVNZ must, therefore, balance the necessity for financial viability against public service demands. As Roger Horrocks and Brian Easton note, the tension between commercial and public service programming is exacerbated in New Zealand due to the particular economies of scale at play within this media environment: the high cost of conventional local programming, much of it funded through state subsidies, set against the relative low cost of imported material.2 Because the majority of TVNZ’s revenue is generated from advertising, a logical choice for TVNZ (as a commercial broadcaster) is to screen populist high-rating imported material at primetime, with locally-made public service material screened at low rating (thus low revenue generating) periods of the schedule. But as the state-owned network, TVNZ faces political and public pressure to function both as a platform for local production (especially high quality material targeting a prime time audience); and as a forum to represent minority interest groups. In drawing on an established body of New Zealand scholarship from John Farnsworth, Robert McChesney and Alan Cocker, and Peter Thompson this chapter examines the junction between commercial and public service broadcasting in the New Zealand context.3 Alongside this New Zealand research, a common viewpoint held within international media scholarship situates public broadcasting systems (and the texts they produce) in opposition to their commercial rivals. Giuseppe Richeri for example contextualizes European public broadcasting within the nation building movement of the twentieth century typified by the monopoly state broadcaster model.4 Richeri notes that this model has undergone a ‘legitimacy crisis’5 in the last few decades where the ideals of the nation state have been surpassed in political agendas by philosophies that advantage freedom of expression and open market economics, both of which are perceived to be at odds with the cultural homogeneity and monopoly frameworks of established public broadcasting systems. The notion that public broadcasting is an archaic form and must be adapted to accommodate the trans-national and free-market ideals of the contemporary age is addressed by Richard Collins, Petros Iosifidis and Eugenia Siapera who argue
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______________________________________________________________ on behalf of the inherent legitimacy of public broadcasting systems as representing a broadcasting platform separate from commercial ideals and thus able to screen minority interest material.6 For these scholars, digital media systems provide scope for the retention of public broadcasting services by shifting the temporal and economic paradigms on which convention broadcasting is based. The arguments in this work, and other material such as Anthony Smith’s historical analysis of the relationship between public broadcasting and the state and Glenda Balas’s examination of public broadcasting in the United States media environment are all contingent on the notion that public broadcasting fulfils a role not fulfilled by commercial broadcasting: the representation of cultural and ethnic inclusion on free-toair, universally accessible media.7 The stipulation to promote multicultural and bicultural representation features prominently in New Zealand’s public broadcasting legislation and guidelines. However, rather than situating the representation of diversity at odds with the prevailing commercial imperative, I argue that multiculturalism in public broadcasting functions to perpetuate – rather than disrupt – neoliberal policies by de-politicizing difference and normalizing the processes and hierarchies created by trans-global capitalism. Central to my argument is the notion that public broadcasting is a form of state power, the operations of which are conducted via various state processes and mechanisms. I begin my analysis by providing an historical overview of public broadcasting in New Zealand and suggest that particular historical factors, especially the paternalistic vision of the first Labour government, have resulted in a general acceptance of state intervention within broadcasting. I continue by examining the transition in the way public broadcasting has been defined and articulated since the establishment of the national network: from being primarily a vehicle for state paternalism, to a means by which diversity is represented. In the final sections of this chapter I frame New Zealand public broadcasting – and the impetus towards the representation of a multicultural society – through two distinct theoretical approaches. Firstly I examine the New Zealand government’s delivery model for public broadcasting as a form of governmentality; secondly I adopt Slavoj äiåek’s argument that the modern expression of multiculturalism is a product of (and functions in the service of) neoliberalism by distorting egalitarian values and ideals and replacing the processes of colonial domination with those of economic domination. 2.
Public Broadcasting in New Zealand: Paternalism to Inclusion The relationship between the state and the media in New Zealand can be separated into two distinct phases: Between 1931 and 1989, when the state-owned model dominated both radio and television; and from 1989 when
Multiculturalism in the Service of Capital 64 ______________________________________________________________ broadcasting became part of the government’s de-regulation agenda, the state-owned broadcaster was corporatized and a competitive environment was allowed to flourish. When considering this first phase of New Zealand’s mass media history, two elements emerge that have had a significant influence on how contemporary public broadcasting is defined. Firstly the government’s approach to broadcasting, within the cultural and economic context of the day, has had an ongoing influence on how state media is perceived. Secondly, a significant transition occurred during this period as the state’s paternalistic vision gave way to the concept of public broadcasting as a means of representing society’s diversity. An administrative model for New Zealand’s national broadcasting service was fully realized under the first Labour government (1935-38). Labour established the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation (NZBC) as a state-owned and administered national network operating local commercial stations and a national non-commercial service, and in the development of its wider governance system, the government established a ministry of broadcasting and a minister of broadcasting as a Cabinet post. Labour’s extensive involvement in the fledgling broadcasting service was part of a wider state-centric legacy and, as principal architects of extensive welfare reform that included unemployment and housing benefits, the government created an enduring cultural climate that advantaged publicly owned enterprises and entities as inherently more credible and objective than their private sector counterparts. Labour used radio to build a sense of collective identity through the national electorate in two main ways. Firstly, the state’s strict controls over transmission severely restricted content. Media historian Ian McKay argues that the government’s prohibitive strategy was less concerned with airing pro-government propaganda, but was based on an unwillingness to engage with controversial matters, thus quelling debate and avoiding a factionalized audience. ‘In thirteen years [Labour] failed to provide any real stimulating discussion on social, economic and political questions, and made little attempt to encourage listeners to think about such matters’.8 The manifestation of paternalism by New Zealand broadcasters was therefore based on a protective philosophy, rather than the drive towards mass education and cultural betterment. Secondly, radio’s domestic and intimate mode of reception transformed the portrayal of a national collective from an abstract concept to an immediate experience. Media scholar Patrick Day notes: The home, previously a relative sanctuary from external influence, was now the reception point for a centrally controlled means of communication beamed directly into each dwelling. By making the same message
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______________________________________________________________ simultaneously available everywhere, radio allowed and encouraged a transformation of the society itself.9 During the NZBC era the New Zealand audience was unified by virtue of the absence of dissenting voices and the cultural assimilation of voices coming from beyond the Pakeha10 mainstream. For example, the limited Maoriinterest programming broadcast on the NZBC sought to place the actions and achievement of Maori within the context of the nation state, in particular the celebration of the Maori involvement in World War Two.11 This rejection of pluralism is a significant element in what Todd Avery describes as ‘radio modernism’12: the construction of a singular national identity built via mass communication. Opposition to the state’s conservative and undemocratic form of broadcasting governance began to ferment in the years following the War. But these dissenting voices came from either opposition politicians or members of the intelligentsia and had little impact on the government’s approach to broadcasting, nor, immediately to wider public opinion. However, after the introduction of television in 1960 and the social and political changes in the subsequent two decades, the transition from an ethos of paternalism to one of representation occurred in public broadcasting. 3.
The Impetus towards Inclusion in Public Broadcasting The transition of public broadcasting from a paternalistic to representational form occurred as various social and political movements gained recognition within the mainstream media from the late 1960s. Identity politics, including the feminist movement, the politics of self-determination of indigenous peoples and the rights of migrant communities were becoming more prevalent in the public consciousness and these narratives filtered through to the New Zealand media via current events and popular culture discourses. Coinciding with the development of alterative subjectivities, the manifestation of neoliberal theories into political and economic debates – a reaction to the ‘crisis’ of Keynesianism13 - was challenging the accepted role of the state. Stagflation, unstable commodity prices and availability initiated a shift away from centralized party-political forms of governance to decentralized and de-politicized systems that advantaged the dynamics of competitive market forces over protectionist and heavily state regulated systems. In New Zealand these political and economic developments would impact on the organizational structure for broadcasting and in the texts being produced. While retaining the monopoly system throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the establishment of an additional intra-network channel in 1974 introduced competition to New Zealand broadcasting. Media scholar Trisha Dunleavy argues the developing competitive culture encouraged a greater sense of experimentation in production (although this remained
Multiculturalism in the Service of Capital 66 ______________________________________________________________ predominantly in-house within the state media environment) with executives sanctioning more texts that portrayed contemporary New Zealand settings and examined topical issues.14 The portrayal of New Zealand as an inclusive multicultural society has been celebrated within New Zealand media studies as a reaction to cultural insularity and hierarchies associated with colonialism. However the primacy of biculturalism and multiculturalism in broadcasting also functions to promote state power, albeit in a re-configured context to that of statecentric paternalism. Until 1989 television broadcasting in New Zealand was under the jurisdiction of a state-owned monopoly. This situation ended with the passing of the 1989 Broadcasting Act that made provision for the entrance of competing networks and removed previous stipulations regarding foreign ownership of media companies.15 The Act also established the Broadcasting Commission (renamed in 1991 as New Zealand on Air), a publicly funded body charged with funding and commissioning public broadcasting content. Central to New Zealand on Air’s (NZOA) function was the provision of programming that represented New Zealand as a multicultural society, and it is with this issue that the remainder of this chapter is concerned. Although multiculturalism had been generally undefined in legal or statutory terms, the concept has, by virtue of its ubiquity in the rhetoric of politics, culture and economics, become infused within New Zealand’s national narrative. The expression of multiculturalism in public broadcasting (and in much of the surrounding academic analysis) equates the physical representation of ethnic or cultural difference with social inclusion. This view fails to take into account other dynamics inherent in the media: modes of production, funding and gatekeeping among them. Furthermore the advocacy of public broadcasting (as a forum for multiculturalism) neglects to examine what groups benefit from being represented, and how (if at all) does that benefit manifest. In the following section I examine public broadcasting and the representation of multiculturalism as a form of state power in two distinct ways. Firstly, I examine New Zealand on Air as a form of governmentality both in terms of its institutional design and the texts this body sanctions. Secondly, I adopt Slavoj äiåek’s argument that views the conventional belief in multiculturalism’s inherent egalitarianism as problematic, suggesting instead that multiculturalism transposes the archaic hierarchies of race and class for economic hierarchies produced by transglobal capitalism. 4. The Place of Multiculturalism in the Perpetuation of State Power A stipulation for public broadcasting texts to portray multicultural representation is a feature of New Zealand on Air’s regulations, thus enshrining multiculturalism within the national context. Support for the
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______________________________________________________________ state’s public broadcasting mechanisms by media studies scholars is broadly premised on the differentiation between state operations and those of private enterprise, in the contemporary context those of the neoliberal market-led economy. However, as Aihwa Ong argues, neoliberalism constitutes a novel conceptualization (rather than a retreat) of state power where ‘governing activities are re-cast as nonpolitical and nonideological problems that need technical solutions.’16 NZOA represents a particular mode of governance by virtue of its constitutional form. Statutory but non-governmental bodies feature prominently within neoliberal environments as they represent a shift away from state-centric regulatory frameworks towards governance processes deemed (by their promoters) to be efficient and not weighed down with ideological bias. However by remaining within the extended state framework, bodies such as NZOA promote the visage of security and safety from corruption and the vagaries of economic fortune. As Ian Taylor notes, public acceptance of free market policies extends only as far as to not encroach on issues of ‘public good’ and the provision of those services deemed to be rights.17 What constitutes a right is culturally contextual but in New Zealand where a tradition of state broadcasting exists, NZOA appeases the public’s demand for a state assurance in the delivery of programming. A pluralistic form of governance dominates New Zealand’s political landscape. The supply of numerous infrastructure needs are met by stateowned enterprises, including electricity and solid energy demands, large scale transport operations, and the national broadcaster. As a gatekeeper and funding mechanism NZOA operates via a different mandate to those enterprises with a direct profit motive, nevertheless NZOA exists within the neoliberal political discourse and is subject to political and media scrutiny over the necessity to deliver value for money for its stakeholders (the state). How this value for money is defined is determined by what NZOA’s purpose purports to be. Therefore concepts such as the depiction of multiculturalism, New Zealand national identity and diversity become (when framed through the quantitative measures that typifies statutory bodies such as NZOA) categories subject to processes of normalization and standardization. In examining this further, Ong frames such mechanisms of neoliberal governance within a Foucauldian/governmentality framework, arguing that the ostensible disassociation of such forms of governance from the centralized (parliamentary) political arena is replaced by the development of novel, de-political, governance practices and forms.18 The advocacy of NZOA by New Zealand media scholars (specifically in relation to NZOA’s role in promoting multiculturalism) is predicated primarily on visual representation: the depiction and quantifiable measurement of the depiction of cultural and ethnic diversity on screen. While research undertaken by Derek Fox and Donna Beatson in the 1990s
Multiculturalism in the Service of Capital 68 ______________________________________________________________ and more recently by Jo Smith19 examines the Pakeha dominance of gatekeeping and production methods in relation to Maori interest and language texts, this work is framed within New Zealand’s specific bicultural legal and political context.20 Given the absence of a similar context with regard to the relationship between the Crown (Pakeha) and migrant communities, there is neither an equivalent research archive to that relating to biculturalism nor any alternative institutional mechanisms with which to advocate for a multicultural presence within state broadcasting, save for that provided by NZOA (that equates visual representation to inclusion within the national narrative). The structure of NZOA and the texts that structure facilitates equate to a particular form of governance that is part of, and perpetuates, the neoliberal status quo. By distancing the jurisdiction of NZOA from the dynamics of party politics, issues arising from its decisions are divorced from ideological consequence. However the outcomes provided by NZOA, sanctioned by decision-makers with backgrounds in management, trade and commercial television production21, must fit within a regulatory regime. Therefore the manner by which diversity is represented must be tailored to the particular model that accommodates the necessities of the commercial television environment and the sensibilities of the mainstream audience.22 Therefore, as a mode of governance, NZOA creates individual subjects that appeal to NZOA’s sensibilities as a gatekeeper.23 This results in texts that depict difference only within the accepted boundaries of society’s dominant group. As Vijay Mishra notes, the focus of multicultural texts becomes reduced to ‘seemingly benign representational systems’24 such as food, dance, and other cultural activities that add colour to the national palette without challenging its values or assumptions. The gatekeeping framework of NZOA standardizes particular modes of multicultural representation, normalizing those forms that comply with the political and cultural status quo including ideals associated with neoliberalism: individualism, capitalism and market enterprise. The results of this standardization of the minority experience are present in texts such as the long-running magazine shows Tangata Pacifica, Asia Downunder and Attitude TV (that examines the views and experience of people with disabilities) that stress individual and economic achievement as a desirable way to become part of mainstream society while focusing on the aforementioned ‘ethnic’ activities as principle – and unthreatening - signifiers of difference. These themes are repeated in the depiction of minority characters in mainstream texts. Popular New Zealand television series such as Outrageous Fortune25 normalize within their narrative capitalist economic practices (albeit, at times, ironically) with these practices cast as universal with a democratizing potential that subverts archaic prejudices associated with race, class and culture. Like minority-interest programming, texts such
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______________________________________________________________ as Outrageous Fortune are active in their promotion of multicultural representation and highlight cultural difference in both an ironic and nonironic fashion. These narratives celebrate capitalist and individualist success as unwritten redress for colonial oppression and/or historical marginalization. However such representation give cause to question the effects and objectives of the multicultural project, as Mishra writes, ‘multicultural theory may be replaced by a theory of critical assimilation’26 supporting the notion that the multicultural discourse functions to serve the interests of the dominant culture rather than those being represented. In the concluding section of this chapter I continue analysing the relationship between the representation of multiculturalism and state power. I will, however shift theoretical tack, moving from a broadly Foucauldian approach to one inspired by Gramsci, specifically adopting Slavoj äiåek’s notion that the eglaitarian ideal associated with multiculturalism functions to perpetuate a neoliberal hegemony. 5. Multiculturalism and the Perpetuation of a Neoliberal Hegemony In his essay ‘Multiculturalism, Or the Cultural Logic of Multicultural Capitalism’ äiåek suggests that much of the liberalindividualist critique of nationalism and totalitarianism fails to adequately address how ruling ideologies utilize the rhetoric of the dominated classes in the perpetuation of hegemony.27 This argument has some similarities to Stuart Hall’s examination of Margaret Thatcher’s popularity with the British electorate during the 1980s and the adoption, by Britain’s traditionally socialist working class, of new right policies.28 My interest however is in media texts and how the discourse of multiculturalism has been incorporated into a wider neoliberal worldview as notions of choice and personal freedom become synonymous with trans-national capitalism. äiåek argues trans-global capitalism negates the power of the colonial nation state, disrupting and reducing the hierarchies of colonial class and ethnicity resulting in a new international schema based on trade alliances and export markets. This schema appeals to a liberal reading by disrupting colonial racism and inequality: This is what disturbs so much of the patriotically orientated right-wing populists, from Le Pen to Buchanan: the fact that new multinationals have towards the French or American local population exactly the same attitude as toward the population of Mexico, Brazil or Taiwan. Is there not a kind of poetic justice in this self-referential turn? Today’s global capitalism is thus again a kind of ‘negation
Multiculturalism in the Service of Capital 70 ______________________________________________________________ of negation’, after national capitalism internationalist/ colonialist phase.29
and
its
A world ruled by corporate interests, therefore, is a world that has advanced from the racist politics of colonialism where the natural hierarchs that do exists are created by an individuals’ own ability (or lack thereof) to consume. Of course the central tenant of the neoliberal agenda is choice (thus the rhetoric of neoliberalism can be adopted into the language of democracy), but for choice to function there needs to be recognizable differentiation between each element (a product, service, experience or candidate) and in this differentiation ‘old’ identities re-emerge as targeted demographics and as Mishra argues, return stripped of political, ideological or cultural significance.30 äiåek notes that despite capitalism as a universal world system, or what he describes as a ‘dead universal machine’31, there remains a human desire to uncover something culturally distinct behind different versions of its operations: the relationship between ancient Japanese culture and Japanese economic success; or how New Zealand egalitarian ideals and agricultural colonial past contribute to its place in the contemporary global environment. For äiåek this is window dressing, the provision of unsubstantiated theory to explain the vagaries of capitalist success or failure. With regard to the media, this (misguided) differentiation is translated as representation – the celebrated essence of New Zealand public broadcasting, and as I have discussed above, the value placed on multicultural representation fails to address other inequalities within the contemporary economic and political system. Equating distinct cultures as marketed-to demographics is an established area of analysis in marketing and advertising literature.32 While less overt in media and cultural studies, these disciplines also tend to focus on visible representation of difference as the primary signifier of cultural, social and economic inclusion thus ignoring more complex forms of exclusion and oppression: ‘critical energy has found a substitute outlet in fighting for cultural differences which leave the basic homogeneity of the capitalist systems intact’.33 There is evidence of äiåek’s argument throughout New Zealand’s broadcasting environment: the focus on representation; the adoption of neoliberal tropes within the narrative of national identity; and reverse readings of capitalism within media texts that only serve to enhance the original message. There is no separation between discourse of multiculturalism and that of neoliberalism, both have become unassailable features on New Zealand’s cultural landscape. Texts such as Asia Down Under and Tangata Pacifica service the neoliberal hegemony as their benign representations function to promote the state (celebrated for its tolerance and for providing the subject with the opportunity to elevate their economic status). Furthermore texts such as the long-running Country Calendar have,
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______________________________________________________________ as their central narrative, the relationship between national identity, economic freedom and trans-global trade. First aired in 1965 Country Calendar is New Zealand’s longest running television series. The magazine show examines the lives and work of people in the farming and primary production sector and has always been aired in a primetime slot on the state network. The popularity and continued state support for Country Calendar is a reflection of how the state infuses the national narrative with neoliberal ideals and the depiction of the nexus between a perceived nostalgia, national identity and the relationship of both to the tenants of neoliberalism (individualism, market-led economics and a retreat from state protectionism). Multiculturalism has become infused within the broader Country Calendar narrative as the stories of migrant communities contributing to the national economy combine with the narrative’s other tropes. In conclusion, within New Zealand media studies scholarship statutory mechanisms for the delivery of public broadcasting have been celebrated as representing an intervention into the de-regulated and commercial media environment. These public broadcasting mechanisms are viewed as disrupting the functions of a free-market enterprise in the interests of representing a bicultural and multicultural national identity. This view fails to take into account how those particular public broadcasting mechanisms function and the content of the texts being sanctioned. New Zealand on Air (a principal state funding body for television and radio) exemplifies a specific neoliberal mechanism that promotes self-regulation, functioning as a form of governance removed of political or ideological consequences. The result of its institutional form means that NZOA sanctions texts that promote the wider neoliberal ideals of the state, notably those that represent New Zealand as a multicultural society. The representation of multiculturalism serves the interests of the represented culture by virtue of an immediate and visible form of social inclusion. But to acquire that inclusion (if that inclusion is made via the state broadcaster or gatekeeper) means a level of acquiescence to the beliefs and sensibilities of the dominant culture. It is for the dominant culture that multiculturalism ultimately serves. By rendering surrounding minorities hyper-visible, the values of dominant culture become invisible and naturalized.
Notes 1
A Ong, Neoliberalism as Exception: Mutations in Citizenship and Sovereignty, Duke University Press, Durham, 2006, p. 3. 2 R Horrocks, ‘The History of New Zealand Television: An Expensive Medium for a Small Country,’ Television in New Zealand: Programming the
Multiculturalism in the Service of Capital 72 ______________________________________________________________ Nation, Oxford University Press, Auckland, 2004; B Easton, ‘Commercialism Versus Culture’, The Commercialisation of New Zealand, Auckland University Press, Auckland, 1997. 3 J Farnsworth, ‘Mainstream or Minority: Ambiguities in State or Market Arrangements for New Zealand Television’, Controlling Interests: Business, the State and Society in New Zealand, Auckland University Press, Auckland, 1992; R McChesney, A Cocker, ‘Strong Public Television Service Vital to Our Future’, New Zealand Herald, June 1, 1998; P Thompson, ‘The Croc with No Teeth? New Zealand Television in the Post-TVNZ Charter Context’, New Zealand Political Review, Vol.12, Issue 1, (2003). 4 G Richeri, ‘Broadcasting and the Market - the Case of Public Television’, Towards a Political Economy of Culture - Capitalism and Communication in the Twenty-First Century, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc, Lanham, 2004. 5 Ibid., p. 181. 6 R Collins, From Satellite to Single Market - New Communication Technology and European Public Service Television. Routledge Research in Cultural and Media Studies. Routledge, London, 1998; P Iosifidis, Public Television in the Digital Era, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2007; E Siapera, Cultural Diversity and Global Media - The Mediation of Difference, Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester, 2010. 7 A Smith, In the Shadow of the Cave - the Broadcaster, the Audience and the State, George Allen & Unwin Limited, London, 1973; A Smith, ‘Television as a Public Service Medium’, Television - An International History, Oxford University Press, New York, 1995; G Balas, ‘Recovering a Public Vision for Public Television’, Critical Media Studies: Institutions, Politics and Culture, Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, 2003. 8 I McKay, Broadcasting in New Zealand, A.H and A.W. Reed, Wellington, 1953: 111. 9 P Day, Radio Years: a History of Broadcasting in New Zealand, Auckland University Press, 2004: 248. 10 In contemporary usage the term ‘Pakeha’ refers to ‘non-Maori New Zealanders’ (King, 1985) especially those descendents of British settlers that now form New Zealand’s dominant social and political class. Thus ‘Pakeha society’, ‘Pakeha values’ or ‘Pakeha institutions’ refers to those social, political and/or cultural regimes adopted by colonial New Zealand from Britain that now form the basis of mainstream society. The Westminster parliamentary system and the legal system are examples of Pakeha institutions. 11 D Beatson, ‘A Genealogy of Maori Broadcasting: The Development of Maori Radio’, Continuum, Vol. 10, Issue 1, 1996; D Fox, ‘Honouring the
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______________________________________________________________ Treaty: Indigenous Television in Aotearoa’, New Zealand Television: A Reader, Dunmore Press, Palmerston North, 1993. 12 T Avery, Radio Modernism - Literature, Ethics and the BBC 1922-1938, Ashgate, Aldershot, 2006: 3. 13 S Marginson, The Free Market - A Study of Heyek, Friedman and Buchanan and Their Effects on Public Good, University of New South Wales, Kensington, 1992: 1. 14 T Dunleavy, ‘The Genre of New Zealand Television’, Television in New Zealand - Programming the Nation, Oxford University Press, Auckland, 2004: 208. 15 Broadcasting Act, Ed.Ministry of Broadcasting: New Zealand Government, 1989. 15 A Ong, Neoliberalism as Exception: Mutations in Citizenship and Sovereignty, Duke University Press, Durham, 2006: 3. 16 I Taylor, ‘Introduction’, The Social Effects of Free Market Policies – An International Text, St Martin's Press, New York, 1990: 11-12. 17 Ong, op. cit., p.4. 18 Fox, op. cit.; Beatson, op.cit; J Smith, ‘Parallel Quotidian Flows: Maori Television on Air’, New Zealand Journal of Media Studies, Vol. 9, issue 2, 2006. 19 In any debate regarding the depiction of diversity in New Zealand, the division between bicultural and multicultural representation must be determined. In the New Zealand context, biculturalism refers to the political and cultural interaction between Maori as first people (or Tangata Whenua) and the Crown. The colonial Treaty of Waitangi (1840) signed between the Crown and Maori tribal representatives has served as a basis for a legislative and administrative infrastructure, government departments and statutory bodies. Institutions including the Waitangi Tribunal (to process and assess tribal grievances over abuses of Treaty of Waitangi rights), the Maori Language Commission and Te Puna Kokiri (the Ministry of Maori Development) carry a universal mandate to uphold the tenants of the Treaty of Waitangi and with that to address historic grievances. This multiinstitutional framework has significant impact with regards Maori representation in the media. In 1986, when the possible sale of Television New Zealand was the subject of political debate, a group petitioned the Waitangi Tribunal (and later, successfully, the Privy Council) to have the state broadcaster considered the principle vehicle for Te Reo thus making the retention of state ownership a requirement under the Treaty. In subsequent years the bicultural framework has necessitated the establishment of the Maori Television Service, again made legally binding through specific legislation. This legal/political relationship between Maori and the Crown is not replicated with regards other ethnicities within New Zealand’s national
Multiculturalism in the Service of Capital 74 ______________________________________________________________ borders, thus there is no legal requirement to represent multiculturalism aside from the general guidelines of NZOA. 20 As of May 2010, the six members of the NZOA board are involved leadership roles in the corporate arena, alongside their work with NZOA. 21 A Bell, ‘A Mark of Distinction: ‘New Zealand’ as Signifier in the Television Market’, Sites: A Journal for Radical Perspectives on Culture, Summer 1993. 22 NZOA’s multicultural programming generally falls within one of two generic forms. Minority-interest programming is targeted at a specific audience (such as a pan-ethnic collectives including Asian New Zealanders, or Pacific Island New Zealanders). This is often magazine style with the production team comprises members of the particular subject ethnicity. Given its specialist interest, this programming is usually assigned poor rating timeslots. The casting of non-Pakeha characters in mainstream programming represents an alterative form of multicultural inclusion. This version of representation operates to promote the mainstream as tolerant and inclusive while simultaneously highlighting the otherness of the minority characters. 23 V Mishra, ‘What is Multiculturalism?’, Portal Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies, Vol. 2, issue 2: 5. 24 Outrageous Fortune is an adult-primetime comedy drama set in West Auckland. A critical and ratings success, the series has been NZOA’s highest funding benefactor with the seven seasons thus far being granted over NZ$50 million. 25 Mishra, op. cit., p. 4. 26 S äiåek, ‘Multiculturalism, or the Cultural Logic or Multinational Capitalism.’ New Left Review, Issue 225, September-October 1997: 23. 27 S Hall, ‘The Great Moving Right Show’, The Politics of Thatcherism, Lawrence and Wishart Limited, London, 1983. 28 äiåek, op.cit., p.44. 29 Mishra, op.cit., p.4. 30 äiåek, op.cit., p.46. 31 P Rose & B Robbs, ‘Multicultural Issues in the Advertsing Curriculum’, Journalism and Mass Communication Educator, Vol. 55, Issue 4, 2001: 8; EB York & J Neff, ‘Brands Prepare for a More Diverse ‘General Market’’, Advertising Age, Vol. 80, Issue 40, (2009). 32 äiåek, op.cit., p.46.
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Bibliography Anderson, B., Imagined Communities. Verso, London, 1991. Avery, T., Radio Modernism - Literature, Ethics and the BBC 1922-1938. Ashgate, Aldershot, 2006. Balas, G., ‘Recovering a Public Vision for Public Television’. Critical Media Studies: Institutions, Politics and Culture. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, 2003. Beatson, D., ‘A Genealogy of Maori Broadcasting: The Development of Maori Radio’. Continuum. Vol. 10, Issue 1, 1996. Bell, A., ‘A Mark of Distinction: ‘New Zealand’ as Signifier in the Television Market’. Sites: A Journal for Radical Perspectives on Culture. Summer 1993. Broadcasting Act, Ministry of Broadcasting: New Zealand Government. 1989. Collins, Richard, From Satellite to Single Market - New Communication Technology and European Public Service Television. Routledge Research in Cultural and Media Studies. Ed. Morely, David, Curran, James, Routledge, London, 1998. Day, P., Radio Years: A History of Broadcasting in New Zealand. Auckland University Press, 2004. Dunleavy, T., ‘The Genre of New Zealand Television’. Television in New Zealand - Programming the Nation. Oxford University Press, Auckland, 2004. Easton, B., ‘Commercialism Versus Culture’. The Commercialization of New Zealand. Auckland University Press, Auckland, 1997. Farnsworth, J., ‘Mainstream or Minority: Ambiguities in State or Market Arrangements for New Zealand Television’. Controlling Interests: Business, the State and Society in New Zealand, Auckland University Press, Auckland, 1992.
Multiculturalism in the Service of Capital 76 ______________________________________________________________ Fox, D.T., ‘Honouring the Treaty: Indigenous Television in Aotearoa’. New Zealand Television: A Reader. Dunmore Press, Palmerston North, 1993. Hall, S., ‘The Great Moving Right Show’. The Politics of Thatcherism. Lawrence and Wishart Limited, London, 1983. Horrocks, R., ‘The History of New Zealand Television: An Expensive Medium for a Small Country’. Television in New Zealand: Programming the Nation. Oxford University Press, Auckland, 2004. Iosifidis, P., Public Television in the Digital Era. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2007. King, M., Being Pakeha: An Encounter with New Zealand and the Maori Renaissance. Hodder & Stoughton, Auckland, 1985. Kymlicka, W., Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights. Clarenden Press, Oxford, 1995. Marginson, S., The Free Market - a Study of Heyek, Friedman and Buchanan and Their Effects on Public Good. University of New South Wales, Kensington, 1992. McChesney, R. & Cocker, A., ‘Strong Public Television Service Vital to Our Future’. New Zealand Herald. June 1, 1998. McKay, I., Broadcasting in New Zealand. A.H and A.W. Reed, Wellington, 1953. Mishra, V., ‘What is Multiculturalism?’ Portal Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies, Vol. 2, Issue 2. New Zealand on Air, ‘New Zealand on Air Homepage’. , Wellington, 2008. Accessed June 10, 2010. Ong, A., Neoliberalism as Exception: Mutations in Citizenship and Sovereignty. Duke University Press, Durham, 2006 Pearson, D., ‘Multi-Culturalisms and Modernisms: Some Comparative Thoughts’. Sites. Issue 30, Autumn 1995: 21.
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________________________________________________________ ______ Richeri, G., ‘Broadcasting and the Market - the Case of Public Television’. Towards a Political Economy of Culture - Capitalism and Communication in the Twenty-First Century. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc, Lanham, 2004. Rose, P. & Robbs, B., ‘Multicultural Issues in the Advertsing Curriculum’. Journalism and Mass Communication Educator. Vol. 55, Issue 4, 2001: 8. Siapera, E., Cultural Diversity and Global Media - the Mediation of Difference. Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester, 2010. Smith, A., In the Shadow of the Cave - the Broadcaster, the Audience and the State. George Allen & Unwin Limited, London, 1973. _______
, ‘Television as a Public Service Medium’. Television: An International History. Oxford University Press, New York, 1995. Smith, J., ‘Parallel Quotidian Flows: Maori Television on Air’. New Zealand Journal of Media Studies. Vol. 9, Issue 2, 2006. Taylor, C., Multiculturalism and the Politics of Recognition. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1992. Taylor, I., ‘Introduction’. The Social Effects of Free Market Policies: An International Text. St Martin's Press, New York, 1990. Thompson, P., ‘The Croc with No Teeth? New Zealand Television in the Post-TVNZ Charter Context’. New Zealand Political Review. Vol.12, Iissue 1, 2003. Waitangi Tribunal, ‘Te Reo Maori Claim’. Waitangi Tribunal. 1986. Wolf, S., ‘Comment’. Multiculturalism and the Politics of Recognition, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1992. York, E.B. & Neff, J., ‘Brands Prepare for a More Diverse ‘General Market’’. Advertising Age. Vol. 80, Issue 40, 2009. äiåek, S., ‘Multiculturalism, or the Cultural Logic or Multinational Capitalism’. New Left Review. Issue 225, September-October 1997: 23.
Multiculturalism in the Service of Capital 78 ______________________________________________________________ Donald Reid is with the department of Film, Media and Communication at the University of Otago his current research examines the implications of digital technologies on public broadcasting systems.
Exclusive Inclusion: Japan’s Desire for, and Difficulty with, Diversity Julian Chapple Abstract Amidst the recent unprecedented flow of people across national borders, Japan has remained almost a passive observer - satisfied to keep stringent entrance barriers intact for the sake of preserving its cultural status quo. However, with a sharply falling birth rate and rapidly aging population, coupled with labour shortages, and economic stagnation, Japan’s lawmakers and bureaucrats have recently begun to initiate debate into the possibility of greater immigration. This chapter examines the necessities of political, societal and attitudinal change in the populace in order to allow for the inclusion of difference in what is arguably the world’s most homogenous developed nation-state. This requires a fundamental re-assessment of exactly who is (and can be) and what it means to be ‘Japanese;’ enormous questions that at present the government seems loath to address. It concludes with suggestions for how state-makers can realize a possible new model along the lines of what has been referred to variously as ‘cosmopolitan,’ ‘global’ or ‘universal’ citizenship, applicable and, arguably, beneficial to Japan’s situation. Done correctly and with sufficient input and debate, Japan could create a new social contract with its citizens (native and new) that would serve as a model for other states in Asia. Key Words: Citizenship, civil society, education for global citizenship, Japan, migration, national identity, pluralism. ***** 1.
Introduction Human migration has been a constant in history since well before arbitrary border lines were drawn and the proliferation of nation-states began. From 75 million people in 1960 to more than 214 million in 2008,1 the pace and scope of migration looks likely to only further intensify. While Japan’s geographical location has historically sheltered it from the waves of migration that have characterized and shaped the majority of other nations on earth, there is no denying the fact that exchanges with neighbouring nations have contributed much towards Japanese society and culture. In spite of this, Japan has long been portrayed as an isolated, monocultural nation. Today, amongst the unprecedented flow of people from country to country, Japan appears almost a passive observer to the trend -
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______________________________________________________________ satisfied to keep stringent entrance barriers intact for the sake of preserving the cultural status quo. A ‘myth of homogeneity’ - considering itself a homogenous state with practically no ethnic, cultural or linguistic diversity,2 has remained the dominant ideology in Japan for almost its entire modern history and a recurring undercurrent of the nation’s psyche. 3 This chapter is prefaced on the assumption that Japan’s leaders will eventually seek a more multicultural path in order to foster greater innovation and prosperity based on a realization of the economic and social value of difference over sameness in today’s world and a recognition that greater diversity can lead to a better civil society. It briefly analyzes the present situation Japan faces with regards to the acceptance of non-Japanese nationals and possible benefits of a pluralistic future. It will examine the prerequisite to such a future, namely: a reassessment of who can belong and how, by taking into account such things as the important role of education for intercultural citizenship and non-nation specific education. Finally, it will conclude with suggestions for how state-makers can realize a possible new model along the lines of what has been referred to variously as ‘cosmopolitan,’ ‘global’ or ‘universal’ citizenship, applicable and, arguably, beneficial to Japan’s situation. While Japan has been reluctant to move away from its post-war model of nationhood - in particular citizenship and nationality, it is argued it could achieve greater success, stability and security through the creation of a flexible and accommodating form of cosmopolitan citizenship. But, it requires a dramatic redefinition of the boundaries of inclusion and as yet it remains unclear how sincere the goal is. 2.
Citizenship and Japan Today In comparatively mono-national states such as Japan, the concepts of citizenship and nationality are usually used interchangeably, while socalled ‘others’ are referred to as ‘ethnics.’ However, citizenship and nationality are not synonymous; one may belong to the Maori nation (for example be a member of the Maori minority living in Australia), but at the same time be a citizen of Australia. Similarly, Arabs who identify themselves as members of the Arab nation may be residing in one of the more than twenty sovereign Arab states, but could hardly be considered citizens of all such states simultaneously. Therefore, citizenship (which is related to the state as a subject of international law) must be differentiated from nationality (which refers to a community or a people that has common roots in terms of language, culture, race, and so forth). Unlinking nationality and citizenship is imperative to the creation of an open and democratic society. 4 This should not endanger the integrity of the polity because it is possible to construct a political culture disassociated
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_________________________________________________________ _____ from national and ethnic origins but anchored to the principle of multi-culturalism.5 In other words, the acceptance of pluralism offers a way forward in creating solutions to social problems, conflict and inequalities while at the same time opening the society up to greater possibilities. This is the first and foremost beneficial aspect that can provide potential opportunities to Japan. Today, some states have witnessed a push towards the reassertion of national identity and sovereignty in response to migrational pressure. Conner, for example, claims that improvements in transportation and communication have in fact highlighted an awareness of the differences in nations and individuals resulting in a pronounced impact on cultural and national identity.6 Further, Kofman discusses the many recent moves made by nationstates to re-couple rights and identities, reassert their authority and even question multiculturalism and diversity when shaping national identity and citizenship.7 As a consequence, some states have increased efforts to create greater barriers in order to protect their culture and lifestyle. In response, Soysal claims that recent developments have resulted in what he refers to as ‘paradoxical implications for the exercise of the citizenship’ between the role of the nation-state in determining migrant acceptance and the emergence of universal personhood rights for them.8 In other words, universal personhood rights may eventually overtake and weaken the power of the nation-state. The challenge, therefore, for those who promote and stress the necessity for national identity over all else, ‘is to find a moral basis for selecting the traditions which will be promoted as the collective memory, and for distinguishing the ‘us’ from the ‘them’ without engendering ethnocentrism or xenophobia.’9 As Gilbert continues: Their dilemma is that any genuine search for national traditions which will promote the welfare of all their people can be satisfied only by universal humanitarian principles; but these must then undermine any attempt to distinguish the welfare of the nation from the welfare of those outside it.10 There are now more ways of being a citizen than have been possible at any point in history and, therefore, citizenship can no longer merely be defined in terms of an individual’s relation with a nation state. This is precisely Japan’s dilemma as it continues to walk the path of cultural protection and management. Yet, it is debatable whether this is either assisting minorities in Japan, or particularly beneficial in today’s competitive and globalizing world. Further, it appears increasingly at odds with the
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Japan & Diversity: Present Struggles and Future Needs Japan’s population is changing rapidly. Not only is it rapidly ageing (by 2025, 27.3%, or 33.2 million people, will be aged over 60) 11 but its continued low birth rate means that the population is projected to shrink from 127 million in 2008 to 102 million in 2050 with an ensuing 10 percent drop in the labour force in the next 25 years. As a result, by 2020 one elderly person will be supported by 2.3 workers, whereas the number was 1:12 in 1950 and 1:5.5 in 1990. Some argue that the recent global economic situation negates the need for further acceptance of foreign labour. Yet, it is important to differentiate between the immediate short-term impact and projected longterm effects. While present economic problems may have started to impact on migrant numbers, for the short-term, it is revealing to analyze historical precedents. Castles points out that on at least three occasions in the past (the economic crisis of the 1930s, the oil shocks of the early seventies, and the 1997-99 Asian financial crisis), long-term migration trends were not noticeably affected. 12 Rather, there is evidence that it may even strengthen and increase in such times.13 Undoubtedly spurred on by such demographic stimuli, Japan has gradually increased dialog into pluralistic possibilities. A report issued by Japan’s Economic Council, recommended: ‘we should actively consider aiming to become a vibrant socio-economy that is open to the world by orderly accepting migrant labour from overseas countries.’14 ‘It is important for Japan to introduce foreign workers in the fields of management, research and technology,’ wrote the Ministry of Economic Trade and Industry in its 2003 White Paper.15 Likewise, a Prime Ministerial Commission looking at Japan’s goals in the 21st Century acknowledged the requirement for foreign inputs when they discussed the need to implement change thus: [t]o respond positively to globalization and [to] maintain Japan’s vitality in the twenty-first century . . . we cannot avoid the task of creating an environment that will allow foreigners to live normally and comfortably in this country.16 Perhaps the most vociferous calls for greater immigration in Japan have been voiced by the Japan Business Federation. Fearing that not only will Japan’s dwindling labor force create serious economic problems in the coming decades, but that the lack of difference means Japan will suffer from a lack of innovation needed to keep pace with increasingly tougher
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___________________________________________________ ___________ international competition.17 In short, as Philippe Legrain convincingly argues, immigrants are an absolute necessity in post-modern societies like Japan characterized by a declining birth rate and rapidly aging population.18 Undeniably, the debate over the benefits of immigration is split. Opponents argue that foreigners can undermine national interests and even security, as they do not share a sense of loyalty or respect for the perceived common good. 19 This has been the line followed by many of Japan’s prominent opponents to greater immigration and has been well supported by the National Police Agency who regularly popularize any (real or perceived) increase in foreign crime. Immigrants are also supposedly less likely to participate in civic and/or political activities, use their voting rights (if they have any) and contribute to labour unions and related action. Those in favour, however, argue that the accruing benefits to the host society - although perhaps only appearing gradually - outweigh any negative points. Unger claims that immigrants contribute to ‘involuntary or half-conscious institutional experimentalism’ 20 in host countries, which contributes to democratic development. Similarly, Honig states that foreigners act as ‘refounding’ agents who stimulate developed nations to further progress. 21 In short, foreigners offer benefits in the form of reinvigorating civil society and democracy by exposing members of the host society to different ideas and possible processes hitherto unconsidered or deemed inappropriate. Thus, it is not solely for economic motives that advocates believe Japan will eventually adopt a path of greater openness. Numerous other factors such as a need for more innovation, global integration, and stimulation as well as the perceived numerous flow-on benefits for Japan’s nationals and civic society will ultimately increase pressure for change. 4.
‘Detoured’ Multiculturalism Today a multicultural society is one ‘which does not seek or base its political legitimacy and unity upon ideas of the homogeneity of its inhabitants, whether this presumed homogeneity be linguistic, religious or parental (racial/ethnic).’ 22 Citizenship in such a state should apply to ‘all those who consider the nation as their homeland, irrespective of their background’23 and it is this concept that I believe has application in Japan’s milieu. In sum, pluralism requires recognition of the benefits inherent in diversity and appreciation of what I term the ‘social equation of diversity’ that the sum of all the different parts is exponentially greater than the subtraction of minor factors from the original. However, in order to create such a society, the issues of identity and inclusion must be clearly addressed, but it is at this point that Japan’s multiculturalism takes a detour. Hall argues that ‘[i]dentities can function as points of identification and attachment only because of their capacity to
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______________________________________________________________ exclude.’ 24 Similarly, Butler states that all identities in fact operate in the same way: by exclusion and the construction of marginalized subjects.25 In the case of Japan, the exclusion of foreigners is the crucial element in the self-identity of Japanese. 26 Thus, if Japan is to hold true to its claims of moving towards a more inclusive society, it must first establish an accurate and effective path towards that goal. Even more mature ‘multicultural states’ such as Canada and Australia carefully create identity boundaries around people reflecting the complexity of the issue.27 5.
Slogans Designed Towards (Against?) an Inclusive Japan Burgess describes in detail four of what he refers to as the major ‘discourses of displacement,’ slogans which at face value appear to represent a real move towards acceptance, but in actuality merely aim to strengthen the homogeneous status quo.28 The first is kokusaika (internationalisation) which in spite of its name is in fact a policy aimed at reinforcing the idea of a mono-ethnic nation. 29 Second is ibunka (different culture) which serves to evaluate and compare ideas of difference between cultures in order to assist in the maintenance of a unique Japanese identity. Thirdly there is kyosei (living together) which appear to prepare Japanese society for the twenty-first century but in actuality merely ‘(re)produces boundaries that reaffirm foreigners’ non-membership in Japanese society.’30 Finally, there is the term tabunka, the latest in the series, which is generally translated as multicultural but is in effect the latest ‘ideological tool’ to put Japanese under pressure to become more Japanese and foreigners more ethnic.31 In the face of growing pressure to accept diversity, an increase in such slogans is hardly surprising. They represent a natural reaction to a feared loss of control of the ‘imagined community.’ This entire process is similar to the one outlined by Reid in his chapter in this volume, in such that the statesanctioned version of cultural inclusion serves as a means of maintaining the dominant culture. 32 Only filtered, scrutinized and approved notions are accepted as they are deemed not to impinge on the dominant cultures’ grip on power while still perpetuating a veneer of a tolerant and inclusive society.33 In fact Japan’s state-owned and overseen television network, NHK, functions in an almost identical way. While there are no specific programmes focussing on multiculturalism in Japan, non-Japanese engaging in traditional Japanese cultural activities are often highlighted as a way of sanctioning such attempts to ‘assimilate.’ NHK also has a weekly show devoted to the physically and intellectually challenged shown on its education channel which perhaps represents its greatest effort to show a form of minority participation in society. Given the distance still to be covered in fully accommodating such minority groups, complete inclusion of ethnic and linguistic minorities remains a tall order. Consequently, Japan’s multicultural prospects reveal the
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______________________________________________________________ same flaws referred to in Reid’s analysis of New Zealand’s media, they are all based on the ‘representation of difference rather than on equality.’34 Yet, pluralistic policies pose numerous difficulties for state-makers. Perhaps the biggest of which is recognizing that each person is both an individual with rights as well as the bearer of collective identity. With this is mind, allowing full citizenship rights for everyone - not only those of migrant origin - but also members of hitherto disempowered groups such as women, indigenous peoples, people with disabilities, gays and lesbians, and so on is a requirement.35 Japan’s leaders will be required to integrate such ideas into their future policies as pluralism holds as a fundamental the notion of a civil society with equal citizenship. Only in this way can the full benefits be accrued by society, innovation fostered and conflict minimized. The dominant idea in policy in Japan until now is of living together, not national unity or even equality. The result is exclusion and the creation of ‘parallel lives’ which have far reaching impacts on the quality of life for migrants. It gives rise to ‘stateless’ individuals - those born in Japan yet not recognized by the state as citizens, it leads to serious identity problems for youth and creates educational and other rights violations and even overtly discriminatory treatment. This problem is similar to the idea of ‘banal cosmopolitanism’ referred to by Matthews and Sidhu in which brands, icons, foreign travel and food, etc. are accepted by a society but they alone do not necessarily equate to ethical and moral commitments to a global community. 36 Recently infrastructure is where the government has been placing emphasis (hotels suitable for foreigners, signs in English, international community houses, etc.), but it needs to focus on feelings and identity formation as well for long-term success. Hence, schools should also become targets for infrastructural remodelling. A new form of citizenship is required for which I borrow Osler and Starkey’s term ‘cosmopolitan citizenship’ as a possible option for Japan’s future: Whereas citizenship previously served the patriarchal modern state and its capitalist classes, it must now reflect the globalizing imperatives that are creating the conditions of possibility for new identities and new working conditions.37 At its most basic level, a cosmopolitan citizen is one who views themselves ‘as a citizen of the world community based on common human values.’ 38 Cosmopolitan citizenship is not an alternative to national citizenship; it is merely ‘a way of being a citizen at any level, local, national, regional or global.’ 39 It is based on common notions of humanity that transcend national borders. In other words, citizens need to be able to think
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______________________________________________________________ and act as ‘multiply situated selves’ and education plays a crucial role in this process.40 6.
Education and Pluralism Countries of immigration create common civic cultures that act as a form of social glue for creating national cohesion. Since Japan has historically had comparatively less immigration the idea of a unifying civic culture with ‘others’ is anathema and at total odds to present trends in education to stress uniqueness or at least difference. However, there is compelling evidence that education is the most important factor for fostering successful economic, social, and political integration of migrants.41 Further, education for cosmopolitan citizenship in a liberal democracy, offers those who propose revolution the place to prove their case using the tools of logic and reason. 42 Japan’s present education system does incorporate several aspects of education for multicultural citizenship within its national curriculum. Either appearing variously under such guises such as education for international understanding (kokusai rikai kyoiku), ethnic education (minzoku kyoiku), education for newcomers (nyucamaa to kyoiku), global education (gurbaru kyoiku) or being incorporated as a part of existing classes such as values (dotoku) or human rights education (jinken kyoiku), such classes have failed as a result of their deliberate marginalisation. However, the explicit aim of these generally is to develop Japanese citizens with a sense of patriotism, willing to act cordially with people of other cultures but not to develop intercultural citizens, hardly policies aimed at integrating diversity.43 There has been a renewed interest in education for global/intercultural/cosmopolitan citizenship, especially in Western democracies recently.44 Undoubtedly such interest has been aroused in many places out of reaction to significant local and regional developments such as the advent of European citizenship for England, and debates about republicanism in Australia and Canada (Quebec). However, changes such as migration, global warming, developments in information technology and so forth, have also stimulated debate into the same issue which is now moving onto much larger questions about multiculturalism and is taking place in various political settings. 7.
Education for Cosmopolitan Citizenship in Japan The focus needs to be fixed on the education of Japan’s ‘Others’ for several reasons. Firstly, the Japanese Government has long touted the need to foster greater international acceptance and understanding amongst its population and realizes that in order to compete globally, such attitudes are an essential skill its citizens require. Surely an increase in migrant numbers and diversity in education could contribute significantly to this process.
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______________________________________________________________ Secondly, it is well recognised that it is through the education system that concepts of national identity and belonging are fostered and instilled. If migration is to be successful, migrant children must be allowed to fully integrate into Japanese society smoothly, yet with differences intact and accepted. Further, and related to the previous point, in Japan at present there are already a large number of foreign children receiving different types of education to varying degrees. Cleary, the assumption that providing the same education to everyone has now been undermined, and a new approach to equality and diversity is required.45 Finally, the government is presently in the midst of education reforms seemingly quite at odds with the ideas of acceptance inherent in the concept of diversity. How can greater inclusion be considered a viable option when the government is effectively pushing national education policies in opposite directions? Much has been written about the role education plays in Japan to stress homogeneity and national unity and experience has shown the education system in Japan to be a powerful instrument in the forging of national unity, with Japan46 being one of the first societies to treat education as a tool of national development. 47 However, the present emphasis on national citizenship at the expense of all other citizenships presents a serious impediment to the development of intercultural citizenship in Japan. 48 One way to overcome present issues mentioned above as well as open the society to more vibrant creativity, is the creation of a hybrid multicultural society established along the lines of the cultural principles of iitokodori (selecting the best). In other words, taking the best of all worlds, something the Japanese state has been exceedingly successful at historically. The acceptability of multiple identities needs to be recognized, either implicitly or explicitly, before intercultural citizenship can become a possibility. Differences in beliefs, values and behaviour are accepted up to a point in Japan, but anything deemed likely to threaten the harmony of the group usually results in exclusion reflecting a lack of access to ‘social citizenship.’49 Being a member of the family, school, community, nation are accepted and promoted in Japan, but once it comes to the sphere beyond the nation, the only identity that is permitted and encouraged in Japanese education policy and curriculum is identity as a ‘Japanese person.’50 Thus, Japan has a system of ‘exclusive inclusion’ that fully includes all deemed in possession of the requirements for membership, which are, however, exclusive. Demographic and cultural changes in the make-up of present Japanese society are creating the possibility of these assumptions of identity being adjusted to accommodate reality. This may lead to the creation of policy that is more encompassing of diversity which in turn will allow for access to cosmopolitan citizenship. The older simplistic conceptualization of identity-formation as a constant-sum game, whereby the acquisition of a new
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______________________________________________________________ identity occurs at the expense of the original one, should give way to a multimodal version: which acknowledges the unique human capacity for additive identities, as manifested by the capacity of any member of the species to learn and use more than one language, and for transforming many aspects of the self.51 Cosmopolitan citizenship requires citizens to learn which values are unique to a certain culture and which are universally shared. The essential requirement is to ‘explore alternative understandings of loyalties, membership, identities, rights and obligations arising from the context of globalisation.’ 52 Similarly, as different groups have different ways of understanding the meaning of social events, this can contribute to the mutual understanding of others if allowed.53 Shipper, for example, argues that it is the presence of illegal workers in Japan that is producing the greatest stimulus for activism amongst Japanese today and this has ‘forced government officials to reflect on Japan’s national identity and to negotiate a new social contract with citizens . . . who reside on their islands.’54 In sum, the creation of a more globalized Japan ‘will be a more productive and energized Japan, and also a more culturally vibrant Japan.’55 A linguistically diverse Japan should be seen as a resource not a problem.56 Innovation would invigorate not only the economy but the nation’s social fabric, creating the way for the fusion of ideas and cultures. Already today foreigners are playing a key role in Japan, as they help the country solve some of its domestic problems while advancing social democracy. This would increase with greater inclusion. 8.
Conclusion Contributions to a society can be made by anyone who feels accepted and satisfied. In Japan a new concept of citizenship is required to enable such contributions. This concept, cosmopolitan/global/intercultural citizenship, would become the cornerstone of a new immigration policy in Japan as well as a potential catalyst for change in other nations. Japan would show leadership by example and prove that even in one of the most culturally homogenous nations, there is not only room for diversity but if done correctly can result in reciprocal benefits. Employing education to enable cosmopolitan citizenship would allow young people to perceive themselves as citizens with rights and responsibilities locally, nationally and globally.57 Such a change should be moved into the public sphere with active support from the state even to the extent of teaching minority languages at schools so as to create a society which can adapt flexibly to the outside world. Further, non-nation specific
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________________________________________________________ ______ education should be considered along the lines of the international baccalaureate’s curriculum. In other words, learning for learning’s sake without the imposing spectre of nation. Such education should include, protect and allow individuals to feel and remain connected to their roots while still making a contribution to the new society. Understanding these points provides the potential for the possibility of achieving mutually beneficial social and, what I term, ‘cultural economies of scale;’ exponentially beneficial returns from input into social systems allowing pluralism. Examples can be seen in the astonishing ability of children, educated in transnational communities, 58 who obtain the linguistic and cultural codes required for global success through a process of negotiating their identities.59 The continued push to assimilate and delineate those considered ‘other’ in Japan will likely come under increasing pressure and attack in the coming years and ultimately may ironically invite the opposite effect. In other words, while ostensibly protecting the nation’s interests, globalizing forces may overtake and bypass Japan leaving its interests politically, economically, socially, and perhaps even culturally disadvantaged. Globalization with its ensuing neo-liberal economic policies has the potential to gradually undermine the national economic policies of any one single nation-state. At the same time there is the correspondent quest for equality characterized by the globalised world which seeks greater application of rights. What is required is a more progressive model of incorporation which recognizes newcomers as agents of change and as individuals and members of groups simultaneously. For this, education is essential. Cosmopolitan education facilitates the construction of transnational communities and culturally diverse societies capable of innovation by encouraging greater openness, understanding and acceptance of diversity. Landes outlines that one of the main pushes behind wealth (in its widest meaning) is intellectual curiosity vis-à-vis the outside world and tolerance for different ideas.60 ‘Countries should open up, for the sake of their wealth and the sake of their citizens.’61 In sum: the successful societies in the future will be the open ones.62 Will Japan be one of them?63
Notes 1
United Nations’ Trends in Total Migrant Stock: The 2008 Revision, Accessed January 23, 2010. Available at: . 2 See, for example: HW Smith, The Myth of Japanese Homogenety - Social Ecological Diversity in Education, Commack, Nova Science, N. Y., 1994; M Itoh, Globalization of Japan, St. Martin’s Press, New York, 2000; H Befu, Globalizing Japan, Routledge, London, 2001.
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Even as recently as 2005, former Prime Minister Aso Taro referred to Japan as a nation of just ‘one race.’ 4 T Oommen, Citizenship, Nationality and Ethnicity, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1997. 5 ibid., p. 241. 6 W Conner, Ethnonationalism: The Quest for Understanding, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1994. 7 E Kofman, ‘Citizenship, Migration and the Reassertion of National Identity’, Citizenship Studies, Vol. 9 (5), 2005, p. 455. 8 Y Soysal, ‘Citizenship and Identity: Living in Diasporas in Post-War Europe?’ Ethnic and Racial Studies 23, Vol. 1, 2000, pp. 1-15. 9 R Gilbert, ‘Issues for Citizenship in a Postmodern World’, Citizenship Education and the Modern State, The Falmer Press, London, 1997, pp. 65-81. 10 ibid., p. 73. 11 W Cornelius, 1994, ‘The Illusion of Immigration Control’, Controlling Immigration: A Global Perspective, W Cornelius, P Martin & J Hollifield (eds), Stanford University Press, Stanford, California, 1994, p. 378. 12 S Castles, ‘Some Key Issues of Migrant Integration in Europe’, a paper presented at the International Symposium on Acceptance of Foreign Nationals and their Integration in Japan, Nagoya, 28 February, 2009. 13 Castles, op. cit.; The Daily Yomiuri, 2008. 14 Japan Economic Council, 1999. 15 The Japan Times, 2003. 16 Prime Minister’s Commission on Japan's Goals in the 21st Century (2000), The Frontier Within: Individual Empowerment and Better Governance in the New Millennium, p. 13, Accessed June 15, 2009. Available at: . 17 H Okuda, ‘Nippon Keidanren’s Stance on Acceptance of Foreign Human Resources’, a paper presented at the International Symposium on Acceptance of Foreign Nationals and their Integration in Japan, Nagoya, 2009. 18 P Legrain, Immigrants: Your Country Needs Them, Little Brown, London, 2006. 19 D Miller, ‘Bounded Citizenship’, Cosmopolitan Citizenship, K Hutchings and R Dannreuther (eds), MacMillan, London, 1999, pp. 60-80. 20 R Unger, Democracy Realized: The Progressive Alternative, Verso, London, 1998, p. 27. 21 B Honig, Democracy and the Foreigner, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1998. 22 D Dunne & T Bonazzi (eds), Citizenship and Rights, Keele University Press, Cornwall, 1995, p. 266-7. 23 T Oommen, op. cit., p. 5
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S Hall, ‘Introduction: Who Needs Identity?’ Cultural Identity, S Hall and P Du Gay (eds), Sage Publications, London, 1996, p. 4-5. 25 J Butler, Bodies that Matter: on the Discursive Limits of Sex, Routledge, New York. 26 M Creighton, ‘Soto Other and Uchi Others: Imagining Racial Diversity, Imagining Homogenous Japan’ Japan’s Minorities, M Weiner (ed), Routledge, London and New York, 1997, pp. 211-38. 27 G Hage, White Nation Fantasies of White Supremacy in a Multicultural Society, Pluto Press, Sydney, 1999. 28 C Burgess, ‘Maintaining Identities’, Electronic Journal of Contemporary Japanese Studies, 2004. Available at: , accessed April 4, 2008. 29 IMIDAS, Shueisha, Tokyo, 1990, p. 44. 30 N Suzuki, ‘Women Imagined, Women Imaging: Re/presentations of Filipinas in Japan since the 1980s,’ U.S. Journal English Supplement 19, 2000, p. 160. 31 C Burgess, op. cit. 32 D Reid, ‘Public Broadcasting in New Zealand: is state media inclusive media’. Available at: . Accessed April 25, 2010. 33 D Reid, op. cit. 34 D Reid, op. cit., p. 124. 35 S Castles, ‘Multicultural Citizenship: The Australian Experience’ Citizenship and Exclusion, V Bader, (ed), St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1997, p. 125. 36 J Matthews & R Sidhu, ‘Desperately Seeking the Global Subject: International Education, Citizenship and Cosmopolitanism’, Globalisation, Societies and Education. Vol. 3, No. 1, 2005, pp. 49-66. 37 ibid., p. 55. 38 S Anderson-Gold, Cosmopolitanism and Human Rights, University of Wales Press, Cardiff, 2001, p. 1. 39 A Osler & H Starkey, Changing Citizenship, Open University Press, Berkshire, 2005. 40 ibid., p. 21. 41 C Özdemir, ‘Germany’s Integration Challenge’, The Fletcher Forum of World World Affairs, Vol. 30, No. 2, Summer 2006, pp. 221-228. 42 W Murphy, ‘Creating Citizens for a Constitutional Democracy’, Citizenship and Rights in Multicultural Societies, Keele University Press, Keele, 1995, pp. 235-263. 43 See, for example: K Hashimoto, 2000; L Parmenter, 2004.
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R Gilbert, ‘Issues for Citizenship in a Postmodern World’, Citizenship Education and the Modern State, K Kennedy (ed), The Falmer Press, London, pp. 65-81. 45 K Okano & M Tuschiya, Education in Contemporary Japan, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1999. 46 A Burkes, (ed), The Modernizers: Overseas Students, Foreign Employees, and Meiji Japan, Westview Press, Boulder, 1985. 47 WK Cummings, Education and Equality in Japan, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1980, p. 7. 48 L Parmenter, ‘Beyond the Nation? Potential for Intercultural Citizenship Education in Japan’, Negotiation of Identities in Multilingual Contexts, A Pavlenko & A Blackledge (eds), Multilingual Matters, London, 2004, pp. 130-143. 49 P Dwyer, Understanding Social Citizenship: Themes and Perspectives for Policy and Practice, The Policy Press, Bristol, 2004. 50 L Parmenter, op. cit. 51 A Zolberg, ‘Modes of Incorporation: Toward a Comparative Framework’, Citizenship and Exclusion, V Bader (ed), Macmillan Press, London, 1997, p. 151. 52 Matthews and Sidhu, op. cit., p. 54. 53 M Young, Inclusion and Democracy, Oxford University Press, New York, 2000. 54 A Shipper, Fighting for Foreigners: Immigration and its Impact on Japanese Democracy, Cornell University Press, New York, 2008, p. 200. 55 J Haffner, et al, Japan’s Open Future, Anthem Press, London, 2009, p. 236. 56 N Gottlieb, ‘Migration and Language Policy in Japan Today’, The Tokyo Foundation. Available at: . Accessed April 10, 2010. 57 Osler and Starkey, op. cit. 58 S Castles, ‘Migration, Citizenship, and Education’, Diversity and Citizenship Education: Global Perspectives, J Banks (ed), Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 2004, p. 43. 59 R Kastoryano, La France, l’ Allemagne et leurs immigrés: Négocier l’identité [France, Germany and Their Immigrants: Negotiating Identity] Armand Colin, Paris, 1996. Cited in C. Burgess, 2004, p. 43. 60 D Landes, The Wealth and Poverty of Nations, W. W. Norton and Co., New York, 1998. 61 Haffner et al, op. cit., p. 16. 62 S Castles, 2009, op. cit.
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Bibliography Anderson-Gold, S., Cosmopolitanism and Human Rights. University of Wales Press, Cardiff, 2001. Burgess, C., ‘Maintaining Identities’. Electronic Journal of Contemporary Japanese Studies, 2004, accessed April 4, 2008. Available at: . Burkes, A.W. (ed), The Modernizers: Overseas Students, Foreign Employees, and Meiji Japan. Westview Press, Boulder, 1985. Butler, J., Bodies that Matter: on the Discursive Limits of Sex. Routledge, New York, 1993. Castles, S., ‘Multicultural Citizenship: The Australian Experience’. Citizenship and Exclusion. Bader, V. (ed), St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1997, pp. 113-138. –––, ‘Migration, Citizenship, and Education’. Diversity and Citizenship Education: Global Perspectives. Banks, J. (ed), Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 2004, pp. 17-48. –––, ‘Some Key Issues of Migrant Integration in Europe’. A paper presented at the International Symposium on Acceptance of Foreign Nationals and their Integration in Japan, Nagoya, 28 February, 2009. Conner, W., Ethnonationalism: The Quest for Understanding. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1994. Cornelius, W., ‘The Illusion of Immigration Control’. Controlling Immigration: A Global Perspective. Cornelius, W., Martin, P. and Hollifield, J. (eds), Stanford University Press, Stanford, California, 1994. Creighton, M., ‘Soto Other and Uchi Others: Imagining Racial Diversity, Imagining Homogenous Japan’. Japan’s Minorities. Weiner, M. (ed), Routledge, London and New York, 1997, pp. 211-38. Cummings, W.K., Education and Equality in Japan. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1980.
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______________________________________________________________ Dunne, D. & Bonazzi, T. (eds), Citizenship and Rights. Keele University Press, Cornwall, 1995. Dwyer, P. Understanding Social Citizenship: Themes and Perspectives for Policy and Practice. The Policy Press, Bristol, 2004. Gilbert, R., ‘Issues for Citizenship in a Postmodern World’. Citizenship education and the modern state. Kennedy, K. (ed), The Falmer Press, London, 1997, pp. 65-81. Gottlieb, N., ‘Migration and Language Policy in Japan Today’. The Tokyo Foundation. Accessed April 10, 2010. Available at: . Haffner, J., Casas, I., Klett, T. & Lehmann, J., Japan’s Open Future. Anthem Press, London, 2009. Hage, G., White Nation Fantasies of White Supremacy in a Multicultural Society. Pluto Press, Sydney, 1999. Hall, S. ‘Introduction: Who Needs Identity?’ Questions of Cultural Identity. Sage Publications, London, 1996, pp. 1-17. Hashimoto, K., ‘Internationalisation is ‘Japanisation’’: Japan’s Foreign Language Education and National Identity’. Journal of Intercultural Studies. 21(1), 2000, pp. 39-51. Honig, B., Democracy and the Foreigner. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1998. IMIDAS, Shueisha. Tokyo, 1990. Japan Economic Council, Fundamental Concept Committee and Planning Committee Considerations for the Japanese Socioeconomy in the 21st Century. April 13, 1999. Kastoryano, R. La France, l’ Allemagne et leurs immigrés: Négocier l’identité [France, Germany and Their Immigrants: Negotiating Identity] Armand Colin, Paris, 1996.
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__________________________________________________ ____________ Kennedy, K. (ed), Citizenship Education and the Modern State. Falmer Press, London, 1997. Kofman, E., ‘Citizenship, Migration and the Reassertion of National Identity’. Citizenship Studies. Vol. 9, No. 5, 2005, pp. 453-467. Landes, D., The Wealth and Poverty of Nations. W. W. Norton and Co., NewYork, 1998. Legrain, P., Immigrants: Your Country Needs Them. Little Brown, London, 2006. Matthews, J. & Sidhu, R., ‘Desperately Seeking the Global Subject: International Education, Citizenship and Cosmopolitanism’. Globalisation, Societies and Education. Vol. 3, No. 1, 2005, pp. 49-66. Miller, D., ‘Bounded Citizenship’ Cosmopolitan Citizenship. Hutchings, K. & Dannreuther, R. (eds), MacMillan, London, 1999, pp. 60-80. Murphy, W., ‘Creating Citizens for a Constitutional Democracy’. Dunne, M. & Bonazzi, T. (eds), Citizenship and Rights in Multicultural Societies. Keele University Press, Keele, 1995, pp. 235-263. Okano, K. & Tuschiya, M., Education in Contemporary Japan. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1999. Oommen, T., Citizenship, Nationality and Ethnicity. Polity Press, Cambridge, 1997. Osler, A. & Starkey, H., Changing Citizenship. Open University Press, Berkshire, 2005. Özdemir, C., ‘Germany’s Integration Challenge’. The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs. Vol. 30, No. 2, Summer 2006, pp. 221-228. Parmenter, L., ‘Beyond the Nation? Potential for Intercultural Citizenship Education in Japan’. Negotiation of Identities in Multilingual Contexts. Multilingual Matters, London, 2004, pp. 130-143.
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______________________________________________________________ Prime Minister’s Commission on Japan's Goals in the 21st Century (2000), The Frontier Within: Individual Empowerment and Better Governance in the New Millennium. Accessed June 15, 2009. Available at: . Reid, D. ‘Public Broadcasting in New Zealand: Is State Media Inclusive media’. Available at: . Accessed April 25, 2010. Shipper, A. Fighting for Foreigners: Immigration and its Impact on Japanese Democracy. Cornell University Press, New York, 2008. Soysal, Y.N., ‘Citizenship and Identity: Living in Diasporas in Post-War Europe?’ Ethnic and Racial Studies 23. (1), 2000, pp. 1-15. Stolcke, V., ‘The ‘Nature of Nationality’. Citizenship and Exclusion. Bader, V. (ed), Macmillan Press, London, 1997. Suzuki, N., ‘Women Imagined, Women Imaging: Re/presentations of Filipinas in Japan since the 1980s’. U.S. Journal English Supplement. Vol. 19, 2000, pp. 142-75. The Daily Yomiuri, ‘Report: Countries Need more Immigrant Workers’, December 3, 2008. The Japan Times, ‘Japan Needs Foreign Workers to Achieve Economic Growth: METI’. July 2, 2003. Unger, R.B., Democracy Realized: The Progressive Alternative. Verso, London, 1998. United Nations’ Trends in Total Migrant Stock: The 2008 Revision. Available at: , Accessed: January 23, 2010. Young, M., Inclusion and Democracy. Oxford University Press, New York, 2000. Zolberg, A., ‘Modes of Incorporation: Toward a Comparative Framework’. Citizenship and Exclusion. Bader, V. (ed), Macmillan Press, London, 1997, pp. 139-154.
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______________________________________________________________ Julian Chapple is an Associate Professor of international relations at Ryukoku University, Kyoto, Japan. Presently his research focuses on two main themes: minority rights and citizenship in Japan and the implications of language policy and learning.
German Politicians with Turkey Origin: Diversity in the Parliaments of Germany Devrimsel Deniz Nergiz Abstract Scholars have mainly examined criteria for membership in a national community and citizenship rights accorded to immigrants from a state-centric lens; the ways in which immigrants lay claims to enact citizenship is rarely examined. However, citizenship is not solely about passive criteria of membership of a national community and assembly of rights and duties conferred by the state but also a political practice that individuals engage in and become agents of transformation. In that vein, Turkey origin members of parliaments with migration-backgrounds in Germany offer a relevant case by their active citizenship and demonstration of belonging by choice to the German society. This paper aims to introduce an analysis of the transformation of citizenship in Germany and simultaneously explore its active practice by this new group of elites in the political party landscape. The author argues that the definition and practice of citizenship is not singularly located in one national scale, but also encompasses the public and individual practice building fluid boundaries at multiple sites. Political actors selected, locate themselves (or are perceived to be) between two spheres of belonging, but also represent solely the German constituency. The Janusfaced political representation performed by target groups provides invaluable insight into politics in immigrant countries together by reinterpretation of subjective understanding of citizenship. Key Words: Citizenship, elections, Germany, migrants, migration, parliament, political participation, Turkey-origin politicians, stigma. ***** 1.
Introduction Although citizenship is the most basic and fundamental starting point of a democratic polity, it has been more commonly studied within the field of political theory, where it has been a prosperous theme over the past decade, leading to valuable contributions and new perspectives.1 Yet the topic of citizenship may have more relevance today than ever before. Indeed, it stands at the crossroads of a major dilemma for advanced industrialized countries, regarding the survival and future of the nation-state in international politics. On the one hand, it is indisputable that economic globalization, regional integration, and cultural cosmopolitanism have either blurred or broken down some of the clear boundaries that had existed in the classic
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______________________________________________________________ model of singular national belonging and identification. Caglar describes that transnationalism represents ‘a new analytic optic which makes visible the increasing intensity and scope of circular owns of persons, goods, information and symbols triggered by international labour migration.’2 On the other hand, national boundaries are certainly not going to disappear altogether, particularly if the mass public has a say—as was the case in the French and Dutch popular rejections of the European Union (EU) Constitution—and especially in the post 9/11 world of increasing border checks, finger printing, and visa restrictions for non-citizens. Meanwhile, the empirical study of citizenship is a growing field, but most of it focuses either only on a single country or on a small number of comparative case studies,3 or it is concentrated in edited volumes.4 There are distinguished studies on changing understanding of citizenship in receiving countries and formulation of the notion in a post-national world.5 Yet what is missing- or at least embryonic for now- is an analysis of how these changes have influenced the integration of migrants and how political participation of naturalized 2nd and 3rd generation migrants (mainly Muslim) have affected decision making and policy formation in their parties on behalf of migrants. The following part aims to delineate the policy framework in which previously non-citizens have gained access to German citizenship in order to set the ground for the second part on political participation, while in the the focus will be narrowed downfocus to give some insights on empirical work gained from in-depth interviews with politicians of Turkish origin. 2.
Transformation of German Citizenship Regime By the year 2010 it is expected that in Germany‘s large cities 50 per cent of the population under age 40 will have an immigrant background, according to the statement in the opening speech of Integration Summit convened in the Chancellery Angela Merkel on July, 2006. The statement also recognizes that it is the government’s responsibility to help immigrants to learn German and become better informed about the country’s laws, culture, history, and political system. In turn, it demands migrants to demonstrate mutual efforts to integrate to their host society, such as attending integration courses and German courses provided by the state. Otherwise, as the previous Minister of the Interior warns in an interview published in a daily newspaper these migrants can be seen as ‘integration-enemies’, which in turn may have the repercussions leading even to abolishment of their residence right.6 These statements would not have attracted so much attention if the country would not have in formal terms insisted on being kein Einwanderungsland (not an immigration country) for nearly 50 years. Today, Germany has the third largest migrant population according to United Nation 2006 Report and nearly 3.3 millions Muslims make up about 3.5 per cent of Germany’s population. Turkish Muslims are by far the
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______________________________________________________________ largest group, followed by Italians and Serbians.7 This section outlines the political, legal, economic, and demographic arguments within the debate concerning citizenship and integration policies. Ironically, one of the incidents contributing to the process leading to a liberalization of citizenship law in Germany has been a court decision prohibiting local voting rights for migrants. In the late ‘80s two regional states in the north of Germany, Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein, decided to grant permanent resident migrants the right to participate in local elections. This decision was supported by SPD and the Greens while the opposition was based on the argument put forward by Friedrich Zimmerman8 that in German Constitution voting rights were given only to the Volk (people) and thus migrants could not be granted the right to vote. This position was based on a perception that saw the German nation ‘as an organic cultural community, a volksgemeinschaft.’9 In other words, it saw nationhood as ‘an ethno-cultural, not a political fact.’10 Until a decision was stated by the Court, the debate for voting rights in local elections widened to other states wherein the opposition defended their stance with the above-mentioned reason, they additionally questioned the loyalty of non-citizens. This line of argument claimed migrants could approve or oppose the policy in their host society but they were not supposed to decide on that by political participation, as they would leave the country anyway. In the end, the Constitution court, in 1990, decided with the opposition and stated that voting rights were only granted to the German Volk (people) and this was composed of Germans (including ethnic Germans). The court decision, however, did not exclude the right to vote for migrants at all and conditioned this implicitly with a change in citizenship law. From the early 1990s, following the debate on local voting rights, citizenship for third country nationals, among whom Turkey-origin residents represent the largest segment, has been widely discussed in the political agenda. In the light of this fact, the inspiration to incorporate long-term residents through citizenship gained momentum in early ‘90s. SPD and Union 90/Greens defended the idea that extending German citizenship to the third country nationals, especially for those born in Germany, would enhance integration, while the opposition led by CDU/CSU faction claimed that citizenship is and should remain the last step of integration into the society. 11 Despite this constellation in the political arena, some policy liberalizations were introduced within Ausländergesetz (Foreigner Law) in 1990, which entered into effect in 1991. Principally it encompassed only a simplified naturalization procedure for those with over 15 years residence or for younger non-nationals aged 16–23. However not radical, these minor changes did lead to a significant increase in naturalizations, and from 1993 onwards the naturalization rate for non-nationals has shown a remarkable increase. The changes in the 1990 amendments to the citizenship law have
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______________________________________________________________ provided a window of opportunity for long-term residents, yet it has not changed the citizenship principles, radically leaving out a number of problems. A significant shift towards a civic model of the nation and assimilationist policies had not occurred until the change of government to a coalition of Social Democrats and Greens in 1998. In 1999, amidst considerable controversy, the new SPD–Green government passed a fundamental revision of Germany’s citizenship law, which changed much of the above with effect from 2000, including the introduction of jus soli (citizenship acquisition based on place of birth) for the first time in German history to the citizenship law stemming from the third Reich in 1913. The new approach under the Schröder government (SPD) was widely characterized as a ‘paradigm shift.’12 The new legislation combined the principle of jus sanguinis with the principle of jus soli. It thus increased the possibility for immigrants to gain full citizenship in the sense of Marshall13 including civic, legal, and political rights. Altogether, immigrants were increasingly perceived as potential citizens, and the German nation as a civicterritorial community or a community of GNP contributors rather as a community of descent. According to Hansen: It was a definitive break with past practice and modes of thinking. Fitfully and incompletely, Germany is turning to integration, and a key component in integration is the acquisition of national citizenship.14 To sum up, the changes in nationality law implied a first significant shift from an ethno-cultural conception of the nation towards a civic conception of the nation as well as from differentialist towards assimilationist practices, ‘in the sense of politically recognizing, legally constituting, and symbolically emphasizing commonality rather than difference.’15 In the section below the concept of political participation within the extent of this paper will be discussed in order to provide a base for the last, empirical part of the paper. Political Participation and New Citizens Political participation is understood as the active dimension of citizenship. It refers to the various forms in which individuals take part in the management of the collective affairs of the given polity. There are formal and informal or less conventional types of political activity; such as protests, demonstrations, boycotts or lobbying via NGOs; whereas formal political participation covers voting and/or running for office in the elections. For the purpose of this paper, formal forms of political participation (PP) will be focused on; since at least within Germany these are the political activities in which citizenship is a prerequisite. Furthermore PP in the form of parliamentary representation prevails to other forms of political activity in its 3.
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______________________________________________________________ capacity to generate and pass policies at the ultimate stage from which other forms of organizations in the society have to obey. In contrast to other forms, formal PP takes place within preset boundaries of a political institution, i.e. a political party, and allows participation at the individual level such as voting. There is a burgeoning literature on studies about the involvement of diversity groups in electoral politics in the US and less in Europe. However contemporarily in continental Europe due to both the change in citizenship regimes and the demographics of migrant offspring a growing interest for electoral behaviour of migrant groups is observable. In these studies the main concern is to find out patterns of decision-making in elections for a party or a candidate among ethnic groups. The focus here is on the other side of the equation, on elected politicians with Turkey-origin. Another and more relevant aspect of PP here is the participation of migrant-origin citizens in parliamentary politics. The gradual introduction of jus soli in the nationality legislation and the growing importance of immigrant-origin constituencies resulted in an ascendancy of attention devoted to migrant origin politicians in the German political landscape. Hence running for elections in formal politics goes beyond choosing delegates in an election and activates citizenship. Here one can point to the fact that participation of immigrants in the political process of the host country is an important factor in their acquisition of the national identity of that country based on the argument put forward by Miller that one of the distinguishing aspects of national identity is that it is an active identity.16 Ethnic identities in contrast are of passive character as long as the ethnic group feels secure in a national state; whereas belonging to a national identity is foremost reflected in collective actions, i.e. making decisions, effectuate outputs etc. In these terms it is no coincidence that many of the respondents of this study are very outspoken and eager advocates of their German nationality and perceive their Turkey origin solely as a cultural enrichment, an asset.17 So, PP becomes a sort of legitimisation tool in the language of politicians under scrutiny to represent on behalf of German citizens. The above discussion reveals the polyvalent and multi-scalar nature of citizenship with a specific focus on the political realm. As it has been argued in the chapter by Chapple18 in this volume, there are a myriad of ways becoming a citizen, and national states face the big challenge to adapt themselves to the emerging reality that ‘citizenship can no longer merely be defined in terms of an individual’s relation with a nation state’.19 This fact aside, citizenship is not just a passive criterion of membership in a national community and rights and duties conferred by the nation-state. In the contrary it is actively constructed, practiced, and interpreted through the state and institutions of civil society and civic actions. Furthermore, citizenship is not always located at a single national scale, as much of the political science
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______________________________________________________________ literature on citizenship suggests, but is multi-scalar, involving numerous discourses and practices spread between different sites. As the following empirical part on politicians with migration backgrounds attempts to highlight, different interpretations of citizenship in a country where the understanding of citizenship has witnessed a noticeable transformation during the last one and a half decades like Germany, it is not yet a matter of course for non-native Germans to talk about their Germanness without reservations. In order to pursue how this group chooses to interpret their experiences this paper has chosen a sociological perspective examining the profile of migrant-origin politicians by asking to what extent their career path and self-perception differs from mainstream politicians. In the remainder of this paper the focus will be on utterances given by them to the issues of citizenship and their subjective positions on their posts. 4.
About the Field The quantity of politicians with migration backgrounds in German national parliament (Bundestag) has never reflected the absolute share of foreign residents in the country. Turkey-origin residents compose the largest share of the foreign population after ethnic Germans nowadays, yet this has never been reflected in the figures of neither regional parliaments (Länder Parliaments) nor the federal parliament (Bundestag). In 1989 Leyla Onur (SPD20) was the first, Turkey-origin member of European Parliament for Germany and in 1994 Leyla Onur and Cem Özdemir (Greens) were the first Turkey origin politicians in the 13th legislative period of national parliament joined by Ekin Deligöz (Greens) in the 14th period.21 Currently the electoral constituency of migrant origin Germans is about 5, 6 million; among this group of people 450.000 to 600.000 are from Turkey.22 Here qualitative data in the form of semi-structured elite interviews23 conducted as part of a broader project will be utilized. Interviewees were first determined based on their names and then through the scrutiny of their biographies, most of them are second generation offspring of Turkey-origin parents in their mid 30s or early 40s. Concomitant with their age, they all acquired German citizenship via application in early adolescent years and did not acquire it by birth. Taking their ages and acquisition of citizenship status into account statements why they naturalized and how they feel about their political role within the party and parliament signifies a lot on transformation of the notion of citizenship in Germany, and to put it tentatively even for a wider context. It seems important to reflect upon how they perceive identity signifiers as let’s say, ‘Turkish/Turkey origin politician of a given party’ in public discourse and concomitant to this what sort of intraparty functions they prefer. By exploring the narrative statements of respondents, the article suggests how they negotiate their own positioning, in interplay with the discursive codes available within particular spaces of
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______________________________________________________________ society. Regardless of their approval or dislike of certain categories, in their narrative statements they make frequent use of them.24 Due to this specific condition the informant group falls on the one hand to the category of new-citizens, and on the other hand represent people of Germany, or at least the constituency of their political party. That feature of the informant group scrutinized in this study makes them special. Additionally by introducing personal sense making of non-German background in politics contributes to the research on citizenship perceptions and also political participation to some degree, since such studies, for the time being, do not deal with the upper classes of the society. The Janus faced character of the given informant group, enables us to build an imaginative bridge between the themes dealt in this and the following chapters of this book, as it refers on the one hand to the enlargement of the notion of citizenship25 beyond the ethnic roots of a nation state and on the other to the subjective perception of this conceptual enlargement seen from the lenses of lived experience. So both the larger study of which this chapter is part, and also the chapter here chases the puzzle of what kind of meanings are given by politicians with migration backgrounds to their experiences in politics, in respect to the marker of being a person of migration background. Within the utilized data for the sake of this chapter it has been attempted to come up with common themes uttered frequently in similar or comparable ways by different interview partners on the same issue or experience. To do this a useful heuristic device has been the concept of stigma developed by Erving Goffman26, the following part will delve into the utilization and contribution of the concept. 5.
Is the Stigmatized always at the Margins? From the perspectives of both historical entries into the country and the contemporary community opinion, migrant origin population comprises a population and an electorate that are historically, socially, culturally, politically and ideologically distinct from both the majority white and each of the majority non-white populations. Thus it is not always possible to study them with theories informed by observing the experiences of black Americans, including the native born descendants of former black slaves or black immigrants from Africa or the West Indies (e.g. racism and racial segregation). Particularly the contemporary migrant community in Germany for instance is composed of either the descendants of guest workers or political refugees, which came to Germany semi-voluntarily. For the most part, their history of becoming German cannot be explained by forced entry as in the case of black slavery, land annexation or internal colonization as in France for example. Furthermore the notion of migration background is a catch-all concept which does not refer to a specific ethnic community and thus reflects a wide range of culturally diverse groups. Whereas raw data
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______________________________________________________________ gained through the interviews in this study imply that migration background is often related to the perception of Turkish community, probably due to the demographical prevalence or cultural otherness. In order to explain this perception of being different, the concept of stigma provided by Goffman27 offers a useful heuristic device for the analysis, for the concept provides different sources for being or feeling deviant, namely psychical, mental or ascribed attributes such as race, ethnicity or just being a new inhabitant in a well established neighbourhood.28 One of the curious features of the concept is that a plethora of definitions exists in the literature in the definition of the concept.29 Although, the main trend in the literature using stigma as an analytical unit does so for marginalized groups, such as disabled people, criminal youth groups or students with learning difficulties the subjective and fluid character of the term enables a suitable scene to use it for the group of people scrutinized here. Goffman himself conceives stigma as an ‘attribute that is deeply discrediting’, as a marker that the person internalizes and perceives as an art of being deviant, which triggers a feeling of unworthiness.30 Alternatively Stafford and Scott31 suggest that stigma ‘is a characteristic of persons that is contrary to a norm of a social unit’ while a norm is defined as a ‘shared belief that a person ought to behave in a certain way at a certain time’.32 That definition comes very close to what can be observed in the empirical data presented here, as the constellation of the target group is publicly seen as an exception to the rule. Aside from these, what makes the concept advantageous for the sake of this analysis is the fact that stigmatization does not need to be addressed to a person or a group, but is transmitted through discourses into the outside world where it influences the perceptions of individuals. For this reason are both self-perceptions of oneself and the external perceptions are not fixed, but alter in course. That is to say that even within the same conversation, notions of designed as a stigma can be transformed into an asset. To illustrate this with an example, many informants referred to their profession as politician with migration background to signify the possibilities of upward mobility of younger generations of migrant descent, sometimes they even represented themselves as role models to them; whereas among the group of politicians they work with their notion of diversity has been partly described as a deviance, or even an ‘exote’.33 6.
‘Guests Cannot Interfere’ In the second half of the 1950s to fill in the gap of the newly reconstructed labour market formal agreements to recruit Gastarbeiter (guest workers) were signed with Italy followed by Spain, Greece, Turkey, Portugal, Tunisia and Morocco, respectively. By the beginning of the 1970s, due to family unifications, the ethnic composition of the guest-worker population changed and Turks became the largest migrant community; which has
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______________________________________________________________ remained unchanged for now. The concept of Gastarbeiter was meant literally, since those people were expected to return to their homes, which was not Germany, after a given time. As guests they were supposed to work, produce, contribute to the economy and in return earn money, to use back home. Somehow ironically the concept remained in the language as the guest did. Despite many other notions in German to identify this group and their offspring, i.e. co-citizens (Mitbürger), people with migration-background/history, foreign residents etc., all of the respondents made use of the allegory of ‘not being a guest’ to explain why the Turkish community should participate in and be aware of German politics. As formulated by one them in an interview: when you are a guest somewhere, you have to wait until the host serves you. You don’t look around in the room, do not take one more piece of the cake, you can only obey to what the host decides for you . . . but if you are a friend or a relative, if you can feel at home than you do all of that. As guest you cannot interfere. You cannot get involved, unless you feel an attachment a belonging. These people [Turks] are settled here they have to see that they are not guests and have to participate.34 Here the use of ‘guest’, signifies a call for an acknowledgement of the fact that larger extent of the migrants are a part of the societal fabric. At the same time, the notion serves as symbol for the respondent’s own belonging to German society, in contrary to part of the migrant community addresses, he35 feels himself at home what explains his engagement in politics. ‘Enclaves and microcosms in the society’, as another interviewee named them, constructed a process of othering as them as opposed to us that is ‘very dangerous’ for the society and should be ceased by greater encouragement for political participation among migrant origin Germans.36 Concomitantly another interviewee stated that ‘new citizens’ should ‘not only interfere but also join (mitmachen/mitspielen)’.37 On the other hand, one can argue that such an approach implicitly states that political participation, and politics in general, is a realm for those belonging to a society. A striking example has been the case outlined by one of the MPs, who recalled that he was not able to vote for the election candidates of his party in a district meeting although he was a delegate, since at that time he hadn’t acquired German citizenship. Another fellow in the meeting, who came from a country within the EU but did not have German citizenship, was able to vote. This was the moment when he decided that being active in the party, being a part of the society was not enough. Shortly after that incident he applied for naturalization.
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I am a German but ‘My Name is not Peter or Petra’ The common-sense usage of ‘black head’38 (Schwarzkopf) to mark Mediterranean Migrants, in particular for Turks, in German vernacular has been frequently used in the narratives of my respondents to refer to how they think they are perceived at first sight during the elections, albeit grudgingly. When asked about how they feel, when they are signified as Turkish-origin in Turkish or German media the response is nearly the same. They all see it as a journalistic attitude to make the news story appear more ‘authentic’,39 as one put it; or an implicit negative connotation according to another. In that sense it is not important how they are termed, they ‘feel German’, ‘are German, born, grew up and socialized here [Germany] and thus belong to Germany’.40 The latter statement also underlines the strong belief in national identity based upon belonging and culture as opposed to an ethnic identity. A discussion of loyalty to Germany is totally unacceptable and nonnegotiable although one added that he cannot deny some sort of ‘emotional bondage to his relatives in Turkey’.41 The point where the issue gets more complicated is when they talk about the visible differences, i.e. their dark hair or ‘obvious non-German names’,42 and the perception of native German constituency about them. It does not play a role for their identity as they feel it. However this is what they cannot change, their ‘name is not Peter/Petra Maier’43 as a result and unless there are enough in politics with migration backgrounds, or to put it in one of the interviewees words ‘the things normalize’ they will remain the ‘black head’ in the party.44 This remark reminds us to the notion of Stigma by Goffman,45 where he states that the stigmatized person considers himself as ‘human-being as any other’, but somehow finds out that for others, i.e. ‘normals’, he is not seen as equal as they are. Goffman shows how a stigmatized person knows social ‘standards’ and is apparelled with the internal assurance what for others is wrong with them.46 8.
‘I’m not a Lobbyist’: On Preferences as Party Spokesperson Among the interviewed politicians there were two sorts of coping strategies with prejudices based upon their appearance as a signifier for their migration background. One of them is to conceive the experience of coming from a migrant family complemented by a relevant education to use it as an asset for the function within the party. Interviewees in this group act as spokesman for migration related themes in the party. According them it is logical to nominate them, as they have the language skills and expertise in that, but with the addition that they wished that their number in the parties increased so that it is ‘normal that they also act as spokesman for other realms’47 instead of being a ‘spot of colour’.48 Another group on the other hand is strongly opposed to act as a spokesman on migration, exactly because they have migration background.
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______________________________________________________________ They make an explicit statement that it is inappropriate if not wrong to choose people with migration background for this post; although this might be the ‘one and only post one can get for the time being as a less experienced politician with migration background’, the interviewee states that ‘migrants in the parties will be instrumentalised’ when they take these posts. 49 Furthermore the same interviewee continues it is ‘politically more efficient and also of great symbolic worth’ when parties are also brave enough to appoint ‘a tall blond German woman’ for this post to show their ‘sincerity in integration matters’.50 Interesting in this illustration is that the difference is based upon visual features, which also implies permanence of the difference in perceptions. Beyond this rejection of a post related to migrations, these statements also link in most of the interviewees to a hesitance being perceived as ‘a lobbyist for migrants and/or Turks’. Such an external perception is apparently an albatross around the politicians’ neck, and every decision they take is shadowed by the fear of being marked as the migrant in parliament. Thus they crave for political posts at the core of politics such as finance for instance. As they argue that only in this way they claim to be able to exist within the party. In respect to how they think they will be perceived it is a common ground that due to their names or appearance they still expect to be seen as deviant, which is also related to the scarcity of their number. As part of their self-perception they are ‘as German as any other in the parliament’51, since they ‘are born and socialized in this country’52; the fact that they have foreign parents or having no German names makes them not less German. Having said that one has to add that the coping strategy in respect to the functions within and with their visible differences, composes on the one hand as using this background as an asset while others try to neutralize it by distancing themselves from relevant topics in party politics. What is interesting though is the common concern of being seen as ‘lobbyists for Turks’ 53, ‘representatives of victims’54 or exotic in politics. 9.
Conclusion In this article it was aimed to provide a brief history of transformation in German citizenship within the last decade and its reflections in the political party landscape through the output gained in in-depth interviews with MPs with Turkish backgrounds. In doing this, the goal was to shed light on how they perceive their position as representatives of the German electoral constituency. Such a type of political participation within the context of the paper was selected based on the argument that participation in electoral politics is an explicit statement about attachment to a given society. Concomitant to this argument the interviews have shown that politicians indeed see this as a way to show that they belong to this society, and that not only for themselves but also an advice for migrant communities.
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______________________________________________________________ Another finding in relation to the changing nature of citizenship in Germany is the adoption of the jus soli principle that brings in a cultural aspect to citizenship as opposed to the ethnic/primordial premise embodied by the jus sanguinis principle that stresses a transfer of citizenship only through kinship. Empirical study reflects that among second-generation migrants interviewed German identity has been strongly identified with their place of birth – Germany - and their socialization in this society whereas their ethnic bounds are only a part that is enriching their Germanness. Their experiences are not interpreted only through the narratives of being from Turkey or their origins, of course, but through a variety of other discourses salient in different aspects of their party careers. Furthermore, the interview situations in which the accounts are elicited also provide an additional structuring context in which reinterpretations are made. The respondents’ articulations of their experiences can be seen, therefore, as complex, multifaceted and situational constructions. Institutions, such as the political parties and mandates in parliaments as outlined here, are not ‘empty’ or ‘value free’ spaces in which contestations over collectivity are played out, but are themselves important structuring sites, exerting a constitutive impact upon the identities produced. Interview partners in the project assign a multitude of meanings to the signifier ‘Migrant-origin’, even if they deny mobilizing consciously around politically and professionally. They are aware that this signifier plays, and will play, a continuous role in outsiders’ perceptions about them whereas they prefer to see that signifier just and solely as an enrichment of their assets, no more, no less. Notes 1
See S Benhabib, ‘Citizens, Residents, and Aliens in a Changing World: Political Membership in the Global Era’, Postnational Self, U Hedetoft & M Hjort (eds), University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 2002; W Kymlicka & W Norman (eds), Citizenship in Diverse Societies, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2000; and D Miller, Citizenship and National Identity, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2000. 2 $ dD÷ODU µ&RQVWUDLQLQJ 0HWDSKRUV DQG WKH 7UDQVQDWLRQDOL]DWLRQ RI 6SDFHV in Berlin’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Vol. 27 Issue 4, 2001, pp. 601-13. 3 See R Rubio-Marín, Immigration as a Democratic Challenge: Citizenship and Inclusion in Germany and the United States, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000.
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______________________________________________________________ 4
See R Hansen & P Weil, Towards a European Nationality: Citizenship, Immigration, and Nationality Law in the EU, Palgrave, Houndsmills and New York, 2001. 5 ' dÕQDU, ‘From Aliens to Citizens: A Comparative Analysis of Rules of Transition’, From Aliens to Citizens: Redefining the Status of Immigrants in Europe, R. Baubock (ed), Avebury, Aldershot, UK, 1994, pp. 49-72; and TA Aleinikoff, ‘Between Principles and Politics: U.S. Citizenship Policy’, From Migrants to Citizens: Membership in a Changing World, TA Aleinikoff and D Klusmeyer (eds), Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, DC, 2000, pp. 119-172. 6 Frankfurter Rundschau ‘Reform des Ausländer- und Einbürgerungsrechts bringt weitere Verschärfungen für Migranten’, accessed on 25 February 2008 7 See official website of Federal Ministry of Interior, Germany. , accessed on 01 October 2009. 8 Christlich Soziale Union, sister party of Christian Democrats in Bavaria. 9 A Geddes, The Politics of Migration and Immigration in Europe, Sage, London, 2003. 10 R Brubaker, Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1992, p.1. 11 Whereas less than a decade later the same government assumed that naturalisation promotes integration, see article by R Hansen, ‘Migration to Europe since 1945: Its History and its Lessons’, The Political Quarterly, 2003 vol.74 (1), pp. 25–38. 12 A Böcker & D. Thränhardt ‘Multiple Citizenship and Naturalization: An Evaluation of German and Dutch Policies’, Journal of International Migration and Integration, 2006 vol.7:1, 71-94; and R Süssmuth, Migration and Integration: Testfall für unsere Gesellschaft, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag (dtv), München, 2006. 13 T Marshall, Class, Citizenship and Social Development, Anchor, Garden City, NY, 1965. 14 Hansen., op. cit., p.36. 15 Brubaker, op. cit., p. 539. 16 D Miller, On Nationality, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1995. 17 Empirical evidences provided in this text rely on my ongoing PhD project on ‘Political Recruitment and Career Paths of Migrant Origin MPs in Germany’ (working title). 18 J Chapple, ‘The Potential and Possibility of a Pluralistic Japan’, available at: . Accessed May 1, 2010. 19 Ibid., p.105
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______________________________________________________________ 20
Social Democratic Party The author hereby wants to correct the common mistake in academic field that Özdemir has been the first MP with Turkey origin in 1994. For some inexplicable reasons both journalistic and academic (that apparently rely on journalistic accounts) oversee the fact that another Turkey origin person, a woman i.e. Leyla Onur was member of the same parliament. 22 The newly elected 17th federal parliament houses now 20 MPs with migration background and five of them are of Turkey-origin. In 16 federal states of Germany only seven (7) have members with migration background with a total of 29; 21 of them are of Turkey-origin. 23 For the time being five guided (elite) interviews, each about two hours long is done. Upon interview partner’s choice, only one was conducted in Turkish; other interviews were in German; thus all quotes used in this paper are my own translations. 24 Taking into account the low number of interviews and incompleteness of the larger project of which this paper is part of the author appreciates reader to treat the analysis with due care. 25 See chapters by J Chapple, W le Roux & H Dos Santos Martins in this volume 26 E Goffman,. Stigma.Über Techniken der Bewältigung beschädigter Identität, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt, [1963] (1967). 27 Ibid. 28 D Sokratis, et. al, ‘Stigma: The Feelings and Experiences of 46 People with Mental Illness: Qualitative Study’, The British Journal of Psychiatry, Vol. Feb 2004, Issue 184, p. 176 – 181. 29 M Stafford, RR Scott, ‘Stigma Deviance and Social Control: Some Conceptual Issues’, The Dilemma of Difference, SC Ainlay, G Becker, LM Coleman (eds), Plenum, New York, 1986. 30 E.Goffman, 1963, op. cit., p.3. 31 M. Stafford, RR Scott, op. cit., p.80. 32 M. Stafford, RR Scott, op. cit., p.81. 33 Interview 5 34 Interview 3 35 For the purpose of clarity the author uses ‘he’ as a personal pronoun for all respondents. It does correspond to the correct gender. 36 Interview 4 37 Interview 3 38 Interview 3, 4 39 Interview 1, 2, 3 40 Utterance compiled from various interviews. 41 Interview 4 21
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______________________________________________________________ 42
ibid. These are typical German names that interviewees choose to refer to German politicians without migration background 44 Interview 5 45 E Goffman, Stigma.Über Techniken der Bewältigung beschädigter Identität, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt, [1963] (1967). 46 ibid., p.16 47 Interview 1 48 Interview 4 49 Interview 1 50 Ibid. 51 Various Interviews (1,4,5) 52 Interview 3 53 Interview 1 54 ibid. 43
Bibliography Aleinikoff T.A., ‘Between Principles and Politics: U.S. Citizenship Policy’. From Migrants to Citizens: Membership in a Changing World. Aleinikoff, T.A. & Klusmeyer, D. (eds), Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, DC, 2002. Benhabib, S., ‘Citizens, Residents, and Aliens in a Changing World: Political Membership in the Global Era’. Postnational Self. Hedetoft, U. & Hjort, M. (eds), University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 2002. Böcker, A. & Thränhardt, D., ‘Multiple Citizenship and Naturalization: An Evaluation of German and Dutch Policies’. Journal of International Migration and Integration. Vol. 7, No. 1, 2006, pp. 71-94. Brubaker, R., Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 2001. &D÷ODU $ µ&RQVWUDLQLQJ 0HWDSKRUVDQGWKH7UDQVQDWLRQDOL]DWLRQ RI 6SDFHV in Berlin’. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. 27(4), 2001, pp. 601-13. Chapple, J., ‘The Potential and Possibility of a Pluralistic Japan’. Available at: . Accessed May 1, 2010.
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______________________________________________________________ Cinar, D., ‘From Aliens to Citizens: A Comparative Analysis of Rules of Transition’. From Aliens to Citizens: Redefining the Status of Immigrants in Europe, Baubock, R. (ed), Avebury, Aldershot, UK, 1994. Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, International Migration 2006. United Nations Publication, United Nations, No. E.06.XIII.6, March 2006. Federal Ministry of Interior, Germany. , accessed on 01 October 2009. Frankfurter Rundschau, ‘Reform des Ausländer- und Einbürgerungsrechts bringt weitere Verschärfungen für Migranten’. Accessed on 25 February 2008. Goffman, E., Stigma.Über Techniken der Bewältigung beschädigter Identität, Suhrkamp. Frankfurt, [1963] (1967). Hansen, R. & Weil, P., Towards a European Nationality: Citizenship, Immigration, and Nationality Law in the EU, Palgrave, Houndsmills and New York, 2001. Hansen, R., ‘Migration to Europe since 1945: Its History and its Lessons’. The Political Quarterly. Vol.74 (1), 2003, pp. 25–38. Kymlicka, W. & Norman, W. (eds), Citizenship in Diverse Societies. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2000. Marshall, T., Class, Citizenship and Social Development. Anchor, Garden City, NY, 1965. Miller, D., Citizenship and National Identity. Polity Press, Cambridge, 2000. _______
, On Nationality, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1995.
Rubio-Marín, R., Immigration as a Democratic Challenge: Citizenship and Inclusion in Germany and the United States. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000.
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______________________________________________________________ Sokratis, D., et. al., ‘Stigma: The Feelings and Experiences of 46 People with Mental Illness: Qualitative Study’. The British Journal of Psychiatry. Vol. 184, Feb. 2004, pp. 176 – 181. Stafford M. & Scott, R.R., ‘Stigma Deviance and Social Control: Some Conceptual Issues’. The Dilemma of Difference, Ainlay, S.C., Becker, G. & Coleman, L.M. (eds), Plenum, New York, 1986. Devrimsel Deniz Nergiz is doctoral fellow at Bielefeld Graduate School in History and Sociology. She obtained her M.A. in International Relations from Koc University,in 2007 and holds a double B.A. degree in International Relations and Media and Communication Systems from Bilgi Univeristy. Her main research interests are migrant communities and political representation.
PART 3
Enacting Citizenship
Economic Migration, Disaggregated Citizenship and the Right to Vote in Post-Apartheid South Africa Wessel le Roux Abstract This chapter seeks to explore the impact of migration within the region of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) on post-apartheid conceptions of citizenship. In particular, it argues for the extension of voting rights to economic migrants as a critical moment in the further disaggregation of citizenship rights (Benhabib), a process that already characterises the postapartheid human rights discourse. Three important recent developments in southern Africa inform the discussion. Firstly, a Protocol on the Facilitation of Movement of Persons was adopted by SADC on 16 August 2005. The Protocol recognises and facilitates a right to migrate freely throughout the SADC region. However, it is completely silent about the political rights of such migrants as citizens in both their home and host countries. Secondly, on 11 May 2008 a wave of xenophobic violence broke out in South Africa. The violence eventually claimed more than 60 lives. The widespread xenophobia constitutes both a populist defiance of the SADC protocol and a breakdown of participatory democracy at local government level. Thirdly, in the run-up to the national elections of 12 April 2009, the South African Constitutional Court was asked to rule on the constitutionality of various residence based voter qualifications. The Court relied on the ideal of global citizenship to declare some of these qualifications unconstitutional. This chapter questions the seemingly progressive and migration facilitating reasoning of the judgments. It suggests that the political integration of migrants within the SADC should rest on a post-national model of denizenship, such as the urban street politics recently described by Benhabib, which would allow for the voting rights of non-citizen immigrants in South Africa and the SADC. Key Words: Citizenship, denizenship, economic migration, South Africa, voting rights. ***** 1.
Introduction: The Disaggregation of Citizenship After more than a decade of protracted debate, the Protocol on the Facilitation of Movement of Persons was finally adopted by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) on 18 August 2005. 1 The Protocol affords citizens of member states the right to migrate freely through the SADC region and to establish themselves economically in any of the
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______________________________________________________________ SADC member states. Member states must not only respect this freedom, but also have a positive duty to facilitate the immigration and economic establishment of foreign nationals. Exactly how far this duty stretches and what it includes beyond the economic integration of migrants is not immediately clear from the Protocol. The Protocol does not incorporate the idea of community citizenship. It simply adds the Protocol right to migrate onto the traditional framework of nation-state citizenship, without clarifying how controversial questions about the political status of migrants should be approached.2 The failure of the SADC Protocol to anticipate and regulate the potentially explosive tension between regional migration and national citizenship is a cause for concern, as the wave of xenophobic violence that broke out in South Africa on 11 May 2008 sadly illustrates. During two long weeks, populist violence against economic migrants from SADC countries escalated to such an extent that the military had to be deployed in 65 different residential areas to curb the civil unrest. By the time it was eventually brought under control, the violence had left more than 60 people dead, 670 injured and 100 000 displaced. According to one authoritative study of the events, the outbreak of the violence can directly be attributed to a breakdown of democratic governance, the rule of law and participatory political structures at local government level.3 This finding suggests that the SADC can no longer overlook the immense challenge of securing effective channels of immigrant political participation in the democratic processes of the state. The political mobilisation and integration of migrant communities is of course a complex issue, one that can take many different forms, as the comparative study of immigrant politics in Italy and Portugal by Sonia Pires in this volume shows.4 While Pires suggests a broad framework for the study of immigrant politics across a wide range of actors, modes of action, and political claims, I wish to focus in this chapter more narrowly on the formal recognition of non-citizen voting rights as one means of securing greater political participation by migrant communities. Although this avenue of political participation adopts the institutional framework of the democratic state as its starting point, it need not therefore be associated with the dominant discourse of integration as assimilation that is theoretically linked to the liberal nation-state. It is important to clarify this point before proceeding with the rest of the argument. From the perspective of the nation-state, the liminal figure of the economic migrant constitutes a temporary exception that must, at one point or another, be restored to a position of normality. Normality in this context means the restoration of the full range of rights accompanying liberal nationstate citizenship. Migrants can fully restore their positions as right bearers, either by voluntarily returning to their home states, or by becoming fully
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______________________________________________________________ assimilated and integrated into their host states. Local integration is a triangular concept with economic, socio-cultural and politico-legal dimensions. The test for successful politico-legal integration is whether economic migrants have acquired permanent residence status and, ultimately, through naturalisation, full citizenship and voting rights in their host countries. Because this is a gradual process that usually unfolds over a period of years, the demand for naturalisation by immigrants has resulted in what Seyla Benhabib calls the disaggregation of citizenship.5 Benhabib uses this phrase to describe the process whereby the cluster of rights that was traditionally reserved for nation-state citizens is gradually broken apart and then distributed to non-citizen residents as well. The South African Bill of Rights fully reflects the internal dynamics of this process. It draws a fundamental distinction between rights that apply to ‘every person’ and rights that apply only to ‘citizens’. As could have been expected, this distinction has given rise to a number of important Constitutional Court cases. In LarbiOdam v MEC for Education (North West Province) the Court declared unconstitutional a regulation that limited permanent teaching posts at South African schools to citizens only.6 In Khosa v Minister of Social Development the Court held that the constitutional right to social security also applied to citizens of Mozambique who have permanent resident status in South Africa.7 In both cases the Court restricted the application of the rights in question to permanent residents (to the exclusion of all other categories of residents). Progressive as these judgments might seem to be, they remain premised on the assumption that permanent residence is a temporary shelter on the road to full citizenship and therefore deserving of special protection. Is it possible to also embrace the disaggregation of citizenship as a critique of this traditional assumption about the naturalisation process? Benhabib believes that it is. She claims that the disaggregation of citizenship reveals its real critical potential precisely when it is extended beyond the civil, social and economic rights of migrants to include the political rights of citizens as well. 8 Against the dominant model of migrant integration, the demand for voting rights by non-citizens disrupts traditional models of nation-state citizenship and opens the door to a post-nationalist theory of citizenship. In Benhabib’s more recent work, this insight is further developed into a post-national theory of denizenship which she associates with the inner city and urban politics, or what I would like to call street democracy. 9 In this regard Benhabib adds her name to those of thinkers like Hannah Arendt and Georgio Agamben, who present us with a reinterpretation of the liminality of the migrant, not as a temporal abnormality, but as a type of statelessness that forms the precondition for the post-nationalist (and post-national) political survival of humankind in the 21st century.10 The key question that I address in the rest of this chapter is whether there is room under the SADC Protocol and the disaggregation jurisprudence
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______________________________________________________________ of the South African Constitutional Court for the recognition of non-citizen voting rights as embedded within a critical, post-nationalist conception of disaggregated citizenship. While the SADC Protocol does not address the relationship between state facilitated migration and citizenship, the South African Constitutional Court was recently asked to rule on the constitutionality of residence based voter qualifications in the South African Electoral Act.11 The Court declared unconstitutional one of the attempts to link the allocation of voting rights to residence and deferred the larger question to the lower courts for further deliberation. The reluctance of the Court to entertain a qualified conception of citizenship grounded in residence is bound to have a chilling effect on the case for non-citizen voting rights in South Africa and, beyond that, on recent attempts to develop the disaggregation of citizenship into a theory of denizenship. For these reasons the judgments deserve closer scrutiny. 2. The Richter Judgment and the Case for Expatriate Voting Rights in South Africa Any suggestion that a qualitative distinction can be drawn between resident citizenship and non-resident citizenship for the purpose of the allocation of voting rights, must from the outset deal with the fact that the South African Constitution does not itself distinguish between resident and non-resident citizens. In fact, it seems to be undermining this very distinction. The Constitution states clearly that all citizens are ‘equally entitled to the rights, privileges and benefits of citizenship.’ 12 This includes ‘the right to vote in elections for any legislative body established in terms of the Constitution.’ 13 Given the long struggle against apartheid, the force of the constitutional attempt to formally link the right to vote to citizenship cannot be underestimated. Albie Sachs J underlined this point in the August judgment of the Constitutional Court (a case dealing with the voting rights of prisoners): The universality of the franchise is important not only for nationhood and democracy. The vote of each and every citizen is a badge of dignity and of personhood. Quite literally, it says that everybody counts. In a country of great disparities of wealth and power it declares that whoever we are, whether rich or poor, exalted or disgraced, we all belong to the same democratic South African nation; that our destinies are intertwined in a single interactive polity.14 The South African Electoral Act 73 of 1998 exchanges this abstract constitutional rhetoric for the operational realities of a democratic electoral system. To ensure free and fair elections, it requires that citizens first register
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______________________________________________________________ themselves as voters on a common voters roll.15 Because the same voters roll is used in local, provincial and national elections, citizens are in addition only allowed to register themselves where they are ordinarily resident. The combination of citizenship and residence has a significant impact on the universality of the franchise. It means that citizens who have emigrated cannot register for, nor vote in, general elections (they are citizens, but are not ordinarily resident in the Republic). Note at this point that the same applies in reverse to non-citizen immigrants who have obtained permanent resident status (they are ordinarily resident in the Republic, but are not citizens). Since the promulgation of the Electoral Act in 1998, the number of non-citizens living in the country has increased dramatically. The same applies to the number of citizens living outside the country. The shift in demographics as a result of large scale migration has brought the exclusionary effects of the Electoral Act into sharper focus. The criticism against the residence based electoral system finally came to a head when the Freedom Front Plus (FFP), a conservative Afrikaner-based political party decided, shortly before the April 2009 general elections, to launch a constitutional challenge against the Electoral Act.16 For strategic reasons the attack was not directed at the residence based voter qualification as such, but rather at the fact that another provision in the Act restricted absentee voting rights to registered voters who were temporarily outside the country for purposes of a business trip, a sports event, further studies or a holiday. The section thus excluded registered citizens who temporarily lived and worked outside the country.17 Willem Richter, a member of the FFP, was one such citizen. Having grown up in Pretoria, where he voted in previous national elections, he voluntarily served in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as part of a South African peace-keeping force before he moved to England where he lived temporarily and worked on contract as a teacher. Mr Richter applied in the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria for an order declaring that he had the constitutional right to a special absentee vote in the upcoming South African general elections. It is important to note that his claim rested on an argument about equality. Mr Richter pointed out that another provision in the Electoral Act granted an unqualified special vote to people who worked outside the country in the public sector (diplomats and the like). In terms of this latter section, it was irrelevant whether a voter in government service was permanently living and working outside the country or not. Mr Richter claimed that the same should apply on an equal footing to voters, like him, who worked outside the country in the private sector. The Court ruled in Mr Richter’s favour that the differentiation in the Electoral Act between the public and private sectors amounted to unfair discrimination.18 The Court also held that there was no reasonable justification for the discrimination.19 In the process the Court all but accepted the argument by
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______________________________________________________________ the expatriate voting rights lobby that the disenfranchisement of expatriate citizens could only be explained as part of a vindictive policy of retaliation by the ANC government, against an unpopular and so-called unpatriotic (white) emigrant minority. 20 On the basis that the ANC government was misusing electoral law as a means of migration control, the Court asserted the constitutional right of all registered voters to apply for a special absentee vote in national and provincial elections.21 In spite of the blanket recognition of absentee voting rights, the High Court judgment adds very little to the theoretical depth of the argument for expatriate voting rights in South Africa and elsewhere. The weakness and speculative nature of its reasoning is obvious. It is therefore not surprising that the Constitutional Court adopted a completely different approach to the matter when the case served before it for confirmation a few weeks later.22 By this time, a number of opposition parties had caught on to the idea that a successful campaign in the courts for expatriate voting rights might score some easy political points. Buoyed by the initial success of the FFP in the High Court, these parties decided to up the stakes even further and applied directly to the Constitutional Court in an attempt to have all residence based requirements for voter registration declared unconstitutional.23 In response to this highly politicised agenda, the Minister of Home Affairs and the Electoral Commission both urged the Constitutional Court not to rule on the constitutionality of the residence requirement on an urgent basis and as a court of first instance.24 The Constitutional Court agreed. In the AParty judgment it denied the opposition parties direct access on the issue and ordered the parties to first pursue the matter in the High Court.25As the matter stands, permanent or ordinary residence remains a condition for voter registration in South Africa. Returning to the narrower issue of the Richter case, the Constitutional Court agreed with the High Court that the right of already registered voters to cast absentee votes cannot be limited to citizens who are, but for their temporary absence, ordinarily or permanently resident in the country. As indicated above, the Constitutional Court did so without relying on the doubtful equality argument of the High Court.26 It is difficult to say on what alternative grounds the Constitutional Court based its agreement with the order of the High Court. To say the least, the fact that the Court refused in the AParty case to declare the general residence based voter qualification unconstitutional, makes its constitutional rejection of the specific residence based qualification in the case of absentee votes in the Richter case somewhat puzzling. The easiest way to makes sense of the judgment is to approach the right to vote as a formal instance of voter registration. If the Richter case is read in this way, it means that the judgment has little to say about the merits of the constitutional case for expatriate voting rights. The effect of the
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______________________________________________________________ judgment might well be that some expatriate citizens who could not vote before can now cast special absentee votes, but the reason they can do so is purely because they had registered as voters before they emigrated and their names still appear on the voters roll. The problem with this reading of the judgment is that voter registration is not a once-off event in South African law. The Electoral Act places a legislative duty on the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) to ensure the integrity of the voters roll. The CEO must do so by constantly reregistering and deregistering voters as their places of ordinary residence change. Registered voters have a statutory duty to inform the CEO of this fact. 27 When a registered voter decides to emigrate, the CEO must be given notice of the fact that the voters will no longer be ordinarily resident in South Africa. Because the voter will no longer comply with the registration requirements of the Electoral Act, she cannot be reregistered elsewhere. The Chief Electoral Officer will have no choice but to deregister her and to remove her name from the voters roll all together. 28 An expatriate citizen would therefore lose her eligibility to vote at the very same moment that she permanently leaves the country. Whether this should be taken to happen when that person actually departs from the country, or should be deemed in law to have happened after five years of continued absence from the country (as is the case in Canada) need not be debated here. The point is simply that an emigrant, who failed to comply with the statutory duty to deregister as a voter, cannot later claim the right to vote on the basis of her registration as a voter. The case for expatriate voting rights cannot rest on voter registration alone. It must be grounded on something in the nature of the democratic citizenship protected by the South African Constitution. Some members of the expatriate voting rights lobby have therefore suggested that the real gist of the Court’s judgment in the Richter case lies in its appreciation of the changing nature of democratic citizenship in the era of globalisation. James Myburg argues that the following passage from the judgment of Kate O’Regan J recognises non-resident or expatriate voting rights as a necessary incidence of 21st century global citizenship:29 I am influenced by the fact that, as several of the parties noted, we now live in a global economy which provides opportunities to South African citizens and citizens from other countries to study and work in countries other than their own. The experience that they gain will enrich our society when they return, and will no doubt enrich, too, a sense of a shared global citizenship. The evidence before us, too, shows that many South African citizens abroad make remittances to family members in South Africa while they are abroad, or save money to buy a house. To the
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______________________________________________________________ extent that citizens engaged in such pursuits want to take the trouble to participate in elections while abroad, it is an expression both of their continued commitment to our country and their civic-mindedness from which our democracy will benefit.30 As I read this passage, Myburg is guilty of a deliberate misinterpretation of the point O’Regan J was trying to make. The obvious thing to stress is that the passage was written with citizens in mind who are only temporarily living and working overseas, gaining experience or saving money before they return to South Africa. Myburg nevertheless claims that the image of the global but civic-minded citizen that is celebrated here also applies to expatriate citizens, who have no fixed intention to ever return to the country. He suggests that it is only when the passage is read with expatriate citizens in mind, that the contrast between the ‘generosity’ of the Court and the ‘mean spiritedness’ of the ANC controlled legislature becomes clear. While the legislature seeks to punish expatriates for deserting their country by disenfranchising them, the Constitutional Court seeks to reward their continued commitment to the country. Ian Macdonald, another prominent member of the expatriate voting rights lobby, suggests a similar reading of the same passage. 31 Macdonald argues that O’Regan J’s aim with the passage was to undo the stigma that often accompanies the official response to emigration in South Africa.32 According to him, O’Regan J tried to make clear that citizens who lived and worked outside the country could not simply be dismissed as deserters. For someone like Macdonald, who believes that expatriate citizens have been forced into exile by violent crime and misplaced affirmative action policies, this is an important concession by the Court. By rejecting the constitutional relevance of permanent residence for the purposes of absentee voting rights, he claims, the Court accepted that the disenfranchisement of these patriotic exiles would risk alienating them further, causing them to lose interest in their native land and to be lost to the nation forever. Whether one ultimately agrees with these sentiments or not, this appeal to the realities of global citizenship in an age of migration is probably the closest one can get to a half plausible explanation of the Richter judgment. And that is precisely where the problem lies. If the recognition of expatriate voting rights is indeed grounded in a desert based celebration of diasporic nationalism and patriotism, as Myburg and Macdonald claim, then the first attempt by the South African Constitutional Court to conceptualise the relationship between migration, citizenship and voting rights must be regarded as a shaky start. The Court combines a formal conception of citizenship with a diasporic patriotism to present us with another version of what is often described in constitutional theory as liberal nationalism. Liberal
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______________________________________________________________ nationalists, like O’Regan J, tend to see politics as part of the life of a nation. People who are no longer living together under the same laws but who continue to share the same national identity, the members of a diasporic nation that is, can thus rightfully claim the right to participate in the political and law-making processes of the nation. The link between the citizen and the political process is established by a cultural identity and symbolic identifications that can easily take place across state boundaries. The theory of liberal nationalism is frequently contrasted with the theory of constitutional patriotism. 33 Constitutional patriots concede only a pragmatic significance to nationality. The link between the citizen and the political process is established through the law and the constitutional limits that would ensure the democratic legitimacy (some constitutional patriots would claim rationality) of the law. The constitutional identity of the political community (as opposed to whatever cultural identity it might have) is thus inextricably bound to the jurisdictional limits to the law created by state boundaries. The diasporic patriotism presented by O’Regan and the expatriate voting rights lobby as the essence of global citizenship can fruitfully be contrasted with the constitutional patriotism defended by Jürgen Habermas as the essence of democratic citizenship. 34 Habermas partly developed the theory of constitutional patriotism as a defence of a liberal immigration policy for post Berlin Wall Germany and Europe. My focus in the next section will likewise shift to the case for the recognition of noncitizen or immigrant voting rights in post-apartheid South Africa and the SADC. 3. The Richter Judgment and the Case for Non-Citizen Voting Rights in South Africa From a Habermasian perspective, whether Myburg and Macdonald fairly represent the point that O’Regan J was trying to make or not, their celebration of diasporic nationalism completely misses an important point about democratic citizenship. The right to remain engaged in the political processes of a state and to have a say in the making of its laws cannot be acquired as a reward for continued national patriotism or entrepreneurial success, it can, democratically speaking, only originate as a precondition of being subject to the jurisdiction of that state, its courts and its constitution. A fundamental virtue of democratic citizenship is precisely that it places limits on the way in which economic power, mobility or agency translate into political power. As Ruth Rubio-Marín argues, we should therefore be wary not to express the economic activities of expatriates as a form of citizenship and then use that concept as the basis for the allocation of political rights.35 The link that O’Regan J seems to establish between economic productivity on the international stage and good citizenship, threatens to completely reduce political action to neo-liberal market interaction. It thus all but totally
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______________________________________________________________ instrumentalises the right to vote, at the cost of a wide range of more deliberative or republican understandings of political participation and action.36 A comparison between the South African and Mexican attempts to embrace migration as a strategy of development might be instructive in this regard. Kim Barry claims that the Mexican case indeed provides a paradigmatic example of the fact that the extra-territorial relationship between nation states and their emigrant communities are being reconstructed under the pressure of globalisation (as the Richter case shows, the same can now also be said about South Africa). 37 States are increasingly willing to tolerate and even encourage migrant identities with multiple allegiances and loyalties. Gone is the romantic association of nationality with an exclusive patriotism to the state and nation. In line with the global trend towards the recognition of dual citizenship, Mexicans who have naturalised abroad are now allowed to retain or to restore their Mexican citizenship or nationality.38 Mexico’s new self-conception as an emigration state thus includes a celebration of the fact that the Mexican nation extends beyond the territory of the Mexican state and its jurisdiction. On the basis of this diasporic selfconception, greater economic and cultural ties are actively pursued between emigrant communities and Mexico as the homeland of the nation (again, the same can be said of the Richter judgment). However, the point that Barry seeks to underscore is the following: although the economic and cultural engagement of emigrant communities are increasingly welcomed, their ‘direct participation in the national political community generally is not.’ 39 Even in a country where the popular and official view of expatriates has markedly shifted from traitors to heroes, that reorientation has not immediately translated into the recognition of expatriate voting rights. The opposite might even have been the case. The reorientation has resulted in a far clearer distinction between the legal or international law ties that a person might have with a state, the economic and cultural ties that she might have with a nation, and the constitutional ties she might have with a political community. To accommodate these distinctions, Barry suggests that we distinguish in future debates more clearly than is generally the case between nationality (or formal, legal membership of a state) and citizenship (or active, participatory membership of a polity).40 The experience of Barry with migration in Mexico suggests that we need a more robust theory of democratic citizenship, stripped as far as is possible from its cultural, economic, and international law preconditions. The challenge to develop such a post-nationalist conception of citizenship has been taken up by a number of recent constitutional scholars, including Claudia Lópes-Guerra. 41 Lópes-Guerra points out that the argument for voting rights, based on the ongoing economic contribution of the expatriate community to their country of nationality, is but one of several desert based
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______________________________________________________________ arguments for the right to vote. She rejects the idea that citizens can acquire voting rights on any desert based consideration. Democracy requires that everyone who is directly subject to the territorial jurisdiction of the law should have a say in the making of that law. The crucial question is thus not whether expatriate citizens remain patriotic or economically productive South Africans, as O’Regan J has been read to suggest, but how expatriate citizens, who are no longer directly subject to or affected by the law of South Africa, can rightfully claim a democratic right to have a say in the making of that law? The difference between the diasporic nationalism celebrated by O’Regan J and the constitutional patriotism defended by Rubio-Marín and Lópes-Guerra is sharply drawn. Jürgen Habermas argued during the early 1990s that the task of the next generation of critical theorists was to employ a discourse theory of societal rationalisation in order to free democratic republicanism (political citizenship) from the domination of administrative state power and the mythology of the nation. In contrast to the instrumentalist and ethical understandings of citizenship, Habermas favoured a discourse theoretical understanding in which the political community of democratic citizens was constituted by a network of egalitarian relations of mutual recognition that are called into being by the discursive medium of law itself. This revision of critical theory opened the door for the assimilation of immigrants as political citizens, without the added pressure of cultural assimilation. Habermas was thus disappointed when the German Constitutional Court rejected this ideal of political integration and declared a proposal for non-citizen voting rights in Germany unconstitutional. Even so, Habermas believed that the Court managed to correctly formulate the core of the constitutional principle involved in the case: the idea of democracy, and especially the idea of liberty contained in it, implies that a congruence should be established between the possessors of democratic political rights and those who are permanently subject to a specific government. This is the proper starting point.42 The liberal expatriate lobby presents us with a theory of the law, democratic politics and voting rights in which this insight is almost completely forgotten. The basic idea underlying expatriate voting rights is that certain citizens can insulate and remove themselves from the jurisdiction of the law, without affecting their relationship with the rest of the political community who are living under the law. The right of expatriates to vote therefore in reality means the right to impose obligations on resident South Africans without having to assume those very same obligations. Whether or not this right is implied by collective membership in a nation, it is not implied
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______________________________________________________________ by collective membership in a democratic community in which democratic accountability among citizens is the defining feature. There might be good reasons in international law why South Africans may not be stripped of their formal citizenship or nationality once they have permanently taken up residence in another country. However, there is no good reason in democratic theory why such non-resident citizens may not be stripped of their right to vote. Many democracies (like Canada) allow non-resident citizens to retain the right to vote for a predefined period of time only, after which expatriate citizens are automatically stripped of the right to vote. Again it is useful, as Barry has suggested, to more carefully distinguish in this regard between nationality and citizenship, as the two concepts relate respectively to membership in a state for the purposes of international law and membership in a bounded democratic political community for the purposes of election law. Membership in the latter (citizenship in the narrow sense of the term) should be determined with reference to the value of democratic accountability: those who are directly subject to the jurisdiction and violence of law should have a say in the making and administration of the law; those who are not, like expatriate citizens who permanently live and work outside the jurisdiction of the state, should not. The relationship between voting rights and the value of democratic accountability implied in the territorial application of the law, suggests a close relationship between voting rights and residence. Seyla Benhabib has recently identified the rise of new forms of postnational street based citizenship (or denizenship) as a significant reaction to the twilight of nation state sovereignty. 43 Postnational citizenship refers to the rise of political activism on the part of non-nationals and post-nationals living together in multi-cultural and ethnic inner-city neighbourhoods, who come together around issues like women’s rights, secondary language education, environmental concerns, representation on school boards and migrant employment.44 Benhabib’s point is that postnational (or rather sub-national) urban citizenship transcends the old distinction between national citizens and non-citizens, and relocates democratic citizenship in local residence and active everyday life on the streets of the world’s great migration cities: Today we are caught not only in the reconfiguration of sovereignty but also in the reconstitution of citizenship. We are moving away from citizenship understood as national membership increasingly towards a citizenship of residence which strengthens the multiple ties to locality, to the region and to transnational institutions. [...] This new modality decouples citizenship from national belonging and being rooted in a particular cultural community.45
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______________________________________________________________ If the Richter case indeed implies that non-resident citizens acquire (and retain) the right to vote as a formal incidence of their abstract citizenship or nationality alone, then it has pointed the ongoing debate about the future of democratic citizenship in South Africa and the SADC in the wrong direction. Democratic political participation requires a decoupling of voting rights (or active republican citizenship in the narrow sense) from nationality (or formal liberal citizenship in the broad sense). The value of democratic accountability requires, as a starting point, that democratic citizenship be tied to the locality of ordinary residence. It requires, as Agamben argues, that citizens of nations increasingly turn themselves into denizens of cities.46 .
Conclusion A fuller defence of a post-apartheid theory of denizenship along the lines suggested above cannot be developed here. It must suffice for now to conclude that the recent voting rights cases of the South African Constitutional Court do not impose insurmountable difficulties to such a theoretical defence. While the Richter case rejects any distinction between resident and non-resident citizens for the purpose of absentee voting rights, the judgment ultimately fails to provide any convincing constitutional justification for this rejection. As the matter stands, the South African Electoral Act continues to impose residence as a precondition for the democratic political participation of citizens. Once the distinction between resident and non-resident citizens is understood as constitutionally mandated by the value of democratic accountability, it becomes possible to radicalise the idea of resident nationstate citizenship into a form of post-national and nationalist denizenship. In the light of what was said above, if any legislative reform to the Electoral Act is needed in South Africa after the Richter judgment, it is not as the expatriate voting rights lobby has claimed to allow non-resident citizens to register and vote in the next election. The political integration of migrants within the SADC region should rest on a post-nationalist model of denizenship, such as the urban street politics recently described by Benhabib. If South Africa wishes to take its duties under the SADC Protocol seriously, and to give meaningful content to the constitutional ideal of street democratic citizenship, it must urgently introduce an electoral reform programme that will enable non-citizen residents to register and vote in the local government elections of the bustling migrant cities in which they live and work.
Notes 1
SADC Protocol on the Facilitation of Movement of Persons. Available at , accessed 4 September 2009. The SADC is a treaty
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______________________________________________________________ based development community with 15 Southern African member states. It was established on 17 August 1992. The SADC vision is one of a common future, within a regional community that will ensure economic well-being, freedom, social justice, peace and security for the peoples of Southern Africa. 2 The silence of the SADC Protocol on these questions contrasts sharply with the detailed regulation of the relationship between economic migration and citizenship in the European Union. Article 20(1) of the consolidated Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (or the Lisbon Treaty, 2009), recognises that every national of a member state is a European citizen. Article 20(2) continues to add that community citizens have the right to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States, and the right to vote and to stand as candidates in municipal elections in their Member State of residence, under the same conditions as nationals of that State. 3 JP Misago, L Landau & T Monson, Towards Tolerance, Law and Dignity: Addressing Violence against Foreign Nationals in South Africa, IOM, Johannesburg, 2009, p. 52. 4 S Pires, ‘Pro-Immigrant Political Mobilisation in Portugal and Italy: The Role of Civil Society’, available at: , Accessed June 29, 2010. 5 S Benhabib, ‘Twilight of Sovereignty or the Emergence of Cosmopolitan Norms? Rethinking Citizenship in Volatile Times’, Dual Citizenship in Global Perspective, Palgrave, Hampshire, 2007, p. 247. S Benhabib, Another Cosmopolitanism, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2006. 6 [1997] ZACC 16; 1997 (12) BCLR 1655; 1998 (1) SA 745 (CC). 7 [2004] ZACC 11; 2004 (6) SA 505 (CC); 2004 (6) BCLR 569 (CC). 8 S Benhabib, Another Cosmopolitanism, p. 35, goes as far as claiming that critical theory finds its contemporary expression in the drive for the extension of voting rights as part of a new ‘politics of cosmopolitan membership’. This politics concentrates on rights litigation that burdens courts with the task of ‘negotiating the complex relationship between rights of full membership, democratic voice and territorial residence’. 9 In a number of earlier contributions I relied on the studies of urban citizenship by Jane Jacobs, Richard Senett and Iris Young to develop a street based conception of democracy along similar lines. My suggestion was that the post-apartheid constitution is best understood as a manifesto for postapartheid urban design and of a street based democracy. I found this suggestion underscored by elements in the original design of the new Constitutional Court building and Constitutional Hill as its inner city precinct in down town Johannesburg. The street is just one of a number of architectural metaphors that could be employed as an interpretive leitmotiv to unlock the dynamics of post-apartheid constitutionalism. For a fuller
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______________________________________________________________ discussion see W le Roux ‘From Acropolis to Metropolis: The New Constitutional Court Building and South African Street Democracy’, SA Publiekreg/Public Law, Vol. 16, 2001, p.139; W le Roux ‘Planning Law, Crime Control and the Spatial Dynamics of Post-Apartheid Street Democracy’, SA Publiekreg/Public Law, Vol. 21, 2006, p. 25. 10 The roots to this line of thinking can be traced back to Hannah Arendt’s well-known critique of various Jewish migrant communities during and after the Second World War. H Arendt, The Jew as Pariah: Jewish Identity and Politics in the Modern Age, Crove Press, New York, 1978, p. 55 famously criticised the desire of Jewish refugees during the Second World War to present themselves to their host countries as perfectly assimilated, prospective and patriotic citizens. Arendt found the desire to take refuge in nation-state citizenship disconcerting, because it involved a lack of political courage to fight for a change in the social and legal status of stateless Jews in Europe. She sought to counter the problematic Jewish identity of the newly assimilated social parvenus by embracing the Jewish counter-tradition of conscious social pariahs or outlaws (represented by Rahel Varnhagen, Franz Kafka and Charlie Chaplin). In the process, Arendt famously remarked that these conscious outlaws gained the world of politics and represented the new political avant-garde of Europe. G Agamben, Means without End: Notes on Politics, University of Minnesota Press, Mineapolis, 2000, p. 14 equally celebrates Arendt’s critique of the paradigm of nation-state citizenship as alternative to the statelessness of Jewish refugees. Agamben claims, with Arendt, that the stateless refugee represents the central figure of our political history. He actively calls for a process by which each citizen recognises the ‘refugee that he or she is’ and gradually turns him or herself into denizens of cities that perforate and deform the space of the nation-state. From the perspective of this critique of nation-state citizenship, statelessness (including the de facto statelessness of refugees) must thus be understood, not as a temporal abnormality, but as the precondition for the political survival of humankind. 11 Richter v Minister for Home Affairs [2009] ZACC 3; 2009 (5) BCLR 448 (CC); and AParty v Minister for Home Affairs; Moloko v Minister for Home Affairs [2009] ZACC 4; 2009 (6) BCLR 611 (CC). 12 Section 3(2)(a) of the Constitution, 1996. 13 Section 19(3) of the Constitution. 14 August and Another v Electoral Commission and Others (CCT8/99) [1999] ZACC 3; 1999 (3) SA 1; 1999 (4) BCLR 363 (1 April 1999) at para 17. 15 During the 1999 general elections, the potentially discriminatory effect of this requirement was unsuccessfully challenged in the Constitutional Court.
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______________________________________________________________ See New National Party v Government of the Republic of South Africa [1999] ZACC 5; 1999 (3) SA 191; 1999 (5) BCLR 489 (CC). 16 Richter v Minister of Home Affairs [2009] ZAGPHC 21; 2009 (5) BCLR 492 (T). 17 The section read as follows: ‘The Commission must allow a person to apply for a special vote if that person cannot vote at a voting station in the voting district in which the person is registered as a voter, due to that person’s temporary absence from the Republic for purposes of a holiday, a business trip, attendance of a tertiary institution or an educational visit or participation in an international sports event, if the person notifies the Commission within 15 days after the proclamation of the date of the election, of his or her intended absence from the Republic, his or her intention to vote, and the place where he or she will cast his or her vote’ (my emphasis). 18 Para 61. 19 Para 77. 20 Para 12 read with paras 45-48. 21 In the end, more than 16 000 South African citizens voted overseas on 15 April 2009. 22 In South African law, any High Court has the power to declare an act of Parliament unconstitutional. However, before such a declaration comes into force, it must first be confirmed by the Constitutional Court. A large part of the cases before the latter Court serves as applications for confirmation. See further section 167(5) of the South African Constitution. 23 In terms of section 167(6) of the South African Constitution a person may bring a matter directly to the Constitutional Court if it is in the interests of justice to do so and if the Constitutional Court provides leave to do so. 24 AParty paras 21-22. 25 AParty paras 72, 80. The Court held that it was too late for it to be approached on an urgent basis so shortly before the elections; the Court also held that it was too early in the public debate and litigation process for it to be directly approached for a final ruling on the matter. 26 Richter paras 78, 99. 27 The supporting role of citizens in this process is defined in section 9(1) of the Electoral Act, which reads as follows: ‘A registered voter or person who has applied for registration as a voter and whose name or ordinary place of residence has changed, must apply in the prescribed manner to have that change recorded in the voters’ roll or in that person’s application.’ 28 Section 8(3) read with sec 11(1)(b) of the Act. 29 Myburg ‘A Triumph of Generosity over Mean-Spiritedness’, available at , accessed 5 May 2010.
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______________________________________________________________ 30
Richter para 69. The passage is quoted with approval by Myburg. Macdonald, ‘The Right to Vote’, available at , accessed on 18 May 2009. 32 Macdonald might have referred to the widespread reports in the run-up to the 2009 elections that the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission, Brigalia Bam, had asked the leader of the opposition why ‘they should give the vote to South Africans who ran away and who were badmouthing the country’. See , accessed 28 April 2010. 33 JW Müller, Constitutional Patriotism, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2007, p9. 34 J Habermas, Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1996, p. 499. 35 R Rubio-Marín, ‘Transnational Politics and the Democratic Nation-State: Normative Challenges of Expatriate Voting and Nationality Retention of Emigrants’, New York University Law Review, Vol. 81, 2006, p. 133. 36 A Ong, ‘Mutations in Citizenship’, Theory, Culture & Society, Vol. 23, 2006, pp. 499-531, has recently warned that the celebration of neoliberal market values, like flexibility, mobility, and entrepreneurialism as ideal qualities of citizens, seriously threaten the republican ideals of political equality and democratic freedom. As an example of one such ideal, see F Michelman, ‘Conceptions of Democracy in American Constitutional Argument: Voting Rights’, Florida Law Review, Vol. 41, 1989, p 441. Michelman defends a deliberative model of democracy and on that basis accepts ‘bona fide residence’ as a constitutionally permissible franchise prerequisite in US American law. 37 K Barry, ‘Home and Away: The Construction of Citizenship in an Emigration Context’, New York University Law Review, Vol. 81, 2006, p. 11. 38 ibid., pp. 42-50. 39 ibid., p. 51. 40 ibid., pp. 20-25. 41 C Lopés-Guerra, ‘Should Expatriates Vote’, Journal of Political Philosophy, Vol. 13, 2005, p. 216. 42 J Habermas, op. cit., p. 509. 43 Benhabib, op. cit., p. 263. 44 This new urban activism and politics need not be centred on voting rights and integration into representative law-making institutions. Benhabib favours the institutional recognition of postnational denizenship through voting rights, as has already taken place at the local government level in the European Union. There are obvious limits to any focus on voting rights as an entry into transformative post-nationalist and post-national politics. The focus 31
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______________________________________________________________ on voting rights tends to reduce political action to voting, and thus immediately folds the potentially radical idea of a democratic civil society back into the representative law-making and law-applying institutions of the state. Politics is then reduced to law-making and litigation. 45 Benhabib, op. cit., p. 262. 46 Agamben, op. cit., p. 22-24.
Bibliography AParty and Another v The Minister for Home Affairs and Others; Moloko and Others v The Minister for Home Affairs and Another [2009] ZACC 4; 2009 (6) BCLR 611 (CC). Khosa and Others v Minister of Social Development and Others, Mahlaule and Another v Minister of Social Development [2004] ZACC 11; 2004 (6) SA 505 (CC); 2004 (6) BCLR 569 (CC). Larbi-Odam v MEC for Education (North West Province) [1997] ZACC 16; 1997 (12) BCLR 1655; 1998 (1) SA 745 (CC). New National Party v Government of the Republic of South Africa [1999] ZACC 5; 1999 (3) SA 191; 1999 (5) BCLR 489 (CC). Richter v The Minister for Home Affairs and Others (with the Democratic Alliance and Others Intervening, and with Afriforum and Another as Amici Curiae) [2009] ZACC 3; 2009 (5) BCLR 448 (CC). Agamben, G., Means without End: Notes on Politics. University of Minnesota Press, Mineapolis, 2000. Arendt, H., The Jew as Pariah: Jewish Identity and Politics in the Modern Age. Grove Press, New York, 1978. Barry, K., ‘Home and Away: The Construction of Citizenship in an Emigration Context’. New York University Law Review. Vol. 81, 2006, p. 11. Benhabib, S., ‘Twilight of Sovereignty or the Emergence of Cosmopolitan Norms? Rethinking Citizenship in Volatile Times’. Dual Citizenship in Global Perspective. Palgrave, Hampshire, 2007.
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______________________________________________________________ Benhabib, S., Another Cosmopolitanism. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2006. Habermas, J., Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy. Polity Press, Cambridge, 1996. le Roux, W., ‘From Acropolis to Metropolis: The New Constitutional Court Building and South African Street Democracy’. SA Publiekereg/Public Law. Vol. 16, 2001 p. 139. le Roux, W., ‘Planning Law, Crime Control and the Spatial Dynamics of Post-Apartheid Street Democracy’. SA Publiekreg/Public Law. Vol. 21, 2006, p. 25. Lopés-Guerra, C., ‘Should Expatriates Vote?’. Journal of Political Philosophy. Vol. 13, 2005, p. 216. Misago, J.P., Landau, L. & Monson, T., Towards Tolerance, Law and Dignity: Addressing Violence against Foreign Nationals in South Africa. IOM, Johannesburg, 2009. Michelman, F., ‘Conceptions of Democracy in American Constitutional Argument: Voting Rights’. Florida Law Review. Vol. 41, 1989, p. 443. Müller, J.W., Constitutional Patriotism. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2007. Ong, A., ‘Mutations in Citizenship’. Theory, Culture & Society. Vol. 23, 2006, pp. 499. Pires, S., ‘Pro-Immigrant Political Mobilisation in Portugal and Italy: The Role of Civil Society’. Available at: , Accessed June 29, 2010. Rubio-Marín, R., ‘Transnational Politics and the Democratic Nation-State: Normative Challenges of Expatriate Voting and Nationality Retention of Emigrants’. New York University Law Review. Vol. 81, 2006, p. 117. Wessel le Roux is Professor in Public Law at the University of South Africa. His research focuses on the spatial and urban dynamics of constitutional democracy in the post-apartheid context.
Portuguese Civil Society and the Relation with the State Sonia Pires $EVWUDFW This chapter considers the relationship between civil society and the State. Taking into account the field of immigration in a Southern European country, Portugal, we analyse how the national civil society related to immigration relates and is influenced by the State. We consider the successive governments in Portugal, the immigration laws and the position of several civil society actors to give an institutional framework of relations between civil society and the State. In the Portuguese case, we find an inclusive – strong state that has co-opted civil society actors towards the public field, which has also provoked a consensual type of political mobilisation. Key Words: Immigration, civil society, State, political mobilisation and Portugal. ***** 1.
Introduction The actors of civil society represent the allies immigrant organisations need to mobilise and whose voices they need to bring to the stage. This is related to more volatile aspects of Political Opportunities Structures (POS), that is, the structures of alliances. In order to have a precise framework for the emergence of a political claim, it is necessary to consider the structures of alliances.1 Civil society actors are part of these structures and it is important to have a system for actors, types of mobilisation, claims and alliances and competition among them to understand how and why immigrants mobilise. In fact, immigrant organisations do not act in a vacuum but in a pre-established civil society with its rules and structures. Immigrant organisations are part of host society’s civil society. The POS has a dynamic part, which forms the link between group relations and contexts of action. The role of actors, the perceptions of opportunities, and their reasons to ally to certain civil society agents as opposed to others, are key factors to explain the emergence of a political claim. The more powerful those civil society actors are vis-à-vis political institutions, the more organized is the political mobilisation. Those civil society actors act as gatekeepers, controlling access to avenues of political mobilisation available to immigrants. Depending on the political context, they may be allies or neutral actors vis-à-vis immigrants. We argue, then, that immigrant political mobilisation is dependent on the civil structures of host society and in order
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______________________________________________________________ to situate immigrant organisations, we need to ascertain the characteristics of each civil society. Finally, we also consider the more stable aspects of POS that may explain the type of civil society. We look at the relations between successive governments and the development of civil society actors in the immigration field and we analyse, based on studies of civil society, the type of state, whether it is strong or not and its relation with civil society. We then begin by providing an overview on civil society concepts and theoretical proclivities. We continue with the analysis of the immigration and immigrant laws in Portugal and the relation of the civil society with the State. 2. Civil Society and the State: An Overview of Main Theoretical Approaches Democracy is a special type of political system in which civil society and state institutions tend to function as two necessary elements. As Keanes says, they are ‘separate but contiguous, distinct but interdependent . . . a system . . . which is subject to public disputation, compromise and agreement’.2 Civil society is the cradle of democracy3; it renews and increases the democratic culture by bringing in new values and quests to the public sphere and contributing to the rise of public dispute, negotiation and consensus. Civil society is an essential mirror of the public sphere. 4 Despite much disagreement concerning the exact nature of civil society, and following Odmalm, civil society is defined here as an ‘arena of friendships, clubs, churches, business associations, trade unions and other voluntary associations that mediate the vast expanse of social life and the state’.5 Taking into account the definition of Weber, the state is understood as the organisation specialising in the detention of coercion means. It controls a specific sovereign territory. Finally, it is centralised and formally coordinated.6 In order to understand its significance we have to see democratisation as a process of inclusion or as an unfinished project, where a progressive inclusion of various categories of people in political life and public sphere takes place. However, as it is stressed in the literature7 the formal premise of democratic equality has masked continued exclusion and oppression, as it has been the case for powerless people, namely immigrants and ethnic minorities, homeless, unemployed and so forth. As Dryzek argues, an examination of the history of democratization illustrates that pressures for greater democracy almost emanate from oppositional civil society, rarely or never from the state itself.8 Civil society is thus an alternative site for the pursuit of democracy and contentious politics. As Edwards describes, civil society often serves to fragment rather than unite, accentuating and deepening already existing cleavages. 9 As Baumgartner and Leech explain, group struggle cannot be fair. 10 There are
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___________________________________________________ differential intensities of preferences from the state that are reinforced through the group system. Some interests would be always more equal than others. Some groups, such as business-oriented or some social classes, have more power than others, especially non-economic groups such as immigrants. When studying civil society, the structure of the state cannot be ignored. Civil society is context-dependent, in the sense that the role of the state, individual rights and the effectiveness of the rule of law function as an institutional and cultural construct.11 As Tarrow maintains, differences in state centralisation produce differences in the political opportunities of social movements and civil society.12 The dominant model is that ‘strong states associated to weak civil societies lead to constrained participation, punctuated by violent outbursts of movement, while weak states in strong civil societies lead to open participation and conventional collective action’. 13 One aspect of the relationship between the state and the civil society is the process of co-optation that may occur. But such co-optation or absorption comes without any real power sharing. In fact, oppositional groups may leave the civil sphere to enter the state, which, in turn, leads to a lesser level of vitality and independence of civil society. The benefits of entering the state sphere can only be acquired when the defining interest of the entering group can be connected quite directly to an existing or emerging state imperative. Groups, whose inclusion coincides with no imperative, will not easily acquire the tangible goods they value. They may be allowed to participate in the policy-making process, but outcomes will be systematically skewed against them. Furthermore, they will loose any possibility of independence and internal democracy, since interaction with the state will require internal hierarchy and leadership. What about the role of state? There are two ends of the spectrum: an exclusive or inclusive state, a passive versus active state, or a friendly or nonfriendly state. A passive state reacts to whatever groups happen to emerge. In this case, it is the interaction of different groups that leads to public policy. Groups organize around interests and defend their position in the realm of the state without its direct intervention. In contrast, a reactive state does take measures to control the power of organized groups and their claims. An inclusive active state is a state that plays an active role in sponsoring and certifying groups, removing obstacles to their exercising political influence and creating channels for that influence to be perceived in government. In particular, inequality of representation should be remedied by state promotion of the organization of disadvantages and powerless groups. Large institutional patrons of political action, including the government itself, affect the abilities of groups to mobilise.14 An exclusive active state implies a
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______________________________________________________________ state that attacks and undermines the conditions for public association in civil society. Passive exclusion implies a state that simply ignores civil society.15 The levels of development of state structures also play a fundamental role in the importance, vitality and survival of civil society. When state institutions are strong and channel the interests of civil society actors, the effect will be a buttressing of political stability and democracy as the society places its resources and beneficial aspects in the service of the status quo. If, on the other hand, political institutions are weak and/or the existing political regime is perceived to be illegitimate, then civil society activity may become an alternative to politics.16 Still regarding institutions, we may add the political opportunity structures in the traditional social movements sense. As Tarrow expresses, people act on opportunities: ‘when reform is pending, when institutional access opens, when alignments shift, when conflicts emerge among elites, and when allies become available’.17 As Giugny and Passy alert,18 different policy areas in the same country yield different sets of opportunities. We will focus the policy area of immigration and immigrant policies that we will consider as a subsystem. The analysis of the subsystem of immigration civil society has to consider the more volatile aspects of the political side of the state, 19 those are, electoral instability, influential allies, and divided elites.20 The literature shows clearly that those political opportunities provided by the structures are essential for the political mobilization of non-state social groups. Electoral instability relates to the changing configurations of government and opposition parties, especially when they are based on coalitions. Uncertainty among political parties encourages challengers to try to exercise their power and may induce elites to compete for support from outside the polity. Influential allies are a condition for powerless groups to have their claims heard. In fact, allies can act as friends, as guarantors against repression or as negotiators. Each issue or, paraphrasing Baumgartner and Leech, each subsystem, understood as a stable structure for the existing relations among interests, may provide multiple channels of access.21 Civic organisations do not and cannot act in a vacuum but in an already existing network of state actors and organisations that can transform political claims into public policies. However, some civic organisations have more formal access than others. The public sphere is such that it favours access to elites over social movement actors and attempts to change the dominant political discourse. Hence, there is a fatal bias toward the view of the established elite. For Walzer, in the immigration case, the rule of citizens over non-citizens constitutes a form of tyranny because it violates a principle of political justice.22
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___________________________________________________ Immigrant venue in the public sphere is concomitant with successive immigration laws and debates. We can then conclude, at a first glance, that the shifting institutional structure and ideological disposition of those in power provide opportunities for immigrant and pro-immigrant organisations to protest.23 Our data derived from interviews undertaken with activists from anti-racist and pro-immigrant associations. We will concentrate our analysis on the 1990s until the mid-2000s for at least three reasons: 1) the discussion of the role of immigrants in Italy and Portugal; 2) the rise of the extremeright in Italy; 3) the pro-immigrant movement has consolidated its position within the respective civil society. We conducted 12 interviews with main anti-racist and proimmigrant actors at the national level. the choice of actors was decided based on the analysis of the newspaper O Publico, informal contacts and the snowball method. We believe we obtained a general framework with the main tendencies in Portuguese immigration civil society. 3.
The Portuguese Civil Society and its Relation to the State The political mobilization of immigrants has been strongly conditioned by the different immigration laws produced in Portugal. 24 In light of this evidence, we will analyse the evolution of immigrant political mobilisation following the different phases of construction of political aims and objectives, political opportunity structures and liaisons with immigrant organisations and allies. Until the beginning of the 1990s, the Portuguese state had a passive attitude vis-à-vis immigration, both in the area of immigration control and integration in the host society. The historical background may help to understand this inaction. The end of the colonial empire provoked the return to Portugal of around 500.000 nationals, of whom 59 percent were born in the metropolis. The remaining 41percent included their descendants and people with African ancestry and Portuguese nationality.25 The decree-law n. 308-A/75, of 24 July 1975, while taking away the Portuguese nationality to those nationals, created, as a retroactive feedback, a foreign community. Thus the presence in 1981 of 27.000 nationals from the Palop, which represented 43percent of the total foreign population in Portugal, could be attributed to the voluntary return to the metropolis and to the loss of Portuguese nationality. In 1986, with the adhesion of the Portuguese state to the European Community, and with the investments in the construction of infra-structure, new job opportunities were created. At the beginning of the nineties, the immigration issue started to be an object of public debate and contention, involving several actors and a variety of problems. The parliament debate is made under the auspices of security frames, the preservation of the Portuguese national identity and the
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______________________________________________________________ consolidation of the economic and political links with Palop countries and Brazil. The attitudes of the political parties and preferences relative to immigration issues differ in accordance with their position in the ideological spectrum. In order to respond to civil society pressure, an extraordinary process of regularisation is implemented in 1992 and 1993 (Decree-law n. 212/92, of 12 October). This first procedure prefigured the initial step towards a political and public sphere of immigration. The socialist party, at that time, was the main ally and the main vehicle for immigrant associations to reach the public debate. This role is traditionally an attribute of left-wing political parties. The Portuguese socialist party took the first steps and gained visibility as a fundamental ally for immigrant organisations. In 1993, a new immigration law was implemented (decree-law n. 59/93, of 3 March), more restrictive than the first law of 1981. In 1994, a revision of the current nationality law (law 37/81, of 3 October) was conducted and a new one produced (Law 25/94 of 19 August). The main aim was to make it more difficult for foreigners to obtain nationality at birth (via ius soli) and after birth (particularly through marriage or naturalization). This law was implemented, based on a proposal submitted by the PSD majority government. This proposal is framed in the general policy of the majority government, that is, more restrictive policies and a security frame. While restricting access and permanence in the country, they take measures for a more open policy of integration, 26 which is a tendency in European countries with the exception of Italy, where the erosion of civil rights is constant.27 Besides a security frame, there was also another one, specific to the Portuguese case. There was a vector of reconstruction of the immigration phenomenon with a universalist-lusotropicalist frame. 28 The universalist frame is linked to the emigration past, which is present in the discourses of the socialist party. The lusotropicalist frame is related with the positive discrimination that is common towards Palop countries and Brazil. In 1995, the Portuguese government changed. The Socialist party won legislative elections, with a parliamentary majority. 1995 and the victory of socialists in power is seen as a turning point in the area of immigration. 29 The issue of immigration gained a stable visibility in the public sphere and as an element of political contention. At the national level immigrant organisations began to be direct partners of state institutions, such as the Acime or the Foreigners and Borders Services. Platforms of dialogue were created, which allowed immigrant organisations to have a direct voice in the field, and, by the same token, to enter a phase of professionalisation. At the state level, the socialist government continued to promote actions of integration.30 The regularisation of immigrants was also a way to regularise the internal labour market. The institutional process under regularisation, in 1996, was quite diverse from the first one in 1993. In 1993,
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___________________________________________________ the first process was directed by a commission under the responsibility of the government. In 1996, immigrant organisations were co-opted within the National Commission for Extraordinary Regularisation. Immigrant organisations made their own commission in order to follow the process. Moreover, the actions of pro-immigrant organisations were more visible and clear. Still in 1996, a new law was approved by the Republic Assembly (Assembleia da Republica), designed by the socialist party, which allows the right to vote at the local level, for certain nationalities under reciprocity conditions (law n. 50/96). Indeed, some nationalities had the right to vote if they would give the reciprocal right to vote to Portuguese emigrants living in their countries of origin. The initiative had the support of the Republic President at that time and the President of the Republic Assembly. Thus, in 1997, immigrants from the chosen nationalities could vote for the first time. Their vote was of particular importance to the socialist party in certain cities, in order to win the elections against the right-wing political party – PSD or even the communist party – PCP. Moreover, all the political parties in Portugal with a parliamentary representation included foreign candidates in their electoral lists. Right-wing political parties, even those with a more extreme connotation, tried embracing immigration issues in the political program. Thus, at that point and at that moment, immigration was not an issue of contention between political parties. Elites were not divided, which would lead to a closure of opportunities for the sub-system of immigration actors in making political claims. Yet, in the Portuguese case there was an alignment of co-optation and dialogue. In this sense, elites non-division was an open window for immigrants. The process of integration policies continued, with several welfare state programs oriented towards immigrants and their offspring. At the national political decision-making level, all measures were approved by political parties in the Portuguese parliament. The main frames cited above continued to guide policies. In spite of their supremacy in the political discourse, another frame arose, mainly in the mediated public sphere, which associated immigration with criminality. What is striking is that this discourse was stipulated by both major political parties: the PS and the PSD. Once again, there was a political alignment over immigration issues in Portugal, but it did not prevent immigrant organisations and pro-immigrant organisations from participating in the deliberative process. In 1999, a new legislative election took place and the socialist party won again. The political party program was a continuation of the main guidelines opted in the preceeding legislation, that is, the control of borders and a structured integration process. The Portuguese legislation embraced certain principles adopted during the Tampere Convention, namely, the
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______________________________________________________________ principle of equality and non-discrimination (article 13° of the Portuguese Constitution), and the principle of equalization of rights between nationals and foreigners (article 15° of the Portuguese Constitution). Based on the previous law n.° 134/98 of 28 August, which prevented and prohibited racial, ethnic and national discrimination, a campaign was announced and coordinated by the Acidi (Minister council resolution, n.° 48/2000) with the aim of promoting second generation integration. Immigrant organisations now saw a new open window. In general terms, the official discourse is, thus, the recognition of immigration as a structural phenomenon, which needs to be framed and integrated, and, simultaneously, needs to combat illegal immigration. The image of Portugal as a country of emigration is reiterated as a reason to justify the continued influx of immigrants and their integration. It is in this context that a new immigration law is approved, decreelaw n.° 4/2001, of 10 January, which altered the decree-law n.° 244/98, of 8 August, that regulates the entry, stay and exit conditions of foreigners in the national country. This new law was the result of strong pressure from an interest group that needed an immigrant workforce. In fact, construction and public work and tourism industry lobbies conducted a campaign with political parties and the government to alter the existing law. Similarly to the Bossi-Fini law, this new one altered the type of legal ties immigrants could obtain. In fact, stay permits were issued only if the immigrant had a work contract registered in the Labour Ministry. It was granted priority to the labour market integration. In parallel some integration measures were taken. 31 In 2002, the first minister resigned and new national elections took place. During the campaign and according to Machado,32 the issue of immigration was not object of a strong political contention among the different political parties. Contrary to Italy, there is a minimum level of consensus, which is also facilitated by the fact that extreme-right political parties are not present in the parliament. In March 2002, a coalition arose between the PSD – centre-right and the CDS – right conservative party. The main guidelines of the government were centred around two points: a more restrictive policy towards entry to the national territory and a better integration model for those already in the host country. Among several initiatives, there were some points concerning immigrant and pro-immigrant organizations. Once more, the state searched for the collaboration of civil society actors to implement its policies. A four year plan of integration was promoted that integrated national and local entities as well as immigrant and pro-immigrant organisations. In this larger framework, immigrant organisations saw the possibility to be considered legally as non-governmental organisations and potential partners with the state. Contracts are established between immigrant organisations and the state in order to promote concrete policies. Moreover,
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___________________________________________________ there was the support of the creation and sustainment of immigrant organisations. This centre-right government reinforced the collaboration with civil society actors, taking the leading role in the platform of decision-making activities. The other main measure is a new immigration law – decree-law n.° 34/2003, of 25 February, which was more restrictive and conducted under the auspices of labour market interests. This time the parliamentary vote was not consensual. In fact, only the PSD and the CDS approved the decree. The communist party PCP and the newly established libertarian left party – Bloco de Esquerda – voted against. The socialist party PS preferred to abstain. The law passed due to the majority of seats of the government. However, one year later, the government recognised, under pressure from civil society and interest actors, that the decree law could not restrict illegal entries. Based on that evidence, it promulgated a regulating decree n. ° 6/2004, of 26 April, in order to introduce extraordinary regularisation mechanisms. Parallel to security and labour market interests frames, the lusotropicalism frame remained. Indeed, in 2003, an agreement was signed between Portugal and Brazil in order to grant legal status to illegal Brazilians. 4.
Main Conclusions In a nutshell, the relationship between the Portuguese political system and the immigrant civil society is characterised by interdependence, compromise and agreement. Conflict is highly institutionalised. Public disputation is present in pro-immigrant organisations that are the basis of the collective action. Immigrant organisations and Catholic church oriented organisations are considered as legitimate and deliberative political actors. Since the beginning of the 1990s there has been a progressive inclusion of immigrants in the Portuguese public sphere. In our case, and contrary to what the civil society literature reports, the state has been the main agent of equality promotion. The Portuguese immigration subsystem is encompassed by the state. Immigrant organisations are not seen as legitimate and deliberative actors. Those attributes are perceived by governments, trade unions and Catholic-Church organisations, which have a good deal of negotiation in social issues. If we consider the different characteristics of civil society provided by Schmitter, that is, a) independence from public authorities and private units of production; b) capacity of deliberation and collective action in defence of their interests; c) failure to replace of state agents; d) the willing to act within pre-established rules of a civil or legal nature; 33 in Portugal, we are presented with a structure that is partly dependent on public authorities and willing to act within pre-established rules of civil nature. Moreover, immigrant civil society has been an agent in the replacement of state actors. However, they do not fulfill all criteria of a developed civil society. This
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______________________________________________________________ seems to be a special characteristic of the Portuguese immigration civil society. The Portuguese immigration subsystem, understood as a stable structure among actors coming together around a special issue, immigration and immigrant rights, is a heterogeneous space, relatively divided, multidimensional and multi-purpose. In spite of the fact that they are fragmented, they have not deepened existing cleavages in the immigration field. In Portugal, claims are consistent and focused on legal status, the nationality law and social and political rights. Agendas of the several organisations are not really disconnected. Yet, they are still dealing with first processes of integration as the lack of non-material and cultural claims illustrate. They are still focused on material and fundamental citizenship rights; which is an attribute of old social movements. 34 Nonetheless, there is a movement around civic rights and left-wing themes such as the exploitation of workers or socio-economic rights. As the network highlights, there are relations of coalition between immigrant organisations and pro-immigrant ones as well as with Catholicoriented organisations. Competition may come from anti-racist organisations as their progressive frames illustrate. The Portuguese civil society has not acted really as a counter-vailing power. The mix of open and closed political opportunities associated with a strong and active state led to a relatively softened civil society and an incipient social movement. The absorption of claims and actors by the state structures led to less vitality and independence in social movements. The Portuguese state has been an inclusive-active agent, sponsoring and certifying groups with the removing of obstacles and with the creation of channels for the perception of their influence. There is a system of interest representation, which makes the Portuguese state a corporatist one, with the inclusion of non-economic interests groups. However, this does not mean that the civil society organisations do not make rational choices and do not act, as we realise. In the Portuguese case, immigrant and pro-immigrant organisations have had the sympathy of the socialist and communist parties. Other political parties from the right-wing have also contacted and even included immigrants in their ranks but have not been constant allies. In spite of the fact that immigration has a relatively high level of controversy, political parties, in the Portuguese parliament, have been relatively open to immigrant claims and have been in alignment with what concerns the immigration laws. There has been a certain level of stability of the broad set of political elites with the strong presence of the socialist party as an ally, which led us to conclude that the Portuguese policy-specific political opportunities have been relatively open to immigration claims. In the words of Kriesi,35 there has been a full
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___________________________________________________ procedural integration, but, contrary to what he claims, the Portuguese state has been strong. The socialist party in Portugal, which has governed the country for two legislatures in our sample, has had a sympathetic role with immigrant and pro-immigrant organisations. The Portuguese case goes in the direction of the general assumptions of social movements regarding the importance of left-wing political circles.36 Left-wing parties have maintained a positive role in the sector as supporters and cooperative actors. Portugal is characterised by some level of stability among political parties in parliament and some parties in the political system. This is striking since few parties in the system should have produced a closure of opportunities. We may explain this fact with the electoral instability. The conventional forms of protest, which characterise Portuguese immigration collective action, attest to the centrality of the state and its relative openness to claims and their implementation. In spite of the fact that demands have been proactive, that is, they have not fit the dominant ideology by involving rights, privileges and means to which the immigrant groups are not entitled to, the Portuguese state has had the ability to channel their demands and to avoid more negative and violent confrontational forms of protests. As the literature states, ‘strong states have the capacity to implement the policies they choose to support; when these policies are favourable to the claims of movements, the latter will gravitate to conventional forms of protest; but when they are negative, violence or confrontation ensues.’37 This first combination applies to the Portuguese case. Portugal has a corporatist approach to migration. Immigrant and proimmigrant actors are absorbed into state structures, a phenomenon that is also called tokenism.38 Those actors have an almost identical role to economic interest groups in the sense that they are considered in the same way in the decision-making process. This leads us to affirm that, Portugal, immigrant and pro-immigrant organisations have been transformed into an interest group. In fact, their configuration is similar to the common definition of interest groups, that is, organisations with an institutional character, separate from government though often in close partnership with government attempting to influence public policy.39 Andersen is critical regarding those institutions.40 They are seen as mere consultative channels with a limited political power. They are supposed to serve also as a form to avoid or diminish the political rights of immigrants. Our final question is to evaluate whether or not there is a proimmigrant and immigrant social movements in Portugal. Following Wieviorka, there are social movements around the issue of immigration if the following conditions are present: ‘an ethnic mobilisation belongs to the
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______________________________________________________________ category of ‘social movements’ if its particular assertion of identity (in terms of language, history or religion) is not separate from its willingness to fit into a bigger picture with room for universal values. They can come together if the sense of group specificity is associated with the ideas of human rights, equality or individualism. An ethnic mobilisation has an impact like a social movement if it refuses being bounded with the ethnic limits; if it links its assertion of ethnicity to social and political demands shared with other excluded groups; if it accepts to advocate demands other than its own in the narrowest sense’.41 Ethnic mobilisation takes place when ‘there are collective challenges towards political authorities, led in the name of a group or a population that has not – or few – access to traditional political arenas, and conducted principally by non-conventional means’.42 In the Portuguese case, we are in presence of non- unified campaigns led by non-immigrant organisations with diverse framing processes. We do not find a unified collective identity among organisations. Furthermore, as we have seen, non-conventional means are not recurrent. Pro-immigrant and immigrant groups are included in the political system via the national public council. Finally, pro-immigrant and immigrant organisations do not claim universal rights but particularistic rights which are peculiar to the immigration field. As in Portugal, there is not a unified collective identity and proimmigrant organisations have diverse frames to perceive the social phenomenon. However, in the moments of large marches, there is an active and large network that embraces pro-immigrant and immigrant organisations, formal or informal, well-established or recently formed. Hence we discovered campaigns that share certain characteristics with social movements but are not social movements in their form and nature. To sum up, immigrant collective action is constructed around diverse allies with multiple frames and repertoires of action. On the side of civil society mobilisation, we are confronted with a set of objects rather than a specific object.43 Indeed, each group of actors has its own perception of the phenomenon, which leads to a fragmentation of the immigration issue into particular views and solutions.
Notes 1
M Giugni & F Passy, ‘Migrant Mobilization between Political Institutions and Citizenship Regimes: A Comparison of France and Switzerland’, European Journal of Political Research, Vol. 43, 2004, pp. 51-82. 2 J Kean, Civil Society – Old Images, New Visions, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, 1998, p. 8. 3 D Purdue (ed), Civil Societies and Social Movements, Potentials and Problems, Routledge, London, 2007, p. 2.
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D Rueschmeyer, Capitalist Development and Democracy, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1992, p. 15. 5 P Odmalm, ‘Migration’, Policies and Political Participation: Inclusion or Intrusion in Western Europe?, MacMillan, Palgrave, 2005, p. 174. 6 F Passy & M Giugni (eds.), Political Altruism? The Solidarity Movements in International Perspective, Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, 2001, p. 13. 7 J Dryzek, ‘Political Inclusion and the Dynamics of Democratization’, The American Political Science Review, Vol. 90, 3, p. 481. 8 Ibid., p. 476. 9 B Edward et al., Beyond Tocqueville – Civil Society and Social Capital Debate in Comparative Perspective, University Press of New England, London, 2001, p. 37. 10 F Baumgartner & B Leech, Basic Interests: The Importance of Groups in Politics and in Political Science, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1998, p. 67. 11 A Armony, The Dubious Links, Civic Engagement and Democratization, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 2004, p. 37. 12 S Tarrow, Power in Movement – Social Movements, Collective Action, and Politics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1994, p. 62. 13 Ibid., p. 63. 14 Baumgartner & Leech, op. cit., p. 67. 15 Dryzek, op. cit., p. 482. 16 Edwards, op. cit., p. 40. 17 Tarrow, op. cit., p. 87. 18 M Giugni & F Passy, Histoires de Mobilization Politique en Suisse, de la Contestation à l’ Integration, L’ Harmattan, Paris, 1997, p. 56. 19 J McCarthy, ‘Constraints and Opportunities in Adopting, Adapting, and Inventing’, Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements, Political Opportunities Structures, Mobilizing Structures and Cultural Framing, D. McAdam et al. (eds), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1996, p. 143. 20 D McAdam, J McCarthy, J Zald & N Mayer, ‘Introduction: Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures, and Framing Processes – Toward a Synthetic, Comparative Perspective on Social Movements’, Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements – Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures, and Cultural Framings, D. McAdam et al. (eds), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1996, p. 45. 21 Baumgartner, Leech, op. cit., p. 122. 22 M Walzer, ‘Equality and Civil Society’, Alternative Conceptions of Civil Society, S Chambers & W Kymlicka (eds), Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2002, p. 66. 23 McAdam, op.cit., 34.
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L Machado, ‘Des Etrangers Moins Etrangers que d’ Autres? La Regulation Politico-Institutionnelle de l’ Immigration au Portugal’, L’ Europe du Sud face à l’ Immigration, Politique de l’ Etranger, E Ritaine (ed), Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, 2005, p. 123. 25 R Pires, Os Retornados. Um Estrudo Sociografico, IED, Lisboa, 1987, pp. 78-85. 26 Indeed, in 1991, the Coordinating Secretariat for Programs of Multicultural Education was created within the Ministry of Education. This was a first step towards a more structured policy for the integration of immigrants and their descendents. Some measures at the social-legal level are also taken in this phase. In 1993, an interdepartmental commission for immigrant and ethnic minorities integration was established under the coordination of several ministers. Another measure was to ensure and facilitate, through programs of professional training, integration in the labour market. 27 J Hollifield, Ideas, Institutions and Civil Society – on the Limts of Immigration Control in Liberal Democracies, University of Osnabruck IMIS, Osnabruck, 1999. P. 59. 28 Machado, op.cit., p. 170. 29 Ibid., p. 124. 30 The first visible measure was the creation of the High Commission for Immigration and Ethnic Minorities (Acime), in 1996, under the direct dependence of the Ministers Council (decree-law n. 3-A/96, of 26 January). Its main aim is to establish a dialogue platform between the different ministries and representatives of immigrant communities. In 1996, another extraordinary regulation process is adopted (law n. 17/96, of 24 May). The government recognised that the ulterior regularization process and the immigration law were not efficacious enough to combat the entry and illegal stay. Moreover, the principle of labour market interests was under construction (Machado, op. cit., p. 126). 31 A specific program for integration was formed, the Programa Acolhe allowed many immigrants to access different public services and to social citizenship rights. This program was implemented with the collaboration of immigrant organisations and pro-immigrant groups. In 2001, an interministerial group was organized to coordinate, monitor and evaluate the immigration policy (ministers council resolution, n.° 14/2001, of 25 January). Once again, immigrant and pro-immigrant organisations were co-opted in the process of monitoring and evaluation. 32 Machado, op.cit., p. 143. 33 P Schmitter, Some Propositions about Civil Society and the Consolidation of Democracy, Institut fur Hohere Studien, Wien, 1993, p. 43. 34 Tarrow, op.cit., p. 123.
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H Kriesi, ‘The Organizational Stucture of New Social Movements in a Political Context’, Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements, Political Opportunities Structures, Mobilizing Structures and Cultural Framing, D McAdam et al. (eds), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1996, p. 167. 36 Tarrow, op.cit., p. 245. 37 Ibid., p. 89. 38 O Karan, ‘State Management of Immigrant Organizations in Sweden’, Migration and Activism in Europe since 1945, W Pojmann (ed), MacMillan, Palgrave, 2008, p. 45. 39 F Granados & D Knoke, ‘Organised Interest Groups and Policy Networks’, The Handbook of Political Sociology, T Janoski (ed), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2005, p. 288. 40 U Andersen, ‘Consultative Institutions for Migrant Workers’, The Political Rights of Migrant Workers in Western Europe, Z Layton-Henry (ed), Sage Publications, London, 1990, p. 65. 42 M Wieviorka, Raison et Conviction: l’ Engagement, Textuel, Paris, 1998, p. 29. 42 Tarrow, op.cit., p. 78. 43 J Simeant, La Cause des Sans-Papiers, Pressses de Sciences-Po, Paris, 2003, p. 239. Bibliography Alexander, J., ‘The Paradox of Civil Society’. International Sociology. Vol. 12, 2, 1997, pp. 115-133. Andersen, U., ‘Consultative Institutions for Migrant Workers’. The Political Rights of Migrant Workers in Western Union. Layton-Henry, Z. (ed), Sage Publications, London, 1990. Armony, A., The Dubious Links, Civic Engagement and Democratization. Stanford University Press, Stanford, 2004. Baumgartner F. & Leech, B., Basic Interests: The Importance of Groups in Politics and in Political Science. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1998. Bigot, J. & Fella S., ‘The Prodi Government Proposed Citizenship Reform and the Debate on Immigration and its Impact in Italy’. Modern Italy. Vol. 13, 3, pp. 305-315. Dryzek, J., ‘Political Inclusion and the Dynamics of Democratization’. The American Political Science Review. Vol. 90, 3, 1996, pp. 475-487.
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______________________________________________________________ Edwards, B., Beyond Tocqueville – Civil Society and Social Capital Debate in Comparative Perspective. University Press of New England, London, 2001. Gamson, W. & Meyer, D., ‘Framing Political Opportunity’. Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures and Cultural Framings. MacAdam, D. et al. (eds), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1996. Ginsborg, P., Italy and Its Discontents. Penguin Books, London, 2001. Giugni, M. & Passy, F., Histoires de Mobilization Politique en Suisse, de la Contestation à l’ Integration. L’ Harmattan, Paris, 1997. Granados, F. & Knoke, D., ‘Organised Interest Group and Policy Network’. Handbook of Political Sociology. Janoski, T. (ed), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2005. Hammar, T., Democracy and the Nation-State: Aliens, Denizens, and Citizens in a World of International Migration. Avebury, Aldershot, 1990. Hollifield, J., Ideas, Institutions and Civil Society: On the Limits of Immigration Control in Liberal Democracies. University of Osnabruck, Osnabruck, 1999. Ireland, P., ‘Reaping What We Sow: Institutions and Immigrant Political Participation in Western Europe’. Challenging Immigration and Ethnic Relations Politics: Comparative European Perspectives. Koopmans, R. & Statham, P. (eds), Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2000. Karan. O., ‘State Management of Immigrant Organizations in Sweden’. Migration and Activism in Europe since 1945. MacMillan, Palgrave, 2008. Kean, J., Civil Society: Old Images, New Visions. Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, 1998. Kriesi, H., ‘The Organizational Structure of New Social Movements in a Political Context’. Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures and Cultural Framings. MacAdam, D. et al. (eds), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1996.
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___________________________________________________ Machado, F., ‘Des Etrangers Moins Etrangers que d’ Autres? La Regulation Politico-Institutionnelle de l’ Immigration au Portugal’. L’ Europe du Sud Face à l’ Immigration, Politique de l’ Etranger. Ritaine, E. (ed.), Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, 2005. McAdam, D. et al., ‘Introduction : Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures, and Framing Processes – Toward a Synthetis, Comparative Perspective on Social Movements’. Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements : Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures and Cultural Framings. MacAdam, D. et al. (eds), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1996. McCarthy, J., ‘Constraints and Opportunities in Adopting, Adapting, and Inventing’. Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements – Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures and Cultural Framings. MacAdam, D. et al. (eds), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1996. Odmalm, P., Migration, Policies and Political Participation: Inclusion or Intrusion in Western Europe?. Macmillan, Palgrave, 2005. Passy, F. & Giugni, M. (ed), Political Altruism?: the Solidarity Movements in International Perspective. Rowman & Littlefield, 2001. Pires, R., Os Retornados. Um Estudo Sociografico. IED: Lisboa, 1987. Pires, S., Immigration and Political Mobilisation: The Cases of Italy and Portugal. European University Institute: Firenze, 2010. Purdue, D. (ed), ‘Potentials and Problems’. Civil Societies and Social Movements. Routledge, London, 2007. Ritaine, E. (ed), L’ Europe du Sud face à l’Immigration : Politique del’ Etranger. Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, 2005. Rueschmeyer, D., Capitalist Development and Democracy. Polity Press, Cambridge, 1992. Schmitter, P., Some Propositions about Civil Society and the Consolidation of Democracy. Institute fur Hohere Studien, Wien, 1993. Simeant, J., La Cause des Sans-Papiers. Presses de Sciences PO, Paris, 2003.
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______________________________________________________________ Soysal, Y., The Limits of Citizenship, Migration and Post-National Membership in Europe. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1994. Statham, P., The Political Construction of Immigration in Italy: Opportunities, Mobilisation and Outcomes. Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin fur Soziallforschung, Berlin, 1998. Tarrow, S., Power in Movement: Social Movements, Collective Action, and Politics. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1994. Walker, J., Mobilizing Interest Groups in America. Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1991. Wenden, C., Les Immigrés et la Politique. Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, France, 1988. Wieviorka, M., Raison et Conviction: L ‘ Engagement. Textuel, Paris, 1998. Wong, J., Democracy’s Promise, Immigrants & American Civic Institutions. The University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 2006. Zincone, G., ‘The Making of Policies: Immigration and Immigrants in Italy’. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. Vol. 32, 3, pp. 347-375. Sonia Pires has obtained her PhD at the European University Institute, Italy, and she is currently working on immigration and political mobilisation.
PART 4
Liminal Subjectivities
Living between Nation-States and Nature: Anthropological Notes on National Identities Humberto Dos Santos Martins Abstract This chapter discusses the relations between nation-states by focusing specifically on individuals who share memories and daily experiences whose main referent is a specific international borderland. The discussion reflects on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in the Portuguese-Galician border in which I pursued anthropology at the level of the individuals. Memory and narration were crucial in my research. Several anthropologists have shown differences between lived and political borders; lived borders are negotiated as experienced varying-size areas by individuals all over time according to practical issues. I approach transnational and international daily experiences which are not new in time but refer to a long history of cross-border relations. National and cultural identities are theoretically discussed as being permanently negotiated, considering personal circumstances, concrete social trajectories and a new socioeconomic spectrum brought up by the recent political and economic histories of Portugal and Spain, and in particular the inclusion of these two countries in the EU in 1986. Despite the fact that physical borders have actually disappeared, new borders, now less territorial, less political, but perhaps paradoxically more identitary, have been reinstalled between Portuguese and Galician men and women. In my text I also look at human-nature relations, considering that the creation of a Transnational Park (Baixa Limia-Gerês) is a late acknowledgment of a longterm ecosystemic experience that has assimilated Galician and Portuguese individuals. They lived as peasants, exploiting natural resources, raising cattle, constructing walls between meadows that actually define the natural (social) landscape of the area. Today in the Galician side family agriculture in which we recognize a specific eco-type is being abandoned. Portuguese men and women keep old forms of agriculture. A peasant aesthetic and lifestyle that unified them in the past is not anymore shared and a new (but more perceived) border seems to be installed. Key Words: International borders, ethnography, social memory, narration, subjectivity, human-nature relations, identities. *****
Living Between Nation-States and Nature 160 ______________________________________________________________ Cows do not know borders… up in the hills they simply walked and crossed over the border whenever they had to. We just had to go and look after them. That’s how things were. (Manuel,1 Portuguese lavrador, 64 years old, 2001, referring to his and their Portuguese and Galician counterparts’ shepherding routines in the past when the international border between Portugal and Spain was closed off and watched by national police forces of the two countries) When I’m here [in Tourém] I always place the Portuguese flag outside in the balcony of my house… it’s to make it clear that we are in Portugal. (Tio Pedro referring to a dirty, tore and small Portuguese flag that flies at the last inhabited house in the road that leads to Randín, the closest neighbouring Galician village).
1.
Introduction The words chosen as epigraphs for this chapter intend to set up an overall argument about social life in borderland areas. Notwithstanding the fact that Manuel is referring to a past time and to a socio-political context that does not exist anymore in this specific international border, in effect I think that these words characterise quite well the main assumption of my proposal here; the need for looking beyond political-administrative arrangements when studying and interpreting borders and social processes that take place there, either if they refer to more conflictive areas of contact or to more peaceful ones (as it happens in this particular frontier).2 Manuel’s words are about his memories through which he makes present his past experiences, while Tio Pedro was referring to a now long-term practice, which he keeps with a renewed and peculiar enthusiasm. Actually Pedro, an old man of seventy who jocosely use to make that statement, has part of his family in Spain and spends part of the year (almost now two thirds because of his age and health condition) in Ourense (Galicia). His statement was not about create national exclusion/inclusion – the flag as a symbolic landmark as we see in other (less peaceful, to be euphemistic) geo-political areas around the world3 - to define territory, territorial possession limits but rather to suggest geographic coordinates. As I will say later in this chapter the territory in this particular border zone has no clear morphological barriers and it is difficult to realise if one is in Galicia (Spain) or in Portugal – as if it was necessary that quest in a desired Europe without internal (political) borders. Even the traffic signs are not explicit and it is quite easy to get lost in between the two countries. I would like to situate this text by relation to my communication presented at the 5th Global Conference: Pluralism, Inclusion and Citizenship (Salzburg, November 2009) and the subsequent debates that grew out of the presentations. From the several debates that emerged during the three days of the conference two main topics assumed special relevance regarding the main
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______________________________________________________________ issues of the meeting at large and my own specific participation and interests. I will refer to these two topics while keeping as main conducting script my original reflection. The geo-political setting where I did fieldwork, in the North-western Portuguese-Galician international border, provides the ethnographic material for my approach. The international border in this part of Europe is now an open passage. Since 1991, partially, and 1995, totally, the movement of people and goods between Portugal and Spain has been liberalised (after the admission of the two countries in the EU in 1986). Except for specific situations in which the national security is threatened, the passage between the two countries is not anymore under daily surveillance. Individuals, animals and goods are allowed to circulate and traffics (of more general scope) freely occur between the two sides (a word that theoretically would tend to become meaningless if one considers that there is not any more police surveillance or passage constraints in the frontier; however my argument is different; I am proposing to look at other borders, less tangible perhaps). Other situations, related, for instance, to public health issues (as in 2001-2 with mad-cow disease) may also lead to extra surveillance measures but which do not necessarily close off the border. Actually during that period animals were illegally (without veterinarian control) bought and sold by lavradores4 in the two sides of the border. Many lavradores in the village were severely affected by these incautious practices and decisions at the micro-level; many of their cows were abated by national veterinarian services with significant economic losses for the local lavradores. 2. Borders as Lived Experiences: the Place of the Individual in History (or the Subject Position of Citizenship) The two main topics may be textually formulated using two questions.5 The two questions anchor in my original formulations, contributing as well to a more comprehensive understanding of them. Furthermore they illuminate a more general debate that was referential at the conference and in the organization of this book – the theoretical (and practical) place of individuals as citizens of democratic societies, their personal responsibility and agency, as Fischer suggests,6 in the social construction of societies and political communities. The other two chapters in this section of the book are revelatory of the way a pragmatic citizenship may be activated, considering that mainstream social institutions and values (centres) tend to neglect what lies at their margins. Di Giovanni, for instance, in her applied research aims at a strategy to empower Gypsis, looking at this empowerment solution as an available capability to override their social exclusion in a particular Italian social context. Di Giovanni has based this applied research on ethnographic data with a substantial amount of time spent in direct contact with that particular community and trying to know them as they actually are. In this respect, Gherghel and Le Gall’s approach reveal
Living Between Nation-States and Nature 162 ______________________________________________________________ more than had promoted individual and family strategies of the Portuguese immigrants in Canada to overcome circumstantial (and structural) difficulties suffered by those fragmented families that have experienced migrant processes. The multidimensional transnational practices of care seem to create a kind of alternative social security system. In this Portuguese-Galician border zone, men and women (Portuguese and Galician) fabricated, particularly in former times, alternative ways of living in order to deal with famine, scarcity, difficulties, many of them imposed by the strict rule of the closed border. There were no cars that time . . . It was Xavier smuggling a bull and lighting a lantern . . . somebody passing a bag with codfish, to someone in need, smuggling olive oil and wine . . . because there was no other chance of survival... Otherwise we would have died, starving . . . with famine and necessity. Life here was impossible, very difficult indeed . . . Because Salazar and Franco would prefer their sons died, starving, rather than allow them to cross the border and earn their bread... (António recalls the difficulties of life in the village during Salazar’s regime when referring to a mysterious glow (Luz da Raia) that people used to see moving all along the borderline. He reveals his anger against the impossibility of freely crossing the border to buy the basic goods his family needed.7 We must also consider that a significant part of the papers discussed at the conference and that now comprises this book refers to a particular geopolitical space, the (anthropological) West and more particularly Europe, which is revealed in a (continuously) renewed diversity. Therefore it is important to state that this kind of approach, one that gives privilege to individual testimonies that may, in a certain way, create ruptures and alternative narratives to those officially acknowledged in politics and history, will actually bring new insights on the ways the social fabric of our political communities (not anymore local and national or based on national citizens but increasingly international/transnational) are constantly reinvented. Therefore the two main topics/questions to consider are: 1 - How to locate anthropologically subjectivity? 2 - How to reframe definitions of inclusion and exclusion as regard to what I would call hegemonic standpoints from where individuals even against their own will tend to be classified? These questions are in my perspective critical when studying not only international borders but also various forms of social (political, cultural, economic, religious, etc) inclusion and exclusion. In fact what one may designate by internal cultural and/or ethnic borders, when referring to social
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______________________________________________________________ groups or communities inside nation-states, may be also assessed through these assumptions. Di Giovanni, for instance, in this volume refers to the Roma/Gypsies as a ‘confined microcosm’ that is kept symbolically and physically apart from the rest of Palermo’s mainstream community and even from the rest of Italy. In particular, by keeping in perspective the idea of lived territories (and borderlands) that do actually override a concept of frontier as a static cartographic political-administrative division line. In this sense, Ana Gherghel and Josiane Le Gall proposal is quite revelatory of the dynamic transactional character of the Portuguese immigration in Canada and how a kind of transnational solidarity is nurtured by individuals and families between Azores and Quebec. Borders are constantly crossed and lived by individuals. Individual agency is there to be known and not neglected. Therefore we theoretically acknowledge the circumstantial, subjective and relational dimensions of politics and history (history as contingency). They relate, as I said, to five assumptions from which I theoretically framed my approach to the particular international border where I did my fieldwork. The assumptions presented below unveil also a methodological challenge in the sense that I am proposing to recheck history (and histories) through different angles and lenses in the metaphorical sense of a photographic camera. I am demanding a ‘theoretical close-up’ of social processes and individuals that for their non-prominent status tend to be neglected in the processes of creating historical and social representation. 1- Each borderland, each frontier8 has not only its own official history but also particular histories and many stories to be told. Ethnographies of each borderland will reveal aspects that despite their generalizing scope will reflect specific social processes. In this sense this specific borderland has a particular history and many personal (individual) stories that unfold important and specific social trajectories. These individual trajectories may be related to macro phenomena such as contraband, illegal emigration, and hidden solidarity during the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). However they are specific because they correspond to individual fabrications that more than have assimilated realities make them subjectively experienced. This evidence is critically clearer when we are dealing with traumatic episodes (wars, displacements, violence)9 but with ‘my’ subjects, Portuguese and Galician men and women, emigration episodes, acts of hiding ‘illegal’ emigrants or refugees in their houses were not trouble-free moments. Quite the opposite, I must say, because they left emotional marks, fears, such as with Maria when I asked her to recap the times she and her parents had to hide men in their hayloft. Even considering that almost forty years have past, she kept hiding the facts, the names, what happen when men arrived in the village and stopped over there while waiting to have a moment to ‘jump’ (dar o salto) to the other side of the border.
Living Between Nation-States and Nature 164 ______________________________________________________________ 2 - Borders and frontiers are complex subjects which convey different levels of reality, namely if one considers that institutions and individuals, pasts and presents, discourses, practices and representations are implicated. Talking about borders and frontiers - in the sense of dividing lines/structures between countries, territories (international) that are constantly crossed and lived – implicates us in different approaches that cannot impose on each other under the risk of misrepresenting those other different levels of reality. This assumption gains special relevance if we consider the relevance of memory studies and local history and how they are contributing to let accessible deliberately forgotten moments. These acts of deliberate forgetting (silence) are not necessarily imposed from above – in the sense of an imposed (ideological) collective memory. Sometimes they correspond to local and self imposed solutions but which do not serve every person. Sooner or later somebody will voice the imposed silenced facts and this has been shown in different socio-political contexts. 3 - Cultural and national identities cannot be assessed through static and definitive notions of culture and of the nation-state. Identities are constructed in process over time and space, according to particular experiences and encounters that each individual participates in. This idea relies on the assumption that nation-states, societies and cultures are not (anymore)10 definitive bounded entities but rather open constructions. It is critical to understand how individuals contribute to the formation of larger scale social processes. A seemingly univocal construction of nationhood may through this kind of approach be revealed in its complex and contradictory constituents. 4 – Anthropological approaches based upon ethnographic fieldwork enable us to reach micro-scale phenomena and facts that otherwise will be either misrepresented or forgotten. However through a ‘crossing approach’, it is essential to relate micro and macro-politics (parts and wholes as seen in perpetual relation of mutual influence). This perspective is also critical and many anthropologists have advocated the necessary link between local truths and big issues under the risk of ethnographies becoming too specific and relative; this would make impossible to create dialogues and comparisons in human matters and virtually denying a conventional ambition of anthropology as science.11 5 - The question of (inter)national borders is also one related to a more structuring issue that informs the whole scope of social sciences – what are societies? How to define their particular limits, considering actual spaces and times? More particularly considering contemporary new worlds (my emphasis on the plural is necessary) in which post-moral experiences seem to predominate?12 Where to locate individuals by relation to collectives, more or less acknowledgeable, more or less territorially circumscribed?
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______________________________________________________________ At the conference the question on subjectivity in which this fifth assumption finds particular echo was vibrantly assessed through various epistemological formulations that actually do not locate subjectivity in a classical dichotomic axis with objectivity; i.e. the problem of dealing with subjective matters in social sciences is not (only) an issue of more rigorous forms (and products) of knowledge by assuring a seemingly necessary objectivity as a kind of a scientific validation. Here I refer to subjectivity by assigning an epistemological stance that acknowledges the relevant role of human subjects – the individuals – as agents of their social interactions and in particular in the making and remaking of cultures; in other words – what is the role of human agency in the several social processes in which individuals took part? Still in other terms, the point is about acknowledging the crucial and active part of those who are to be known in the process of creating reality and knowledge. Therefore ascribing a subjective nature (validity) to a processed knowledge refers doubly to the fact that we are knowing a subject (that is like myself – subject knows subjects) which dialogically participates in the whole process of creating knowledge and representation on the one hand and may be influenced by it on the other hand. Making use of an interesting formulation of Paul Rabinow after his own reading on Niklas Luhmann’s reflections on how to observe modernity, what is being said here is that for a more pertinent social analysis, in special one that intends to be closer to a certain epistemological truth, one have to ‘observe observers observing.’13 This epistemological truth is one that acknowledges emotions, sentiments, feelings to the political subjects.14 As concerns the second question is also vital to assume that the standpoints are not only political – understanding the term in a wide sense in which one may have to look at cultural, economic and identity politics – but they also refer to an academic position (or perception) that is continuously feeding a western hegemony of thought and representation (the so-famous ‘West’ of anthropological critique). This means that if we are looking continuously inclusion and exclusion through the conventional values and policies proposed by mainstream institutions (more and more supranational ones as extremely exemplified by the crucial role of financial rating agencies in the recent economic-financial crisis in Europe in which they seem to command the economic [and therefore social] policies of sovereign nationstates) therefore what anthropology defines as the emic positions and points of view of the individuals outside those globalised classifications (increasingly influenced by a westernised science) will be underestimated. Many individuals, families and groups, conventionally defined as excluded (out of something) do not consider themselves excluded. Either because they do not match criteria that they do not acknowledge or because they create alternative schemes that assure what they want to do. For instance, in Portugal informal and parallel economies are increasing their weight in the
Living Between Nation-States and Nature 166 ______________________________________________________________ overall national economy in times of economic crises and in particular when government increases taxes. The unfinished debate on development as an invented concept would clearly be inscribed in this discussion, too. The concepts of margins and centres with reference to hegemony/hegemonic values/institutions, with which anthropology is quite familiar, may illuminate the very idea of societies being constituted by different social groups, processes, individuals and interstitial (liminal) situations. The way individual and collectives, positioned differently by reference to these centres and margins, negotiate what in concrete times and spaces will predominate (be hegemonic) will be then crucial to know (through ethnographies that echo and show what actually is being done). These two questions inform theoretical and epistemological debates that are not new in anthropology. We may trace them back to the theoretical foundations of modern scientific anthropology. As Kuper reminds us the basic issue of an ethnographer lies on the (each time) unique confrontation between the generalist point of view of the ‘academic west’ (of theories) and those points of view that are specific to each culture and each individual.15 Or what Pina-Cabral and Lydall, recently, formulated as a tension between ‘larger truths and deeper understandings.’16 This dilemma has also been central in the theoretical concerns of Fabian about the ‘when, where, who and how’ in producing anthropological knowledge.17 In his quest for what he calls ‘world anthropologies’, Fabian advocates the necessary rechecking of anthropological centres, not because the ‘Western’ anthropological centres for representation have nothing new to say but in the sense that the ‘anthropological others’ (in relation to this perceptual-political West) have things to say. This is for Fabian the true democratic dialogue, the alterity anthropology must assume in its intellectual (and ethic) project. What I would call diplomacy of knowledge (politics of knowledge) is also being set up here in the double sense of creating inter-disciplinary dialogues when we deal with issues such as citizenship in multicultural societies (for instance, between anthropology and political science) and of voicing these ‘other’ others (not simply creating rules for them but knowing and listening to them) acknowledging their (constitutive) presence in the societies (again the two chapters of this section are good examples). 3.
Old Issues: New Formulations There are two aspects that I consider important (though not exhausting the thematic) when studying (anthropologically) international borders on the one hand and national and cultural identities on the other hand; the first one has to do with the idea of international frontiers between countries as theoretical and political constructions that do not match with the actual lived and experienced territories. Not rejecting the idea that these (historical) administrative and political realities have practical consequences
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______________________________________________________________ on the life of the populations (for instance, on their everyday life decisions such as employment and access to primary goods), I prefer to emphasise (second aspect) that history and politics need to be rechecked by an ethnographic process of inquiring. I sustain that a continuous anthropological fieldwork supplemented with studies on memory and local history are essential to reassess what seems to be established as definitive Histories or as completed political processes. As Wilson and Donnan affirm, ‘borders are contradictory zones of culture and power, where the twin processes of state centralisation and national homogenisation are disrupted.’18 The defence of an ethnographic approach on this subject illuminates some interrogations; I keep them as a theoretical horizon in my script. How do we actually define identities with reference to national or cultural entities? Do we define identities through static categories or do we privilege dynamic and processual elements (as seen in Gherghel and Le Gall’s proposal on the transnational character of the Azorean immigrants in Canada)? In particular, how do we do that in a global (complex) world that simultaneously celebrates (and facilitates) fluxes and movements of people and goods, though reinstalling new frontiers and borders (as seen by discourses and practices on the latest world economic crises or by specific national immigration policies)? And finally by whom do we speak when proposing categories such as the Portuguese and the Galician? Are we actually voicing the plurality and subjectivities that characterise these seemingly homogenous categories? These questions take me into another plateau of reflection in which I anchor many other questions that might be considered under this scope and to which my theoretical framework points out (thinking particularly on the concept of cultural [national] identity): is it possible that each of us (individually) constructs identities that rely on singularity traits which redirect to territorial and/or symbolic units more or less identifiable? Or are we talking about defining politically from above, by reconstructing identity traits (that increasingly tend to be patrimonializsed)? By following a specific trend that assumes a kind of a renationalization of identities?19 Do we insist, only concerning scientific/analytical purposes, in finding differences and codify them, sometimes against (or regardless the emic constructions of) the individuals who are subjects of our research? Instigating on them an autoclassificatory need? This third questioning is, actually, the starting point of Brandes’ argument on international frontiers.20 These questions become even more pertinent if one considers that we live in a world that seems to celebrate itself in cultural movements and traffics (in the double sense of movement and business) between centres and peripheries; centres (and related peripheries) – as always – that should be understood as those that diffuse hegemonic discourses, practices or what one might call ‘western hegemony’. Is it possible to neglect and forget that these freedoms of movement, of choosing identity traits (including biophysics
Living Between Nation-States and Nature 168 ______________________________________________________________ ones), that these transnationality features which define an apparent globalization (without come back) coexist with so many other socioeconomic processes (for instance multinational lay-offs, dislocation of factories) that reveal renewed dominations, discriminations and exclusions (Di Giovanni proposal is also elucidative)? These socioeconomic processes are product of this or these globalizations (acknowledging different paths and paces in this apparent whole-embracing project), and in some cases they are the cause that drive individuals into new and non desired and volunteer movements, departures (migrations); in some cases these same socioeconomic processes, which are celebratory of epiphenomena such as the globalization, leave no option for individuals to stay/to be in their original communities, environments, lands and use their natural resources (which are not theirs anymore or to which they have no access).21 4. A Multi-Focused Anthropology (Research) for a Complex Subject Anthropology of international frontiers is one that acknowledges that if different scales and scopes are used by the researcher, dissimilar dimensions and facts will be observed and therefore disparate conclusions will be reached. This remark is surely banal considering any social and human phenomena. However the problem of studying borders and frontiers (in a wider sense – taking into account, for instance, symbolic, linguistic and identity forms of inclusion and exclusion and not only divisionary lines between countries) lies on the tendency to reify them as things that have their own live despite their particular social constructions and without any attempt to look closer, namely to look at ‘concrete’ individuals, social events, interactions and processes that take place at a micro-scale. They turn to be static categories that over-sociologise reality from a middle-range theory or from a grand theory perspective, forgetting that concrete individuals and communities are part of the borders as their crucial constituents. Actually in my approaches to this subject I always return to the argument of Stanley Brandes which refers to a critical discrepancy between what is anthropologically called the etic and the emic points of view.22 Do the (human) subjects of our research understand the categories and the concepts that we as scientists are using to translate and represent social realities? Brandes reflects specifically on international borders (actually the Portuguese-Galician frontier) but his concern may be extended to all human and social phenomena as approached by anthropology (social sciences). Borders and frontiers are at the same time real and imagined, are lived/experienced and proposed (suggested) entities; they correspond to separating structures, lines, discourses and to connection points and areas of fluid encounters; in sum they are forms of creating and created meaning over social realities which necessarily are contested and negotiated all over time
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______________________________________________________________ and space. Not only because macro and micro-politics in and between countries change but also because communities and individuals living in a closer and daily experience of the frontier produce new social phenomena that will have impact on nation-states politics (increasingly a supra-national politics).23 In this respect one should be aware that despite the progressive attempts to eliminate internal borders in the EU (a fabricated desire of homogeneity),24 different levels of frontiers overlap. We may recur to the concept of ‘internal frontiers’, proposed by Nick Nolte, to refer to a set of disadvantages that a periphery faces in favour of a centre.25 According to Nolte, the question is not so much in the definition of territorial centres and peripheries but of socio-economic and symbolic ones. Nevertheless the author refers more precisely to peripheral regions in Europe that are in relation to central ones, which normally coincide with the political and administrative capitals of the countries. Wilson and Donnan underline this dimension, stating that ‘changing definitions of peripheries and their relationships to their centres’ affect life in the international borders.26 They are not homogenous over time and space. Are we facing a big problem, by considering borders and frontiers as non-definitive realities and concepts? No, I would say. It is an issue that raises many theoretical, practical and epistemological questions but also, and consequently, potential virtues. My professional gaze as an anthropologist relies, by principle, on two conceptions of social realities – which have, at least, two consequential epistemological implications in the processes of knowing them. The first is that one cannot understand social reality as a static thing (in a Durkheimian sense) ready to be known in a single and univocal way; emphasis on circumstantialities, processes, contingency in the different acts of knowledge does not depend only on the observer (his/her social, cultural and physical location from where he/she knows) but it is also intrinsic to the realities themselves; yet in other words one may say that there are multiple parts in the constructed (theoretical or perceived) wholes, multiple voices, multiple perspectives and multiple layers of significance. The second derives from the first one; because social realities are internal and externally diverse therefore one should reject the idea of ethnography/fieldwork as a method of research that searches objective truths. By contrast, when ethnographicizing history and political processes such as the construction of international borders and their dynamics in time we adopt the position that social reality is partially assessed and differently understood if focused from different angles. The issue is about turning evident and clear the actual process of knowing; in a reflexive device, we need to reinforce forms of creating intersubjectivity rather than propose objectivity. Clarification is needed at this point. I consider Anthropology a particular field of knowledge whose main goal is the celebration of
Living Between Nation-States and Nature 170 ______________________________________________________________ encounters in various forms, aiming at particular truths that may be reissued through a comparative theoretical project into global and general arguments on human affairs (social, cultural, political, etc.). In this sense, by proposing that the social realities of international borders and frontiers are not only a question of political and international treaties, protocols or legislation (even considering that, for instance in the EU, a major and important part of the legislation that regulates movements of goods and people [and therefore ideas, symbols, expectations, lifestyles] is being negotiated, defined and written down very far away from the actual borderlands) but a question of people, communities and individuals who live on a daily basis in those spaces and territories, I assume a particular theoretical position – to look at the social relations at the level of individuals who live in international frontiers. This theoretical position is crucial, in my view, to understand and deal with the contemporary agenda on issues such as the construction of nation-states, national, regional and cultural belongings and identities. This particular claim is not only due to the fact that there are growing theoretical concerns with the place of the individual in the anthropological project (what to do with the subjectivities and complexities that form each of us as persons without reducing them to collective and collectivizing categories?).27 In fact, the need comes from the opposite pole; social realities are producing new phenomena, new fluid territorial identities (in the literal sense - more and more individuals choose to live in-between two countries like in Portugal and Spain). Therefore either because the discipline claims new theoretical gazes or because new phenomena inhabit contemporary social worlds the fact is that identities are processually constituted as a product of multiple negotiations and selections (culture as constant negotiation of meanings). Despite the fact that general elements of identity redirect us to collectives and certain belongings, there is always a reception and a specific appropriation of them by each individual. The basic idea of anthropology at the level of the individuals lies on a doubly resubjectiving paradigm; firstly in the sense that structures and collective regularities are not enough to access those phenomena (they are insufficient as producers of social knowledge/representation) and secondly because that way anthropology (social knowledge) opens itself to dimensions that lie beyond the visible and the narratable. Belongings and group inscriptions that define us and make us distinct from others and others from others whatever the scale (the Portuguese, the English, the Western, the Exotic) obey to self and hetero exclusion mechanisms highly complex and problematic. Actually the concepts of ‘other(s)/alterity(ies)’ are associated with the concepts of culture(s)/identity(ies), and they have been central in the scientific project of anthropology. These concepts have been defined and redefined all over the last 130 years. Though the world becomes global, homogenising their
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______________________________________________________________ margins (seen from specific positions in relation to proposed centres, and in particular to a certain socio-economic-cultural and academic West) from inside the discipline emerges the claim for new insights on the individuals, their social and psychological experiences, their being-in-the-world.28 In fact, when referring to memory and identity, I think there is the risk of essentializing the common pasts of social collectives, as if all the individuals had lived the same life, as if all of them had felt and experienced the same feelings. We are this, we are that, we are Portuguese, we are Europeans, and we are participants of socio-cultural immobilities. These categorizations, self-attributed or imposed by the others, from definitions predominantly stanch, more about what we would like to be (or what the others want us to be) rather than what we effectively are, reveal themselves as highly blinding of the living specificities of each individual. It may be easier, in terms of the dominant social and political responses, to propose union traits more than disunion ones – this is actually the risk of not approaching sociologically traditions and cultures – however, from the point of view of a contemporary scientific anthropology, we need to know these individual diversities (I insist intentionally in these plurals – they are not just formal) that give sense to our lives. The fact that I define borders and frontiers as multi-layer realities means that they need to be addressed by different angles, which do not necessarily lead into similar, univocal and linear arguments and conclusions. This assumption underlines the contribution of two important areas of research/study: local history and memory studies; both have contributed to a reassessment of past and present political and social processes. Whilst official histories, apparently for ideological or practical reasons, seem to be locked up in coherent, organized and all-over time transmitted scripts, these methodological, theoretical and epistemological proposals, based upon new data found in local archives and in the words and voices of those who live in the border are very insightful. For instance, about the Portuguese-Galician borderland where I did my fieldwork, contraband and the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) are central in the processes of narrating and remembering the frontier and the past relations between the two sides of the territory. Recent studies about the contraband in the Portuguese-Spanish border show the important economic, social and cultural role of this ‘shadow activity’ for the individuals who have experienced them.29 Godinho, for instance, has worked on the cooperation between Galician and Portuguese families during the war conflict in Spain30 and she has uncovered particular stories about episodes that are historically narrated and described but to which were lacking the social cement of History. Through these approaches, a singular History becomes plural; events lose their static element and are offered movement. My research allowed me to grasp the dissonant perspectives on episodes related to these two historical pasts. For instance contraband was in
Living Between Nation-States and Nature 172 ______________________________________________________________ the Portuguese village where I settle my work a kind of complementary activity to the main family farming activities or to the local established commerce.31 In my fieldwork I essayed anthropology at the level of the individuals, trying to pursue an epistemological trend also proposed by Rapport32 and Lahire.33 In this kind of approach, we tend to close up our gaze, looking at concrete individuals through their own personal experiences, biographical inscriptions, acts and processes of signifying places, events and issues that have defined their lives. The idea is not to have representatives of communities (for instance Portuguese representatives who are talking about border relations) but to have more specific and particular entrances into social, political and cultural processes. Through the continuous observation of daily practices, discourses and representations and the stimulating exercise of remembering past experiences, moments, and events I tried to assess how individuals on the two sides of the border constructed their own representations and practices of frontier, state and national identity. 5.
An Ambiguous Territory: A Non-frontier In this section I present a brief portrait of my fieldwork setting during almost eighteen months (yet I keep returning to the place since then). I mention some geographical features and I sketch a short history of this border zone, in particular focusing on the Couto Misto.34 I was there from July 2000 to September 2001, then returning in January 2002 and staying until the end of March of that year. I rented a room in the village, sharing the house with the owners (a local family). Both father and son were taxi-drivers; they both lived in Lisbon for a long time, having returned to the village to assume the business. João, the son, nowadays besides the taxi runs a bed and breakfast in the village. He and his wife refurbished the old big house where I used to stay. Francisco, the father, died a few months after I left the house. Tourém is a rural village of northern Portugal where small-scale family agriculture and small-scale commerce are the two main economic activities. Despite the slow disappearance of the old ways of living, herds of sheep and cows still cross the streets of the village, creating a special atmosphere of sounds and odours. However new tractors and trucks, and new farm equipment have been introduced in the farming activities. The village is inside the National Park Peneda-Gerês and an administrative parish of Montalegre borough. Montalegre is a rural town of Vila Real district, Trásos-Montes e Alto Douro province, bordering the Spanish autonomy of Galicia (North). Around Tourém there are mountains and Galician villages: Randín, on the east side if looking north, Vilar and Vilarinho to the southeast, Paradela to the northeast, Guntumil and Requiás to the west and Calvos de Randín to the north. The Salas, a Spanish tributary of the river Limia, runs to the west, bordering the village in its northern limits. The village is 60km from
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______________________________________________________________ Chaves, 150 kilometres from Porto, 500km from Lisbon and about 1km from Galicia. For a long time Tourém kept a privileged relation with a small autonomous enclave called Couto Misto. Couto Misto was a small protectorate situated in the north-western Galician-Portuguese border, comprising three hamlets: Santiago de Rubiás, Rubiás and Meaus. According to Costa, the Couto Misto of Rubiás was ‘a privileged land, with partial or total fiscal tax exemption, with its own jurisdictional law and exemption from the military service.’35 The population of the Couto Misto ranged between 600 and 1000 inhabitants.36 They were administratively dependent on the Alcaide of Tourém and religiously related to the diocese of Ourense (since the fifteenth century). The inhabitants could choose between Portuguese or Spanish nationalities. On one’s wedding day, those who opted to be Portuguese cheered the Portuguese King with a glass of wine and engraved a P (Portugal) in their houses and those who opted to be Spanish would cheer the Spanish King and engraved a G (Galicia) in their houses. This act represented a symbolic tribute either to the Duke of Bragança (the Portuguese) or to the Count of Monterrey (the Galician). A local judge administrated civil issues. The judge was elected by the inhabitants of the Couto Misto and confirmed by the Judge-in-Law of Montalegre (on behalf of the Duke of Bragança). As regards criminal actions, Portuguese citizens had to be judged by the Portuguese general law and Spanish citizens by the Spanish general law. The Couto had special privileges, in particular the right of asylum: the Spanish and the Portuguese authorities could not arrest those who sought refuge inside the Couto, even criminals (except murderers and thieves).37 Between these villages and Tourém there was a neutral road (caminho privilegiado) of 5km that crossed the boundaries of Randín, in which anyone could trade. Contraband of goods was allowed inside this neutral road. The Spanish carabineiros could not arrest people from Tourém who travelled to the Couto Misto on that road and the Portuguese guards could not arrest any Galician people. The annexation of the Couto Misto by the Spanish state occurred formally on July 8th 1868. This fact meant the formal extinction of the privileges that Tourém kept with the three Galician villages. From a strictly political perspective, The Treaty of Lisbon (Tratado de Fronteiras) signed between Portugal and Spain in 1864 ended a long history of autonomy of the Couto Misto. The neutral road was extinguished and Tourém lost its exceptional position in respect to commercial transactions with Galicia. Meanwhile Tourém remained a parish of Ourense until 1883. In 1880 there were 590 inhabitants and 130 houses in Tourém. In 1890 the population decreased to 550 residents; however more significant was the presence of 21 foreigners in the village. Tourém was the village in
Living Between Nation-States and Nature 174 ______________________________________________________________ Montalegre borough with the highest number of non-Portuguese residents. This fact was justified by the close proximity with Galicia and the privileged position in the border. The geographic position of Tourém explains, too, the important role of the village during the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). Many families hid Galician fugitives in their houses. Quoting Luís Soto, a refugee who was hidden in Tourém, Cruz reveals, ‘in 1937 the village had 40 households and 80 refugees.’38 Most of them worked together with their Portuguese neighbours in agricultural tasks. In 1965 a Spanish electrical company started the construction of the dam in the river Salas, inside the territorial limits of Tourém. Villagers negotiated the best crop fields and meadows in the Portuguese Veiga (the most fertile fields on the margins of the river) with the Spanish company. The process was complex and locals were paid below the price negotiated with the Galician villagers. The construction of the dam signified the loss of the best fields, and, at the time, the scarcity of available rural properties reduced any chance of new acquisitions. The monetary compensation received by the local government body (Junta de Freguesia) was invested in some basic infrastructures, namely the electrical, water and sewerage public systems. In the sixties emigration reached its peak. Many people left, encouraging the stagnation of the village and the deceleration of its transforming possibilities, especially the agricultural sector. One of the main implications was the feminisation of the agriculture; i.e. many women assumed the farming tasks and virtually became the heads of the householdfarms while men left to work permanently or seasonally in Lisbon, France and other regions. On April 22nd 1991, the international passage was open, connecting the village with Calvos de Randín through a municipal road. The frontier post was originally open for twelve hours - 9am to 9pm. The new international passage eased life in the village, especially during wintertime. Today, after the frontier was definitively open (since 1995 the passage is completely free), the movement of persons and goods seems to favour the Galician side. Manuel’s explanation about the bad condition of the right lane of the international road Montalegre-Galicia is curious; he says ‘it’s because of the Spanish trucks . . . they enter Portugal loaded with Spanish products to sell in Portuguese markets . . . and they return empty because the Spanish don’t buy Portuguese products . . . they are more expensive!’ This remark, formulated ingenuously, identifies a structural factor that not only explains the bad condition of the road surface but it can also be extended to a more global phenomenon: the commercial trade balance between the two countries favours Spain. On a micro-scale, local villagers divide their shopping between Galician markets and stores in Xinzo de Limia, and Portuguese markets in Montalegre and Chaves where they trade in cattle. On the Portuguese side they also have to deal with bureaucratic issues (banks). On the other hand, the
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______________________________________________________________ village receives Galician visitors who come to eat and drink in the local cafés, especially to taste the white wine and the bacalhau (codfish that is bought in Galician supermarkets) and to buy clothes, textiles and the brandy (aguardente) whose selling was banned in Spain. This micro-economy in the frontier has subsisted for years due to the proximity between neighbouring peoples, not only in cultural terms but also through kinship and friendship ties that overcome the political and administrative borders. In fact the geography of the area is crucial to understand local history and the close relation of the village, and of many others in the Portuguese northern frontier, with Galicia. From the time of the Couto Misto, a special relation was preserved and even reinforced during the political and military dictatorships of Salazar/Caetano in Portugal (1928-1974) and Franco in Spain (1939-1975). In particular, during the Spanish Civil War and World War II, poverty and scarcity characterised life in these villages. The solution found by these populations was to create and maintain, until 1995 (when the police controlled border was deactivated), a network of small-scale smugglers that nurtured a sort of hidden economy. Today, as in the past, Tourém keeps a special neighbouring relationship with the Galician villages. The histories of these villages are intimately related. In a recent past, famine and poverty united these villages more than had promoted any nationalistic desire of aggression and separation. As Freud reminded us, neighbouring peoples act accordingly with the action of each other.39 If my neighbour is good to me, I will be good to my neighbour. The history of Galicia (Spain) and Trás-os-Montes (Portugal) in this specific location had moments of mutual aggression in the past, but consensus and solidarities have predominated. This supports a global argument: trans-national regions are not an invention of present-day policies (of common policies promoted by the EU and whose specific impact in this particular region was the creation of the Euro-region Galicia-Norte de Portugal in 1991) but emerges from a shared history and geography. As Peter Sahlins stressed, the symbolic and cultural relationships between peoples are more durable than any political disposition or treaty.40 6. Beyond Written Histories: Experiences of a Shared Environment At this point one should refer to a peasant way of life individuals on the two sides of the border shared in the past. I recorded particular stories in which personal narratives convey an idea of similarity of material living conditions. Poverty, scarcity and the need to emigrate were rooted in a shared (social and natural) environment in which nature conditions (resources – or an ecological reason) were decisive factors (access to land for farming, for pastures, for wood; the geomorphologic traits of a mountainous territory; harsh cold winters) that impelled human beings to explore border relations in
Living Between Nation-States and Nature 176 ______________________________________________________________ creative forms – such as contraband, punctual (Portuguese men who work in the Galician forests) or seasonal migrations (Portuguese and Galician men who worked in Lisbon’s docks). The idea that I want to introduce here is one that does not limit but acknowledges the interpretation of a communal past (shared by Portuguese and Galician individuals) based also on biophysical and material dimensions of that ‘other’ time. In fact, the individuals of my research refer to particular experiences (and perceptions) of a lived environment. Portuguese and Galician individuals shared a common nature environment (that is also, as for instance Milton41and Ingold42 shows us, culturally and socially determined as a thing and as interpretation of the world). Waterfalls, meadows, cows, bulls, chestnut trees, oaks trees, sheep, goat, granite houses, wolves and wild boars, forms of making agriculture, of herding the cattle ‘made’ similar Galician and Portuguese individuals whose biographic trajectories make dissimilar. However these trajectories of differentiation refer not to those original locations (that particular international borderland) but to their life experiences out of them (in Lisbon, Brazil, Madrid, Barcelona). Notwithstanding the fact that individuals, as I argued above, construct their interpretations of contexts and of the past according to their own social and physical positioning(s) that are not equal and similar in and over time. The importance of environment and landscape as constitutive elements of the construction processes of national identities are identified in several studies. As concerns Portugal (the Northern part) and Galicia I mention the work of Medeiros43 and Rodríguez Campos.44 Regarding Galicia, either by identification between the two regions or by opposition with the coloniser Spain, represented as concerns the flora by the pine tree and the eucalypt, natural elements are seen emically as icons of cultural and national identities. Some of these natural elements (for instance chestnut and oak trees) pervade the literature45 and the everyday life discourses of Galician nationalists,46 despite the fact that productive and economic logics explain the recent patrimonial valuing of natural protected areas. Reasons behind the creation of national cultural and natural places are not so much the cumuli of an historical experience and the celebration as in the Galician case of an original and primordial (better saying imagined and idealised past) country (and culture) but new economic, moral and ethic paradigms which see nature as a valuable thing to protect. In my work I refer to a peasant aesthetic in which individuals on the two sides took part.47 I mention a poetic image in which individuals cultivated the fields, lived in those granite villages by experiencing and socially constructing and interpreting a similar life (they looked around and they realised they were equals by their physical traits and by what they saw). As Milton states ‘[p]erceptions emerge, not only out of what we do with and towards objects in our environment but also out of what they do to us.’48
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______________________________________________________________ The National Park Peneda-Gerês (Portugal) was created in 1971. The Park improved some local infrastructure and extended the farming area (a process welcomed by the local populations). However, after 1974, the material impact on the life of the local populations has been almost nonexistent and this has been a crucial claim of local inhabitants. Now, due to a small overall budget, the Park cannot manage a good balance between human habitats, agricultural spaces and nature resources. New equilibriums are needed; new forms of development based on rural tourism and transfrontier cooperation with Galicia are crucial to profit from nature and the cultural resources of the park. In July 1997, the trans-frontier park PenedaGerês/Baixo Limia-Serra do Xurés was created. The idea was to reinforce cooperation between border communities and coordinate a common environmental policy between the two countries in which a sustainable development is recognised; i.e. in which clean and green-agriculture is integrated in the local economic development as the needed step to preserve small-scale family agriculture in these marginal rural areas, assuring as well the preservation of a unique environment and wild habitat that cross-cuts the territory of the two countries. This form of cooperation reflects the international acknowledgment that nature preservation should be regarded transversally, as a global issue, in spite of the existence of national borders, and rediscovers cultural affinities between the two sides of the border. 7.)inal Remarks However, theTuestionLsQotDnymoreSlacedLnWermsRfWKDWRriginal time of a shared environment between Portuguese and Galician individuals. The admission of Portugal and Spain in the EU (former EEC) in 1986, and distinct economic, political and social histories of the two countries after long dictatorships led into a new context (and also a new environment) in which these ‘similar’ individuals (in the sense of non antagonistic relations between citizens of the two countries – as I have said persons are individually different) start to realise that they were/are (finally) becoming different (tax systems, schooling, social welfare, cultural offering, health services) – specially after the physical borders have disappeared. These macro factors have had, in fact, a strong impact locally. For instance, family agriculture has almost disappeared in the Galician villages around Tourém and even the granite houses on the two sides that one could find equal in the past have been, mostly in the Galician side, refurbished into ‘everywhere’ houses. The border is now installed as a perceived thing (environment) when, in the past, individuals feel their similarities as peasants who shared experiences of and with their environment (despite the presence of physical structures that signalled the authority of the two states). Again, one cannot forget the scale of observation; nevertheless, borders and frontiers are by sure not only politically drawn but, above all, lived as experiences.
Living Between Nation-States and Nature 178 ______________________________________________________________ The whole issue of the theoretical place of the individual in anthropology is also very unresolved. I am sure that I have not reached a conclusion in this text. I tried to illuminate the debate, in particular claiming ‘close-up’ approaches that must take into account, as privileged interlocutors, other individuals as subjective ‘others’. I am referring to unknown men and women who make their social actions and contribute firstly to their own histories (with many particular stories) and, secondly, to the great historical narratives and with whom we have to dialogue when producing science of citizenship.
Notes 1
Personal names presented in this chapter are all fictitious. The International border between Portugal and Spain (900 km) may be defined by its relative stability over the last 800 years. There are historical records of various micro scale territorial conflicts and still some zones of dispute (Olivença, south-eastern border, is the most well-known case). Historically in terms of the political (monarchic) relations between Portugal and Spain at the macro scale of the conflict there was some wars and between 1580 and 1640 Portugal lived under the dominance of the Spanish crown. 3 Not referring necessarily to the most broadcasted ones, Pamela Ballinger, for instance, makes it clear in reference to the Julian March in the border zone between Italy, Slovenia and Croatia (2003). 4 Lavrador is a local and self designation. The word ‘lavrador’ comes from the Portuguese verb ‘lavrar’ (to till the soil); lavradores are those who till the soil. In terms of social category designates those farmers (and families) with small-scale subsistence farming/cattle-raising with one/two market-oriented products. Presently calves are the only traded production at a market scale. 5 By adopting a designation proposed by Fischer (2007). 6 MM Fischer, ‘Epilogue: To Live with What would Otherwise Be Unendurable’, Subjectivity – Ethnographic Investigations, J Biehl, et. al. (eds), University of California Press, Berkeley, 2007pp. 423-446. 7 Adapted from HDS Martins, Will the Rocks Crumble one Day? Past and Present in the Portuguese Galician Frontier: Border Relations and Memories, PhD dissertation, University of Manchester, 2005. P. 135. 8 In the sense proposed by Wilson and Donnan: ‘territorial zones of varying width which stretch across and away from borders, within which people negotiate a variety of behaviours and meanings associated with their membership in nations and states.’ 9 See, for instance, N Shepper-Hughes, 2007. 10 As if they ever had. I am not sure that they have been once bounded and closed entities. The conception of bounded and closed communities follows a long theoretical tradition that remounts conventionally to Durkheim’s work; 2
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______________________________________________________________ notwithstanding the fact that even Durkheim had never closed his theoretical door to the potential future of modern societies relying increasingly on less agreed and communal values and more on individualistic frameworks. Community studies on rural settings in the last forty years have precisely been questioning the ‘unitary principle’ or the ‘mechanical solidarity’ that theoretically were used to characterise small peasant villages before. 11 See Comaroff (1992), Sahlins (2005) and Pina-Cabral and Lydall (2008). 12 Z Bauman, A vida fragmentada – ensaios sobre a moral pós-moderna, Relógio D’Água, Lisboa, 2007. 13 P Rabinow, ‘Anthropological Observation and Self-Formation’, J Biehl et. al. (eds), Subjectivity – Ethnographic Investigations, University of California Press, Berkeley, 2007, pp. 99. 14 Fischer, op. cit. 15 A Kuper (ed), Conceptualizing Society, Routledge, London and New York, 1992, p.4. 16 J Pina-Cabral & J Lydall, ‘Larger Truths and Deeper Understandings’ (Debate Section), Social Anthropology, Vol. 16, 3, 2008, pp.346-355. 17 J Fabian, Memory against Culture: Arguments and Reminders, Duke University Press, Durham and London, 2007. 18 T Wilson & H Donnan, Border Identities: Nation and State at International Frontiers, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1998. p. 26. 19 In fact, there is a growing trend (obsession), certainly stimulated by new approaches on the concept of immaterial cultural patrimony by UNESCO and subsequent impacts on national and international cultural politics (inscribed in the EU in important funding programmes), with classification and patrimonialization of what are considered the ‘elementary immaterial traits’ of regions, nations, and more or less identifiable (invented) belongings. 20 S Brandes, ‘Estudo Antropolóxico das Fronteiras: Problemas e Perspectivas’, Lindeiros da Galeguidade – II (Simposio de Antropoloxía), F de Rota et. al.(eds), Consello Cultura Galega, 1993, pp.27-33. 21 Michael Jackson shows this phenomenon quite clearly with the example of Serra Leoa migrants in London. 22 Brandes, loc. cit. 23 See, for instance, the historical ethnography of P Sahlins (1989) or M Kearney’s research on the Mexico-USA border (1996). 24 I think of critical reflection the high rates of absenteeism in the elections for the European Parliament (in Portugal around two thirds of the voters have not participated in the June 2009 election). An argument on the discredit of the Portuguese politicians is normally produced, plus the idea that EU issues are too distant from the everyday life matters; yet I think that it is the whole
Living Between Nation-States and Nature 180 ______________________________________________________________ idea of Europe that should be assessed. Even as concerns the Lisbon Treaty there was a political imposition of a general consensus. 25 HH Nolte, Internal Peripheries in European History, Muster-Schmidt Verllag, Göttingen and Zurich, 1991. 26 Wilson and Donnan, op. cit., p.25. 27 In fact, this is one of the main topics of the so-called haptic forms of knowledge (the tactile epistemologies) in which visual anthropology, for instance, has become more and more rooted. 28 J Biehl et. al. (eds), Subjectivity – Ethnographic Investigations, University of California Press, Berkeley, 2007. 29 D Freire, E Rovisco & I Fonseca, Contrabando na Fronteira LusoEspanhola – Práticas, Memórias e Patrimónios, Edições Nelson de Matos, Lisboa, 2009. 30 P Godinho, ‘Fronteira, ditaduras ibéricas e acontecimentos localizados – O manto espesso de silêncio sobre dois momentos’, Intersecções Ibéricas: Margens, Passagens e Fronteiras, Cunha, Manuela e Cunha, Luís (orgs.), 90 graus editora, Lisboa, 2007, pp. 55-70. 31 Martins, loc. cit. 32 Nigel Rapport, Transcendent Individual – Towards a Literary and Liberal Anthropology, Routledge, London and New York, 1997. 33 B Lahire ’From the Habitus to an individual heritage of dispositions. Towards a sociology at the level of the individual’, Poetics, 31, 2003, pp. 329-355. 34 Adapted from Martins, op. cit. 35 J Gonçalves da Costa; Montalegre e Terras de Barroso, Vol. I, Câmara Municipal de Montalegre, 1987 (2ª edição). 36 LMG Mañá, Couto Mixto – Unha República Esquecida, Universidade de Vigo, Vigo, 2000. 37 See Costa (1987) and Mañá (2000). 38 B da Cruz, Guerrilheiros Antifranquistas em Trás-os-Montes, Barrosana EM, Montalegre, 2003, P. 7. 39 S Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents, Hogarth Press, London, 1951 (1930). 40 P Sahlins, Boundaries- The Making of France and Spain in the Pyrenees, University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles, Oxford, 1991 (1989). 41 K Milton, ‘Anthropomorphism or Egomorphism? The Perception of NonHuman Persons by Human Ones’, Animals in Person: Cultural Perspectives on Animal-Human Intimacy, J Knight (ed), Berg, Oxford & New York, 2005, pp. 255-271. 42 T Ingold, ‘Hunting and Gathering as Ways of Perceiving the Environment’, Redefining Nature: Ecology, Culture and Domestication, E Roy & F Katsuyoshi (eds), Berg, Washington and Oxford, 1996, pp. 117-155.
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A Medeiros, ‘Emergent Iconographies: Regional Identity and Rural Icons in Northwestern Iberia’, Etnográfica, Vol. IX (1), 2005, pp. 65-80. 44 J Rodríguez Campos, ‘¿También se puede inventar la naturaleza? El poder del lenguaje de la cultura posmoderna.’, Etnográfica, Vol. III, No. 1, 1999, pp. 49-70. 45 Medeiros, loc. cit. 46 Rodríguez Campos, loc. cit. 47 Martins, loc. cit. 48 Milton, op. cit, p. 268.
Bibliography Ballinger, P., History in Exile – Memory and Identity at the Borders of the Balkans. Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford, 2003. Bauman, Z., A vida fragmentada – ensaios sobre a moral pós-moderna. Relógio D’Água, Lisboa, 2007. Biehl, J., Good, B. & Kleinman, A. (eds), Subjectivity – Ethnographic Investigations. University of California Press, Berkeley, 2007. Brandes, S., ‘Estudo Antropolóxico das Fronteiras: Problemas e Perspectivas’. Lindeiros da Galeguidade. II (Simposio de Antropoloxía). de Rota, F. et. al. (eds), Consello Cultura Galega, 1993, pp. 27-33. Comaroff, J., Ethnography and the Historical Imagination. Westview Press, Boulder, San Francisco & Oxford, 1992. Costa, J.G. da; Montalegre e Terras de Barroso. Vol. I, Câmara Municipal de Montalegre, 1987 (2ª edição). Cruz, B. da; Guerrilheiros Antifranquistas em Trás-os-Montes. Barrosana EM, Montalegre, 2003. Fabian, J., Memory against Culture: Arguments and Reminders. Duke University Press, Durham and London, 2007. Fischer, M.M., ‘Epilogue: To Live with What would Otherwise Be Unendurable’. Subjectivity – Ethnographic Investigations. Biehl, J. et. al. (eds), University of California Press, Berkeley, 2007pp. 423-446.
Living Between Nation-States and Nature 182 ______________________________________________________________ Freire, D., Rovisco, E. & Fonseca, I., Contrabando na Fronteira LusoEspanhola – Práticas, Memórias e Patrimónios. Edições Nelson de Matos, Lisboa, 2009. Freud, S., Civilization and its Discontents. Hogarth Press, London, 1951 (1930). Godinho, P., ‘Fronteira, ditaduras ibéricas e acontecimentos localizados – O manto espesso de silêncio sobre dois momentos’. Intersecções Ibéricas: Margens, Passagens e Fronteiras. Cunha, Manuela e Cunha, Luís (orgs.), 90 graus editora, Lisboa, 2007, pp. 55-70. Kuper, A. (ed), Conceptualizing Society. Routledge, London and New York, 1992. Ingold, T., ‘Hunting and Gathering as Ways of Perceiving the Environment’. Redefining Nature: Ecology, Culture and Domestication. Ellen, R. & Fukui, K. (eds), Berg, Washington and Oxford, 1996, pp. 117-155. Jackson, M., ‘The Shock of the New: On Migrant Imaginaries and Critical Transitions’. Ethnos. Vol. 73:1, 2008, pp. 57-72. Kearney, M., Reconceptualizing the Peasantry: Anthropology in Global Perspective. Westview Press, Colorado and Oxford, 1996. Lahire, B., ’From the Habitus to an Individual Heritage of Dispositions: Towards a Sociology at the Level of the Individual’. Poetics. Vol. 31, 2003, pp. 329-355. Martins, H, Will the Rocks Crumble one Day? Past and Present in the Portuguese Galician Frontier: Border Relations and Memories. PhD dissertation, University of Manchester, 2005. Medeiros, A., ‘Emergent Iconographies: Regional Identity and Rural Icons in Northwestern Iberia’. Etnográfica. Vol. IX (1), 2005, pp. 65-80. Mañá, L.M.G., Couto Mixto – Unha República Esquecida. Universidade de Vigo, Vigo, 2000.
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______________________________________________________________ Milton, K., ‘Anthropomorphism or Egomorphism? The Perception of NonHuman Persons by Human Ones’. Animals in Person: Cultural Perspectives on Animal-Human Intimacy. Knight, J. (ed), Berg, Oxford, New York, 2005. Nolte, H.H., Internal Peripheries in European History. Muster-Schmidt Verllag, Göttingen and Zurich, 1991. Pina-Cabral, J. & Lydall, J., ‘Larger Truths and Deeper Understandings (Debate Section)’. Social Anthropology. Vol. 16, 3, 2008, pp.346-355. Rabinow, P., ‘Anthropological Observation and Self-Formation’. Subjectivity – Ethnographic Investigations. Biehl, J. et. al. (eds), University of California Press, Berkeley, 2007pp. 98-118 Rapport, N., Transcendent Individual: Towards a Literary and Liberal Anthropology. Routledge, London and New York, 1997. Campos, J.R., ‘¿También se puede inventar la naturaleza? El poder del lenguaje de la cultura posmoderna.’. Etnográfica. Vol. III, No. 1, 1999, pp. 49-70. Sahlins, M., ‘Structural Work: How Microhistories become Macrohistories and Vice Versa’. Anthropological Theory. Vol. 5 (1), 2005, pp.5-30. Sahlins, P., Boundaries: The Making of France and Spain in the Pyrenees. University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles, Oxford, 1991. Schepper-Hughes, N., ‘Violence and the Politics of Remorse: Lessons from South Africa’. Subjectivity – Ethnographic Investigations. Biehl, J. et. al. (eds), University of California Press, Berkeley, 2007pp. 179-233. Wilson, T. & Donnan, H., Border Identities: Nation and State at International Frontiers. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1998. Humberto Dos Santos Martins is a Professor at the Universidade de Trásos-Montes e Alto Douro (Portugal) and an integrated researcher at CRIA. While interested in studies on international frontiers, social memory, visual anthropology, anthropology of the individuals, currently he is researching on human-nature relations: conflicts and environmental perception in natural protected areas.
Empowering Gypsies and Applied Anthropology Elisabetta Di Giovanni Abstract This work focuses on the case study of the nomad camp of Palermo, in southern Italy, where Roma Cergara and Roma Xoraxane have been living for twenty-five years, in ghetto-like conditions. This camp represents a world outside the city, or rather a confined microcosm, without any interrelationship with the outside world. Moving ethnic minority groups from poverty to social inclusion represents a very difficult challenge. Moreover, since these communities are used to arrange themselves through an economy that is borderline between an underground economy and a subsistence economy, sometimes helped with assistance attitudes of external social actors, the way towards community action is slow and tormented. However, Community Psychology and Applied Anthropology contribute to reach empowerment, in the sense of facilitating the access of Gypsy people to the knowledge and tools of the major society. Key Words: Community psychology, maternage, peer advocacy.
gypsy empowerment,
social
***** 1.
Roma Communities’ Coping in Palermo Illegal immigration is an ordinary phenomenon in Europe. The indistinctive category of ‘Gypsies’ or ‘nomads’, in Italy especially, is the most feared in the collective imaginary. As result, Roma people are seen like a whole negative ethnic group to keep aside. Mass media contribute to spread this wrong and monocular idea in society, making the development of survival strategies more difficult for them. In Palermo, as in many other Italian cities, there is a Roma settlement, called ‘la Favorita’, located near the stadium, within an area designated a natural reserve, where they live in conditions of extreme degradation. In 2007, The Roma camp has killed again. The condition in which Gypsies (Kosovars, Serbs and Montenegrins) are left abandoned, for over twenty years in the field, has killed Vera, a Montenegrin woman. In fact, after three days of agony in hospital, the doctors were not able to understand the reason for continuous bleeding and then the state of her coma. Vera died in a rainy evening, while in the camp, between puddles and rats, men, women and children who had waited in vain for news of her amelioration, lighted a fire around which to celebrate the wake. Vera’s death, the more unfair because apparently inexplicable, is only the latest of several deaths due to environmental factors occurring within the so-called Gypsy
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______________________________________________________________ camp. They are usually called nomads but they are not nomads; they were born and grew up in Palermo, they can no longer return to their countries of origin. Moreover they are kept in a state of perpetual exclusion from immigration laws so unjust as inapplicable to Roma, and arbitrary administrative practices that are increasingly slow. Also if Italy has been condemned by the European organisations for the housing conditions in which Roma are forced, local governments do not take concrete measures and are not responsible. Usually local administrators request the intervention of the police for enforcement action only, forgetting that the condition of many Roma irregularities is the result of the perverse link that the Bossi-Fini law has established between the contract and work permit residence, as well as the substantial denial of the right to stay for asylum, humanitarian protection, for health reasons or in the interests of the child. When the Roma are entitled to a residence permit, their practices are completed at last. The requirement to renew a short term increases the number of people who lose the right to renew the permit. Segregated into camps of large Italian cities, and beyond, the European Roma often live in inhuman conditions without water, electricity and toilets, forced to beg on the streets for a daily sustenance: as directly observed, twenty euros is the minimum to gather per day. In 2000, some Roma were expelled from Rome and then compensated by the Berlusconi government after the intervention of the European Court of Human Rights. Local institutions periodically threaten the transfer of the camp, as a forced deportation, but without proposing concrete solutions shared by the local population and the Roma themselves. Today Italy continues to deny Roma and Sinti application of the European Charter on ethnic and linguistic minorities that protect minority languages; moreover the Italian government denies the Framework Convention for National Minorities. The frequent expulsion order issued by mayors and governors deny the right to residence, the right to work, health and school. Interventions of integration and support in favour of Roma communities living in camps, which now threaten to ‘relocate’ them beyond the boundaries of the town walls, are very poor or weak. All this historical-social intersection lead Gypsies to constitute an ethnic minority that has been so oppressed and persecuted to the point that they have acquired a strong spirit of survival, employing approaches and strategies that help them to ‘adapt’ to the host society in which they are guests. The Roma settlement of Palermo is located in an area of the natural park of the Favorita (the ‘Real Parco della Favorita’, conceived by Ferdinand III of Bourbon at the end of the 1700s), at the foot of Monte Pellegrino, both declared natural reserves since 1995. There were originally three communities cohabiting in this camp: Kosovars of Muslim religion, the Christian Orthodox Serbs and the Christian Orthodox Montenegrins, but the
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______________________________________________________________ latter abandoned the city in September 2008. All the families seem to be happily settled for about 20 years, with only occasional nomadic ventures, linked to specific events such as baptisms, circumcisions, weddings, funerals, religious feasts etc., during which whole families are reunited. The environmental and social conditions of degradation, also due to the war that convulsed the Balkans (Kosovo and Serbia), represent the basis for the breakup of the Roma communities in Palermo. They lived in the same ghetto in three adjacent areas, distinctly separated from each other, inhabited by Muslims of Kosovo, Serbian Orthodox Serbs and Montenegrins respectively. Nowadays many Kosovar families are slowly going away, leaving an unsustainable ghost existence. The worst thing for this people is to leave their parental group, which usually holds more than one or two nuclear families. The most important religious event is Herdelezi cult, celebrated on May 6th, the Day of Saint George. On that occasion, many Roma families come from Germany, France ore Belgium for a three-day celebration. It represents a moment of short reunification, during which second migrant generation youth dramatically suffer their shift between social-economic welfare in a European state and psychological malaise due to affective lack. They accept to live distant from their parents (and Italy, their mother country) in order to guarantee minimal living conditions for their children and for themselves, with the awareness that unifying the enlarged family is quite impossible. This means that passing the metaphysical frontier is worse than crossing the physical one. In fact, they know they can come back, for limited short periods, and reunite the original family. This piece of time corresponds to festive days, while ordinary time is longer and external to the origin. In this perspective, they live like on a temporal binary, strictly linked to the festive/normal time alternation. This situation leads us to Humberto Martins claims made in this volume. Based on recent literature, with regard to a Galician and Portuguese frontier case study, he argues that borders and frontiers are at the same time real and imagined and lived/experienced entities. We can compare them to a form of creating and created meaning over social realities, ever and ever contested and negotiated all over time and space. In this theoretical framework, according to Martins, it is necessary to discover a contemporary scientific anthropology in order to know individual diversities and pluralism that give sense to our lives. In conclusion, he clearly notices that defining borders and frontiers as multi-layered realities means that they need to be addressed by different angles.1 2.
Between Practice and Intervention Strategies With regard to intercultural pluralism and dissimilarities as urgent contemporary society issues, I focused my ethnographic research on Montenegrin Roma Cergara and Kosovo Roma Xoraxanè firstly in order to
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______________________________________________________________ study their negotiation of identity with local people when they leave the camp-ghetto and interact with Italian autochthonous called gage (i.e. nonRoma individual); secondly, in order to seize as these ethnic minority groups may start a self-determination process to ameliorate their human well-being by recognizing human dignity, legal rights and a way to social-economic inclusion and a better quality of life. Referring to this second aim, the scientific debate about conceptualising well being, especially in Europe, moved from the idea of poverty or multiple deprivation (both defined with objective criteria and self perception) as a static, distributional condition or outcome. More recently, poverty encompasses multiple issues strictly linked to marginalization both social and economic. According to Beck et al., social quality must be considered as explicated in four ontological conditions of the social: (i) socio-economic security with a fairer distribution of wealth; (ii) inclusion in political and economic systems referred to the enhancement of the rights of citizens; (iii) cohesion which implies an interdependent moral contract and solidarity; (iv) empowerment, that is the realization of human competencies and capabilities in order to fully participate in social, economic political and cultural processes.2 Many authors argue that the interrelationship of these elements can be set at a supra-national level but it is necessary to interrelate them at the community level too. This last, in fact, is ‘the elucidation of difference and unique self-identity’.3 In my research, I found that on one hand local people have ethnic prejudices towards Gypsies but, on the other hand, Gypsies have prejudices towards non-Roma subjects due to historical persecution, also if they are more friendly once they know more deeply a gage. This double representation remarks the frequent closing attitude by Roma communities, when local administrators and policy makers tend to ignore their needs. Alexander developed a pattern of host-stranger relationships, which provides an interesting theoretical framework; after studying in detail various local action plans aimed at immigrants in many cities, he has refined two methodological tools applicable to any context, in order to assess the feasibility and the possible effectiveness of local policies: Labour migrant settlement requires more than just ‘problem solving’ in areas such housing or the job market. It often requires a redefinition of the nature of the city as a local society, based on varying attitudes towards the presence of these Strangers. The local authority may regard labour migrants as a passing phenomenon best ignored, as a threat to stability, or as an opportunity for change in neighbourhoods or in the city as a whole (…). These attitudes and assumptions are expressed by local authorities in often seemingly disconnected such as neighbourhood
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______________________________________________________________ renewal, vocational training and provision of municipal services.4 According to Alexander, we can distinguish two ordering schemes: policy domains and policy alternatives. The first cover four thematic areas: legal-political, socio-economic, cultural-religious and spatial. The legalpolitical domain intimates immigrants’ or ethnic minorities’ inclusion in the local conurbation. Specifically, it provides migrants with civic status, consultative structures for migrants and the municipality’s relationship to migrant associations and mobilization. The socio-economic domain includes a greater number of local policy areas, such as social services, education and integration in the labour market. The cultural-religious domain concerns policies related to the recognition of the migrants’ otherness. Unfortunately the attitude of local authorities towards ethnic minorities generally ranges from abandonment to despair and, occasionally, to support. Lastly, the spatial domain development concerns housing policies and symbolic use of urban space (i.e. mosques). The second ordering scheme focuses on five types of policy reaction, each expressing a different attitude or intervention by the local municipality (in these four coordinates) with regard to the migrants. This intersection gives rise to: the transient attitude, characterised by non-policy towards migrants; the guest-worker attitude, characterised by short-term solutions, in which the presence of the migrant population is acknowledged but considered temporary; the assimilationist attitude, where immigration is a permanent phenomenon, but the diversity will eventually disappear, discouraging public displays of ethnic and religious difference; the pluralist attitude, the otherness of immigrants is recognized, thus ethnicity is considered a positive integration factor for migrant inclusion and for the city considered as a whole; the empowerment of communities is a goal achieved through a process of simultaneous synergy between social actors and native hosts; the intercultural attitude, logged over the last ten years, without regressing to the assimilationist attitude; the intercultural vision of inclusion stresses the need for the common growth of a multiethnic city. It represents a reaction to pluralist policies, where the risk is to overemphasize the ethniccommunitarian element, perpetuating stigmatisation and segregation. After four years of participatory observation, I applied Alexander’s model in order to analyse the conditions of the Roma people. After a series of qualitative interviews, I noted that the local municipality preferred to adopt a combination of transient and guest worker attitude. Mention must certainly be made of the important role assumed by the operators of services devoted to the migrant population. They have to mediate between institutional arrangements and migrants’ multiform needs in their specificity, and so, their function is crucial and interpretative.5 They are real social entrepreneurs, to
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______________________________________________________________ be understood not only as responsible for third sector initiatives, but as a broader category of players able to move in finding a balance between public service and business logic, between solidarity and professional ethics. With regard to this, another closely connected concept is that of street-level bureaucracy, i.e. the expansion of that effort and openness of inclusive policies, through the discretionary classification of cases and application choices.6 According to this hypothesis, operators can act by applying discretion, interpretive abilities and by reducing the authoritarian profile. The immigration practitioners, therefore, form a community capable of providing, first of all, ‘a network of support and a point of reference for the migrant (bewildered by definition) and the other a sort of social shock absorber which contributes to a more fluid and less confrontational insertion of foreign nationals in our social and economic fabric’.7 In the specific case of the city of Palermo, as well as other Italian cities, it must be stressed that nomadism no longer characterizes Roma communities. Another element of considerable importance is that the social inclusion of Roma cannot be treated singly; we need to analyze not only group membership, but the material context in which they move. The European Union has defined the Roma people as an interventional priority in defining approaches, policies and lines of financing. Inclusive practices must be devised, starting with an inventory of needs and responsibilities, setting up communities dealing with employment and housing (in fact, many of these depressing areas are on the outskirts, often, in the proximity of waste ground). Meanwhile, representatives of the immigrant community (respecting their hierarchical structure), should be prepared for the implications of having a right to citizenship with its accompanying duties for all resident citizens: compliance with laws, rejection of theft and begging as a means of livelihood. From Social Maternage to Peer Advocacy and Empowerment I focused on a predominant issue among Roma communities that, referring to their underground economy, I call the Roma welfare system. Because of the significantly disadvantaged socio-economic conditions and low expectations regarding their future life, the Roma have developed a high level of adaptation and have also introduced a vicious circle welfare system, nourished by the host society, for basic and other necessities. This system is known to predominate and stands out as the main way to empowerment. This does take time and support, but often, the emergencies of everyday life force the most willing to fall back on a life of almost total dependence on others. To better understand who takes care of the Gypsies, I have chosen the metaphor of the vortex. Many entities, public or private organizations and volunteers move around the camp, representing a specific point of reference for the members of the Roma communities. Of course, a specific role must be acknowledged in the Social Service Office for Children (USSM), which, 3.
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______________________________________________________________ since 1993, has been coordinating a round table of inter-institutional cooperation. From qualitative interviews conducted with some social workers, many interesting points emerged regarding the relationship between female doctors or social workers and Roma women. Confirming the previously mentioned theoretical points, there arose the question of networking between agencies/public services and tackling professional tasks: Here we are dealing with a special type of patients, with many problems, how can you not bother? Through access to Roma camp, twice a week, we have obviously created a relationship of trust between the Roma and us, not only of a medical or preventive kind (Woman, Doctor, Palermo Immigrants and Travellers Ambulatory). Doctors or nurses who visit the camp become, in their turn, an interface for institutions. The concept of prevention and medical care has not yet been entirely grasped by Roma women, but persons interviewed say it is important that there is an active request and participation on the part of the Roma. The case-study shows that the interviewed operators don’t use a maternal attitude, which sometime can affect and operator’s professional action in psychological environment. The relationship with the professional is instituted from the moment in which the demand is expressed by one ore more subjects, who expose difficulties they would see resolved or projects they wish to realize with the same professional man’s help. Maternage is a French term that points to the whole of functions that concern the mother role. The expression social maternage refers to the transposition of this role, with is related skills, to the social intervention. In the application of mother functions in the social context, the risk that typical traits of social maternage evidently degenerate in their negative side. Maternage is made up of several traits that settle it: nursing, education, relationship, authoritativeness, recreation. Thanks to the nursing, we take care of people who need, answering with dedication to needs of people in filial position. But, if who exercises nursing skill does not fully recognize the other one’s resources, then he reduces the autonomy and makes him remains in a condition of deprivation and reduction. In social sphere, nursing may have the appearance of welfarism and, getting distance from fundamental component of taking care, can favourite users’ dependence. That is what very often happens working with Gipsies, homeless and marginalized minorities. These, in fact, aren’t considered active consumers of intervention, but they simply represent receivers. Education, that consists in intellectual and moral formation on the basis of determinant principles, is a basilar skill of the family, because it supports orientation of sons, addressing them towards right and adequate
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______________________________________________________________ choices. This orientational aspect can change in advantage of a hypercontrol that limits individual freedom of people. In a social context, the educational aspect, in its orientational valence, is indispensable but strong in the risk of its degeneration, highlighted in professional’s attitude who knows what is right and what is wrong, who has competences and knowledge and who, in this case, exercises his rule on users. This is the aspect that, over all, replies to a professional’s narcissistic needs, who feels himself encouraged by his superiority in comparison with the user. Relationship embraces all the affective components and it is the base in mother-son connections. It also represents the same instrument to obtain change in help professions. Relationship implies emotional exchange that must be monitored and recognized by the professional, both in its transferral and contra-transferral components. However, relationship shows side effects: emotional exchange could become moral blackmail, from the professional to the user, when the first expects to be repaid by the second subject. The operator needs affect too and he looks forward to a mutual lovingness (‘they look like my children’). Authoritativeness is an essential trait that characterizes the mother-son relationship (so as the professional-user too), that is asymmetrical, where the subject set in the ‘up’ position, represents a model, that is an example to follow for subject set in the ‘down’ position. It’s important to offer some example but this point can become bitter, increasing distance between actors in relationships, with a growing fantasy of modelling towards an ideal person, who may address to a dependence attitude and, so, to a low level of perceived autonomy. This point is strictly related to the educational component, with which it shares the reply to operator’s narcissistic needs and the users’ arising dependence. Recreation, finally, represents the ludic element in motherdaughter relationships and in social intervention. The play put out to the risk that mothers become friends, losing their role. In social context, operators have to encourage ludic activities, in order to develop creativity and to reach specific aims of the project, leaving put their professional roles. The ludic component of social intervention is opposite to the authoritativeness one, because the first cancels distances of different roles, the second increases them. The prevailing social maternage inside services took to several failures and to void intervention too. With regards to the nursing area, the one who is considered needy and probably doesn’t perceive it, he finally takes advantage by offered ‘care’ in order to receive and claim assistance. The blackmailed person becomes blackmailer. Welfare systems, with their repairing planning damaging promotion intervention, increased expenses, without producing remarkable benefits. With regard to the educational sphere, imposition of determined rules takes to user’s ‘assault of identity’, who doesn’t recognize operator’s genitorial authority and comes into conflict with the same. With reference to relationships are, operator, who shows and lavishes his excessive affection,
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______________________________________________________________ waits a strong emotional expectation, destined to be inevitably disappointed by unaffective attitude, who will stiffen operator, exposing him to burn out risk. Referring to the authoritativeness area, the matter arises when the operators’ proposed/imposed model doesn’t take account of reference models that the user has and that derive from his background. This takes to not recognizing the difference between owned models and those to offer, generating incomprehension of reasons that leads subjects to not follow the professional’s example. Finally, with regard to the ludic point, it happens that professional groups recognize the game utility and of reactive activities, trying to obtain a replay besides simple amusement, while user plays only for play, without catching any added value. The assistant model of social maternage can be overcome only through the application of a based responsibility sharing model. The peer advocacy model suggests to overcome the up/down relationship typical of the maternage and to recognize a condition of equality and responsibility sharing between operators and users, keeping different roles too. In the sphere of this model, operator’s task will consist on sustaining user, recognizing and valuing his skills till reaching the full autonomy, in order to a future detaching. The peer advocacy is based on the recognition and the respect of human person; it privileges participated planning of interventions and the group work. In this perspective, trouble is seen as a resource, as a sharable experience in order to grow. In the necessary passage from an assistance model, that is the social maternage, to the peer advocacy model, the support isn’t seen as a replacement (the reference figure) but as accompanying and recognition of person with his skills. If the purpose of social intervention is to develop user’s autonomy, it is easy to understand that the good operator works for his metaphorical death. Social operators’ principal aim has to be become unnecessary, that is makes people able to take care of themselves. Before applying empowerment intervention, psychologists usually analyze the community setting. This Community Psychology research approach is very near to anthropological observation of the setting. In order to define the community profile, psychologists identify strong and weak points of a community. In my research, I adopted this method. What emerged from local stakeholders was particularly noteworthy; according to them, the Gypsies’ strength is this chameleon-like ability to welcome anyone who comes to the camp. They are basically very open and less hostile than the local people, and generally there is no trouble being accepted by Gypsies. In their ghetto, they have the ability to interplay between the inside and outside worlds. Another strong point is their great capacity to bear frustration, the extended family, especially, being the instrument through which they can overcome logistical and economic difficulties. According to another social operator, the Roma’s toughness represents a strong point, despite all the vicissitudes and obstacles. They have
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______________________________________________________________ a particularly strong sense of family; their children are well loved and not, as is often assumed, exploited for begging. They also have an ancient culture, made of immaterial folklore, replete in tradition. All respondents stressed the important role played by women within the communities and in handling relations with operators. Over time, in fact, the relationship of trust between the parties was enhanced through female complicity. The aggregating power of women within the family has drawn the men towards involvement in a process, albeit slow, of self-awareness. Regarding weak points, in the camp there are difficulties in putting together families from different ethnic backgrounds, which tends to exasperate the operator and create a deadlock. Roma are often passive; there is a basic sluggishness about them, which means they are very slow, and need to be spoon-fed in everything they do; they harbour no feelings of revenge. The young Roma males, for example, often do not know about their parents’ origins, and so they tend to lose their native traditions and culture. According to one social assistant, the Roma community has the misfortune to be little known by the local townspeople; if anything they are only known through stereotypes, which are then reinforced by their going out to beg or not sending their children to school. Often when a Gypsy is taken on for work, suspicions are aroused; they do not have the capital behind them in order to start small businesses, and, in some cases no skills either. They may well be unaware of how to start up work, which may be important for their personal dignity and their empowerment. After ethnographic recognition among Roma communities in Palermo, the subsequent step of my case study consisted in defining participatory action research in order to achieve the overall goal, i.e. the Roma community’s growth and empowerment. For this reason, I referred to the action-reflection-action model defined by Montero, the purpose of which is to link community identity with social construction of citizenship within communities. I noted that in the Palermo camp this phase had already been conducted by social operators and volunteers, but with little synergy between Gypsies, resulting in the required meta-cognitive processes not being enhanced. It is widely accepted that the empowerment route must allow the community to increase the individual and group capacity of managing their lives in recognition and awareness of own resource.8 To turn values into practice, my proposal is to enable the community actively and to focus on how they perceive this aim. As many authors have noted, there are certain accepted for applying intervention policies with Gypsies: coordination between private and social institutions, both in the planning and the subsequent implementation of the interventions hypothesized; involvement of Roma groups in the planning and mediation through evaluated forms, taking into account the specificities of each group. As often happens, also as regards housing, the Gypsies are rarely consulted;
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______________________________________________________________ the non-Gypsies agree on their own interpretation and criteria for judgement, whilst the actual requirements might well be entirely different. Confrontation might result with the resident population; occupation of a field and the arrival of a group of Roma will often lead to problems that will worsen if not well handled with a constant supply of information to increase awareness and knowledge of these people. Unfortunately, at present, the camp is often seen as the only solution; criteria for its implementation need to be outlined: to avoid mega-fields (more expensive, less comfortable and effective, less manageable), to pay attention to ethnic groups and family members, to avoid the standard camp model (common space and services), to provide facilities. 4.
Conclusion In conclusion, it should be noted that accompaniment is a key element in the planning process of empowerment. In fact, community development and organization make people in communities aware; within community organization, people learn and also teach, through peer advocacy. Finally, community action must be moved from inside. A Roma camp, in fact, is not merely a deposit for sewerage, but hinges on relationships within it and with local urban planning. Encouraging respect for diversity and the process of integration takes time and care. Patient and sustained care, over a period of time, is now left almost entirely to individuals or non-profit agencies; it is often referred to as a mode of intervention by institutions and provides reduced and intermittent time. The accompanying project consists in continuously supporting the integration processes, acting on several fronts, always keeping in mind the eventual revival of the community: work with children (schooling, animation, integration with peers), with adults (regularization, business orientation), with women (literacy, accompanying services) but also with the territorial context, school, perhaps the local parish and all the people interacting with the camp. Paternalism is not the right approach: working with migrants, particularly with Roma people, signifies involving them in a process of ideation, reflection and progressive realization of strategic action. Very often the principle difficulty is to tackle the fragmentation of the community; initially, it is essential, but unrealistic, to try to involve all the families. The best tool is short, clear and incisive communication. Jealousy can often be a reaction, which takes the form of a strategy of resistance. While applying the participatory process, the social operators might witness a slow change in beliefs, self-representation and daily life, brought on by reflection and enlightenment. At this moment, the individuals who first achieved good results will turn into a positive vector inside the community; in my casestudy, the Roma Xoraxane founded Pralipè, a socio-cultural association. Today, handling otherness represents a most important issue for all social and human sciences; as argued above, Roma participation and Roma self-
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______________________________________________________________ awareness might come about only with the building of concrete and effective bridges with local institutions (at every level), accompanied by synergic social action.
Notes 1
H Martins, ‘Living between Countries, Living between Nature and Society: Anthropological Remarks on National and Cultural Identities’, Boundaries: Dichotomies of Keeping In and Keeping Out, J Chapple (ed), InterDisciplinary Press, Oxford, 2010, pp. 69-81. 2 W Beck, L van der Maesen & A Walker (eds), Social Quality: A Vision for Europe, Kluwer Law International, The Netherlands, 2001, p. 317. 3 Y Berman & D Phillips, ‘Indicators of Social Quality and Social Exclusion at National and Community Level’, Social Indicators Research, Vol. 50, 2000, p. 347. 4 M Alexander, ‘Comparing Local Policies toward Migrants: An Analytical Framework, A Typology and Prelimiminary Survey Results’, Citizenship in European Cities: Immigrants, Local Politics and Integration Policies, R Penninx, K Kraal, M Martiniello & S Vertovec (eds), Ashgate, Aldershot, 2004, p. 63. 5 M Ambrosini, ‘In prima linea: Integrazione degli immigrati, politiche locali e ruolo degli operatori’ M Ambrosini (ed), Costruttori di integrazione: Gli operatori dei servizi per gli immigrati, Fondazione Ismu, Milano, 2005b, p. 45. 6 M Lipski, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of Individuals in Public Services, Russel Sage Foundation, New York, 1980. 7 P Zanetti-Polzi, ‘Operatori dell’immigrazione: tra solidarietà e professionalità’, Costruttori di integrazione. Gli operatori dei servizi per gli immigrati, M Ambrosini (ed), Fondazione Ismu, Milano, 2005, p. 112. 8 G Lavanco, E Di Giovanni & F Romano, ‘Going beyond Social Maternage: The Principle of Brotherhood in the Community Psychology’s Intervention’, International Journal Of Human And Social Sciences, Vol. 1, No. 4, 2007, pp. 200-204.
Bibliography Alexander, M., ‘Comparing Local Policies toward Migrants: An Analytical Framework, A Typology and Preliminary Survey Results’. Citizenship in European Cities. Immigrants, Local Politics and Integration Policies. Penninx, R., Kraal, K., Martiniello, M. & Vertovec, S., (eds), Ashgate, Aldershot 2004.
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______________________________________________________________ Ambrosini, M., Sociologia delle migrazioni. Il Mulino, Bologna 2005a. –––, In prima linea. Integrazione degli immigrati, politiche locali e ruolo degli operatori. Costruttori di integrazione. Gli operatori dei servizi per gli immigrati. Ambrosini, M. (ed), Fondazione Ismu, Milano 2005b, pp. 17-50. Beck, W., Maesen, van der, L. & Walker, A., (eds), Social Quality: A Vision for Europe. Kluwer Law International, The Netherlands, 2001. Berman, Y. & Phillips, D., ‘Indicators of Social Quality and Social Exclusion at National and Community Level’. Social Indicators Research. Vol. 50, 2000, pp. 329-350. Crespo, I., Lalueza, J.L. & Pallì, C., ‘Moving Communities: A Process of Negotiation with a Gypsy Minority for Empowerment’. Community, Work and Family. Vol. 5, No. 1, 2002, pp. 49-66. Di Giovanni, E., (ed), Migranti, Diritti Umani e Democrazia. Fotograf, Palermo, 2008. –––, ‘Comunità zingare e pratiche di intervento sociale: il caso dei Rom di Palermo’. Lavoro di comunità e intervento sociale interculturale. Lavanco, G., Hombrados Mendieta M.I. (eds), Franco Angeli, Milano, 2009, pp. 167176. Es Empowerment Sociale, Microcosmi in rete… Comunità in cerca d’autore: Strategie di empowerment e sviluppo di comunità. Quaderni di ES/14, Palermo 2005. Lavanco, G. & Novara C., Elementi di psicologia di comunità. McGraw-Hill, Milano, 2006. Lavanco, G., Di Giovanni, E. & Romano, F., ‘Going beyond Social Maternage: The Principle of Brotherhood in the Community Psychology’s Interventation’. International Journal Of Human And Social Sciences. Vol. 1, No. 4, 2007, pp. 200-204. Lipski, M., Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of Individuals in Public Servoces. Russel Sage Foundation, New York, 1980. Mannoia, M., Zingari che strano popolo. XL Edizioni, Roma, 2007.
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______________________________________________________________ Martins H., ‘Living between Countries, Living between Nature and Society: Anthropological Remarks on National and Cultural Identities’. Boundaries. Dichotomies of Keeping In and Keeping Out. Chapple, J. (ed), InterDisciplinary Press, Oxford, 2010. Montero, M., ‘Community Action and Reserach as Citizenship Construction’. American Journal of Community Psychology. Vol. 43, 2009, pp. 149-161. Zanetti-Polzi, P., ‘Operatori dell’immigrazione: tra solidarietà e professionalità’. Costruttori di integrazione. Gli operatori dei servizi per gli immigrati. Ambrosini, M. (ed), Fondazione Ismu, Milano 2005, pp. 109-152. Elisabetta Di Giovanni is Senior Lecturer of Anthropology at Università degli Studi di Palermo (Italy). While interested in migrant communities and host society relationships, religious anthropology, patronage and religiosity in youth, currently her research and writing is devoted to Roma studies.
Transnational Practices of Care: The Portuguese Migration from the Azores to Quebec (Canada) Ana Gherghel & Josiane Le Gall Abstract Recent scholarly research on transnational families has documented various practices of caring at distance. The existence of exchanges across frontiers shows that intergenerational familial solidarity subsists in the context of migration. How is intergenerational caring reconfigured within transnational families? How do stages of the life course shape transnational caregiving? These are the questions examined in our research on the Portuguese migration from the Azores archipelago to Canada, a yet under-documented phenomenon. Starting in the mid-1950s, Portuguese migration flows directed to Canada reached a peak in the 1970s, continuing until today at lower levels. Maintaining strong ties with their origin communities through multidirectional exchanges (visits, material exchanges, conservation of cultural traits, celebration of traditional feasts, etc.), as well as return migration registered in the last years, are characteristics that allow us to observe this transnational migration as a historical phenomenon that perpetuates over more than five decades. Organized mainly as family-led migration, this phenomenon today involves three generations of migrants who have multiple bonds to their origin country. Based on exploratory fieldwork conducted in 2009 in the Azores and Quebec (Canada), we examine the practices of caring at distance and their variations between generations and along the life course. Key Words: Azores, Canada, caring, care giving at distance, intergenerational solidarity, life course, Portuguese migration, transnational families. ***** 1. The Context of the Research: Portuguese Migration from the Azores to Quebec (Canada) The practice of caring at distance, between migrants and their kin left behind in the origin country, is more and more in the focus of scholarly research lately. 1 In our research, we discuss how intergenerational caring is organized in transnational families, based on a case study dedicated to Portuguese migration from the Azores archipelago to Quebec (Canada).2 The main questions at the core of our investigation are: How do stages of the life course shape transnational care giving? What is the impact of experiencing particular family transitions on the exchanges taking place in transnational families and, what changes are registered between generations?
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______________________________________________________________ In the Azores archipelago,3 migratory movements, most directed to the Americas, have been intertwined with the region’s culture and history. The migratory route to Canada is the most recent, and migratory fluxes have intensified since the mid-1950s, reaching a peak in the mid-1970s, and diminishing afterwards. This massive emigration involved an important proportion of the Azorean population. Consequently, the majority of the Portuguese in Canada (50-70%) are of Azorean origin, as many sources point out.4 The Portuguese are one of the most numerous of all ethnic groups in Canada. For instance, in 2006, 151,740 immigrants of Portuguese origin (considering only the foreign born, permanent and non permanent residents) were registered, most of them in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec. Of this total, 21,590 Portuguese are established in the province of Quebec.5 In Canada, immigration policies encouraged the recruitment of a workforce for agriculture and railway construction during the 1950s. The Portuguese and the Canadian governments established agreements that facilitated the recruitment of unskilled workers from the Azores. In the late 1960s and during the 1970s, changes to the immigration policy favoured family reunion and sponsorship of relatives. In these conditions, migration of Azorean people to Canada occurred during almost three decades (1954 to the 1980s). At the same time, in the Azores, the mass out-migration was motivated by economic hardship and difficult living conditions in these islands – high population density and unemployment rates, impoverishment, and natural disasters.6 In addition, the cultural and social conditions specific to these islands – geographic isolation, restrictive social customs, obligation of military conscription – also incited migration. 7 While transoceanic migration is permanent for the majority of migrants, several authors highlighted that return, as well as re-emigration, occur and can be a project for some migrants.8 For instance, the migratory system of the Portuguese in France is characterised as a back-and-forth movement between origin and immigration societies and the return is largely a part of the initial migratory project, for the migrants of continental Portugal. 9 On the contrary, for the Azoreans, migration seems to be permanent, characterized by a definitive settlement in the destination country.10 Certainly, the geographic distance between the Azores and Canada can explain this difference. In fact, return and re-emigration are also recognised for some Azorean migrants. The extent of this phenomenon is not yet elucidated, but a few researchers have analyzed its motivations and patterns. Return migration depends on the motivation to emigrate, the migratory paths, and the success or the failure of the project. 11 The success of attaining the objectives of emigration or the failure to do so can motivate the return. 12 With life histories of returnees in the Azores, Melo documented three main patterns where return occurs: 1) in later life, after retirement and after accomplishing objectives (principally, material) set out initially; 2) upon
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______________________________________________________________ unexpected circumstances, contrary to the planned permanent migration to Canada, and 3) as a reaction to negative experiences. 13 Re-emigration can also be decided especially if the family has young children or children born in Canada.14 In his research on an Azorean village, Oliveira found that at the moment of emigration all immigrants planned to return when they could improve their economic situation.15 However, the majority never did so for various reasons, such as economic advantages in Canada, having children and family in Canada, and disappointment and rejection during their return visits in the Azores. We consider that this kind of movement deserves more indepth analysis at the level of family dynamics because the return of first and sometimes second-generation immigrants contributes to the geographic dispersion of families, as returnees preserve ties with members of their families (children or kin) who live in Canada. The immigrants also maintained important links with the communities left behind, through return visits on holidays, participation in traditional festivals of their native community, preserving their houses and land proprieties in their villages or building new houses. The existence and conservation of such strong links between communities of origin and of immigration, noted in many studies,16 indicate the presence of ‘transnational ties’ that Portuguese migrants developed over time, maintaining active relations with their homeland and nourishing the ideal to return. The literature review that we have conducted on Portuguese migration in Canada leads to a few observations that inspired our research. Migration processes have been deployed through informal networks, based on kinship and friendship ties. 17 A variety of exchanges (material, informational, social, cultural, etc.) take place within these networks and migration processes interplay and strengthen family processes and dynamics.18 The co-presence of three generations of immigrants stimulated research that shows an important family and intergenerational solidarity, and the transmission of cultural values and norms through the conservation of strong family ties and links with the origin community. 19 However, the transnational perspective has never been used in the study of this community, although research conducted with life course approaches or other theoretical approaches showed various practices involving migrants and non-migrants, community of immigration and that of origin. The situation of young people, of second and third generations in Portuguese families in Canada, as well as their links with their non-migrant counterparts is still under-documented. At the same time, little is known about the impact of return migration and reemigration on transnational ties and practices. Therefore, in our research, the analysis focuses both on the transnational links between migrants and nonmigrants and between generations, also considering their transformation along the life course.
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______________________________________________________________ 2.
Caring in Transnational Families The transnational perspective emphasizes communities and networks across frontiers. Instead of considering migration as a unidirectional process and the migrants as uprooted, it conceives differently the relation between origin and destination societies: mobility and insertion processes are not contradictory or exclusive, but complementary. The incorporation of migrants in the host society and the development of transnational practices can occur simultaneously, even reinforce mutually, and involve various life domains – economic, political, social, cultural, and religious. 20 The transnational approach, developed especially with reference to the public sphere, by the analysis of economic and political activities and transnational identities, has also begun to focus more clearly on the domestic sphere.21 In this area, research shows the exchanges and support circulating within the kinship networks among members living in different countries. The central role of women in maintaining active ties at distance has also been revealed. Nevertheless, the perpetuation over time of transnational family networks and practices, as well as the factors influencing them are still under-researched.22 Although the exchanges in transnational families are mutual and multi-directional and the direction of help often reflects the stage of the migration process and life course, current research has documented the transnational practices of caring on specific situations where the migrant is either the receiver or the donor. Some research focuses on the support offered by migrants to elderly kin left behind in the origin country, 23 while others show the support received by the migrants from their families and relatives.24 Another documented situation is that of transnational parenthood, such as in the case of migrant women whose children and families remain in the origin country.25 Based on extensive ethnographic research investigating transnational caregiving involving migrants and refugees in Australia and their parents living in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and New Zealand, Baldassar, Baldock and Wilding developed a model that captures the complexity of factors influencing the exchanges and practices of caregiving in transnational families.26 The capacity to engage in caregiving at distance and to offer help (financial, access to technology, time, mobility), the cultural sense of obligation to care and provide for the needs of others (perception of the need and duty), the negotiated family commitments and the characteristics of kinship relationships, underlie the transnational processes.27 This research also demonstrated how caregiving for elder parents in the origin country can mobilize migrant children and kin split between more than two countries. As the authors point out, several issues are yet underresearched with regard to these transnational practices: the variations across life course, the impact of technologies and the gendered differences.
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______________________________________________________________ This body of research on transnational caring has often disregarded current achievements in the study of family solidarities in contemporary societies in general. A vast literature elaborated in the last thirty years in North America and in Europe has demonstrated the conservation and the transformation of family solidarity. 28 In summary, the findings of such research show that many forms of support and exchange are present in the networks of kin: material goods and financial aid, services, such as caregiving, lodging, or domestic help, as well as emotional, informational and relational support. 29 The direction of the support varies from one life stage to another and exchanges are particularly intense during important life transitions, such as marriage, the birth of a child, or a serious illness. Solidarities operate primarily on the principle of need and are particularly activated when a family member experiences difficulties. Other norms also shape the supportive practices – affinity, selectivity, obligation and mutual help, respect of autonomy and individual liberty.30 Moreover, geographic proximity influences the availability and intensity of different forms of support and exchange. Characteristics such as gratuity, reciprocity, polyvalence, personalization in regard to the needs and resources available, and accessibility are specific for the practices of family solidarity. 31 The demographic structure of the family, the social environment, the norms and values shared by its members, circumstances experienced at a particular moment also influence the practices of support. For instance, the services exchanged within families are related to changes in the family cycle; the occurrence of family events activating or suppressing certain types of help.32 These are also key elements in understanding transnational ties, where geographic distance does not stop practices of caring, but influences their availability and intensity. Some forms of help such as information and advice can be offered at distance, while others, like physical caregiving, cannot or require specific arrangements. Although these factors have been partially documented in various contexts, their specific impact and their interplay need to be documented further. Therefore, we consider it important to analyze the family processes undertaken in a transnational context within a perspective that accounts for multiple exchanges between migrants and non-migrants, and between generations and their transformation over the life course. In order to do so, in our research, the transnational perspective is conjugated with the life course approach which offers a comprehensive model of analyzing social and family behaviour and generational change in order to understand individual development, in regard to multiple temporalities: the social time (generation, social roles), the historical time (period and social contexts) and the individual time (biography).33 The analysis focuses on the family trajectory and transitions, and their interplay with migration paths and processes associated therein. A socio-anthropologic, qualitative methodology focused
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______________________________________________________________ on the actors’ point of view is employed. Participant observations and biographic interviews are conducted in order to document the multiple relations established between the actors involved in migration processes. 3. The Impact of Family Transitions on Transnational Caregiving: Results from an Exploratory Fieldwork Multi-sited exploratory fieldwork was carried out in both origin community (the Azores) and immigration country (Quebec, Canada) in 2009, in order to test the methodology and explore the context at study. Participant observations were conducted in the Azores, during the summer, in various social contexts where migrants and non-migrants gather, such as local traditional festivals, religious rituals or social activities. Similar circumstances are also documented in Quebec where observation sites such as Portuguese associations or community gatherings are attended. At the same time, biographic interviews investigating real-life experiences were conducted with members of two or three generations of extended families living in the Azores and in Quebec. Respondents, aged over 18, were migrants, returnees and non-migrants, and women and men of the same generation. The interviews focus on family transitions (birth, marriage, divorce, etc.), transitions related to heath (illness) and migration-related processes, at various life stages. Preliminary results of this fieldwork are discussed further. Firstly, the various types of support and exchanges are identified. Secondly, the impact of family transitions and life course stages on transnational practices is analyzed. Many types of exchanges are observed; they are multi-directional and involve migrants and non-migrant actors. We regrouped them into the following four categories: Visits and Hospitality. After settling in Canada, many migrants reported regular or occasional return visits in their origin country, especially during summer holidays. They are received by their relatives who offer them lodging, traditional meals, and accompany them for visits around the island. Many also participate in local traditional festivals that take place throughout the summer, from May to September, in all the villages of the islands. 34 Reciprocally, non-migrant relatives benefit from the same kind of hospitality when visiting members of their families in Canada. Material Exchanges. During return visits or other occasions, material exchanges are reported by migrant and non-migrant respondents.
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______________________________________________________________ Migrants bring with them or send through shipping companies barrels with various goods, such as clothing, furniture, or domestic equipment. They also send money to their relatives in the Azores, especially at the moment of traditional holidays or celebrations, like Christmas or ritual feasts. This kind of support was particularly registered until the 1980s when the Azores faced important economic difficulties, lack of basic goods and impoverishment. However, it still is a practice today. Although the direction of these gifts is mainly from migrants towards nonmigrants, the reverse can also be observed as relatives in the origin country can offer traditional products (food, liqueurs or handcraft objects). Information. Migrants transmit various information about the immigration country, living conditions, opportunities, lifestyle, immigration procedures, by different means: letters, phone calls or during visits. These kinds of exchanges played an important role for inciting the massive migration waves since the late 1960s until the mid-1970s, helping migrants’ relatives to complete immigration procedures, to settle in Canada, to find a job and lodgings, as other studies have also detailed. For instance, Anderson showed that the first established immigrants in Canada formed ‘networks of contacts’ that helped extended families to immigrate through the sponsorship of relatives and facilitated their socio-professional insertion. 35 Nowadays, these exchanges are facilitated by access to the Internet and air transport.36 Emotional Help and Caregiving. At various life moments, members of conjugal or extended families are mobilized to offer other types of support, such as domestic help, baby-sitting, or care during the illness of a relative. This kind of exchange can occur among migrant relatives in Canada, but non-migrants can also be occasionally involved, especially women, for specific domestic help, like in the case of families with young children. All our respondents mentioned, at various extents, the presence of all these types of exchanges that involve all three generations of immigrants
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______________________________________________________________ and their non-migrant counterparts. These particular practices intensify during important life transitions. For instance, normative transitions,37 such as marriage or birth of a child, are associated with specific familial rituals that gather members of the family network split between host and home societies and, possibly, other locations. Non-migrant and returnee respondents reported such an important family event as an occasion to visit their migrant relatives in Canada. For instance, Leonor, 38 a 27 year old Azorean, planned to visit her cousin and a childhood friend, established in Quebec a few years ago, upon her first child’s birth. Another young nonmigrant respondent, Paula (30 years), together with her brother, visited her relatives established in Quebec to be god-mother at the wedding of a cousin. Carla (61 years) and her husband, returnees in the Azores, travel every year to America where their children and most of their kin live. They attend family celebrations – anniversaries, marriages, grandchildren’s baptisms, and communions. These planned visits can entail other arrangements, involving members of the family in the Azores (especially women) who take over the familial responsibilities, like those related to child care or housekeeping. The regular contact between kin living in the two societies is maintained over time through various ways (Internet, mail, phone calls), either directly or indirectly. The position in the family and the relationship with the migrant relatives prior to migration influences the way these contacts are established: direct with close kin, friends and members of the same generation in the family, and indirect, mediated through elder family members, with the extended family. Migration and non normative transitions, such as a serious illness or a separation, bring about other exchanges between kin living in the two societies, as Julie’s story illustrates. In the 1950s, Julie’s paternal grandfather immigrated through the workforce recruitment program and established in Quebec. He formed a network of relations that helped all his kin to immigrate to Canada. As he worked in a lucrative services sector, his economic situation improved rapidly and therefore he could sponsor firstly his wife and three children and then successively all his relatives from the Azores. The couple settled in Quebec and offered for more than three decades various forms of help to their relatives who immigrated to Canada: hosting them on their arrival, helping them to find work and housing, and offering advice about social and professional insertion strategies. Their own house became the place of family gatherings on important occasions (marriages, baptisms, Christmas, etc.). Meanwhile, they maintained regular links with their origin community, returning on summer holidays, and conserving their familial house and land proprieties in their origin village. Later in life, when Julie’s grandparents faced serious illness and consequently the loss of autonomy, the whole family mobilized to offer them care, visiting them weekly, hosting
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______________________________________________________________ them temporarily, taking over the housekeeping, preparing traditional meals, etc. Family solidarity practices transformed over the life course according to the norms of reciprocity and need. As a young adult family, the grandparents offered material and informational support to their family, while in later life they became receivers of the support and care offered by their kin. The caregiving, instrumental help and decision-making engage the second generation of migrants, at the adult stage of their life course, but the third generation also offers mostly emotional support to the older generation. Like Julie explained, the family dynamics incited by the illness of her grandparents contributed to strengthen her relationship with her father and stimulated her interest in her Portuguese heritage, to learn the Portuguese language, to participate in social and cultural activities of the community, to visit the Azores during her summer holidays and planning on returning occasionally in the future. In Julie’s narratives, it appears that the transmission of the Portuguese traditions, norms and values occurred through various loose ways occasioned by the interaction with her paternal grandparents and several practices and activities: a close relation to land and plants, celebration of traditional feasts and family rituals, social gatherings with sharing of traditional meals, catholic religious practices and a traditional conception regarding gender roles. These practices reinforced her familiarity with the Portuguese culture ‘that she has always known since her childhood’. For Julie, who is a third generation immigrant to Canada, these intergenerational exchanges contributed to forge multiple identities and affiliations and strengthen family solidarity, as she feels ‘firstly a Canadian and secondly a Portuguese’. This example illustrates how bonds with the origin community extend to second and third generation immigrants who can create their own relations with the Portuguese culture and community, different from their parents and based on elective affiliations. The attachment to Portuguese heritage seems to be manifested in various ways for the third generation, reinforced by family dynamics and practices that favoured cultural transmission, but at the same time, as part of multiple forms of affiliation: to Canadian society, to community, to family. For the third generation, migration history is part of the family history. This kind of observation coincides with the results of other recent research on young Portuguese descendants in France who maintain links with origin community.39 In addition, a similar intergenerational family dynamics and involvement in maintaining contacts at distance seem to transmit to the nonmigrant counterparts and have an impact on their lives too. Young nonmigrant respondents in our research also explained that the exchanges with the migrant relatives shaped their perceptions about life conditions, work, life styles and the opportunities in these two societies, somehow in opposite images; Azores as a society with limited opportunities and difficult living
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______________________________________________________________ conditions, while Canada as an open society, where many opportunities regarding professional life and material success allow youth to achieve well being and autonomy rapidly and easily. Therefore, we stress that the transnational links involving migrant and non-migrant actors juxtapose the intergenerational exchanges in order to create a complex family dynamics that explains the transmission of practices and norms related to caring, without excluding their transformation over time. 4.
Concluding Remarks The observations resulting from our exploratory fieldwork suggest that exchanges within extended families split between origin and host societies are perpetuated over time from one generation to another. The impact of life stage and life transitions on the practices of solidarity appears to be important and the caregiving depends greatly on the needs experienced by members of the family, as research on family solidarity in general showed.40 The different forms of support vary equally between generations and according to the position in the family. Caregiving and instrumental or material help are particularly noted for the first and second generations of migrants and their non-migrant counterparts, while emotional help often involves the third generation. Emotional and even material help offered by the families left behind to migrants have been noted in various studies, at important life moments like conjugal separation or the birth of a child. 41 The reverse has also been documented, the practices of support – material, caregiving or informational – offered by migrants to their relatives in the origin country. We stress, though, that these informal exchanges and practices offering mutual help registered in the case of Azorean migrants in Canada express a form of ‘transnationalism from below’ developed in the domestic sphere, that juxtapose other forms of transnational ties, through formal organizations.42 The presence of these practices shows that individuals create, in various ways, bonds across national frontiers to cope with difficulties and constraints. Furthermore, the mechanisms explaining the perpetuation of these practices among three generations of immigrants lay with the family dynamics and the cultural transmission of norms and values. As Martins (in this book) reminds us, cultural and national identities are constantly constructed and negotiated, actively re-worked by actors involved in the process. Long-term ethnographic research in the communities living in the Portuguese-Galician border region revealed a dynamic of practices that individuals have developed in time to overcome scarcity of resources and impoverishment. In the past, although a frontier separated them, the Portuguese and Spanish populations in that region worked out informal ways to supply for their economic difficulties: contraband and seasonal or temporary work migration. This contributed to the creation of a type of
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______________________________________________________________ ‘transnational social space’, favoured by geographic proximity and every-day life experiences embedded within a history of relations across borders. In the case of Azorean migrants, even if geographic distance is important and national frontiers need to be crossed, individuals managed to create over time ways to maintain links with their homeland and to preserve cultural affiliations. We emphasize the idea that this dynamics has been facilitated by the migration networks that superposed the kinship networks characterized by strong ties in the origin country. In this case, migration reinforces family solidarities because the success of insertion in the host society draws on the kinship ties and various forms of support – material, informational, etc. – circulating therein. Other studies on Portuguese immigrants to Canada have also highlighted that ethnic and cultural identities are changing, plural and gradually transformed, leading to the emergence of a ‘Portuguese-Canadian’ identity.43 In it, various elements interplay and are related to dimensions at a macro-level (European identities), mezzo-level (Portuguese community as minority overlapping with gender, generation, occupation, social category distinctions) and micro-level (individuals’ experiences and trajectories, informed by a ‘diasporic’ culture and family history). The third and now emerging forth generation of Portuguese in Canada, Canadian born Portuguese, develop new forms of affiliation, as they have been strongly socialized within a ‘diasporic culture’, more and more defined not by linguistic practice, but the awareness of belonging to that diaspora. Therefore ethnic identities become more and more characterized by hybridity, combining past and recent affiliations, symbols and practices, and more ‘permeable, instrumental and plural’, including a diversity of affiliation options.44 Transnational practices can contribute to the incorporation of migrants into the host society, offering resources to cope with the difficulties experienced. Such observations point to the pertinence to pursue further research with a transnational and cosmopolitan approach focused on migration processes and social relations (instead of culture, identity and integration) because incorporation both within a nation-state and transnationally can occur simultaneously. 45 Moreover, in-depth analysis of the Portuguese case can bring an interesting insight for a better understanding of how transnational and family links are enacted over long periods of time. Portuguese migrants both in Europe and the Americas developed sophisticated strategies of insertion combining integration in the host societies and attachments with their homeland. This can stand as an example of multiple strategies of inclusion that immigrants can develop and thus can be useful for the elaboration of interventions addressed to immigrant populations facing various difficulties, as di Giovanni (in this book) shows in her research on a recent immigrant group.
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______________________________________________________________ Finally, we also point out that it is important to conduct further multi-sited ethnographic and anthropologic research to reveal certain dynamics of relations and forms of inclusion and to understand the processes and mechanisms that underlie migration experience, documenting the complexity of relations forged by migrants and their origin community over time and their social and cultural change.
Notes 1
L Baldassar, CV Baldock & R Wilding, Families Caring across Borders: Migration, Ageing and Transnational Caregiving, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2007; E Zontini, ‘Continuity and Change in Transnational Italian Families: The Caring Practices of Second-Generation Women’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Vol. 33, No. 7, 2007, pp. 1103-19; R Parreñas, Children of Global Migration: Transnational Families and Gendered Woes, Stanford University Press, Palo Alto, CA, 2005. 2 This ongoing research project on family solidarities in Azorean transnational families started in 2009 with an exploratory fieldwork conducted in the Azores and Quebec (Canada). 3 The Azores is a Portuguese archipelago, of nine islands, situated in the Atlantic Ocean. As an autonomous region of Portugal, it has its own local government and administrative structures. Farming and fishing are the main industries of the Azorean economy. The archipelago’s population is about 240 000 and its surface totalises around 868 square miles. 4 FW Chapin, Tides of Migration: A Study of Migration Decision-Making and Social Progress in São Miguel, Azores, AMS Press, New York, 1989; C Teixeira & V da Rosa, ‘Introduction: A Historical and Geographical Perspective’, The Portuguese in Canada: From the Sea to the City, C Teixeira & V da Rosa (eds), University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 2000, pp. 3-14; MA Oliveira & C Teixeira, Jovens Portugueses e Luso-descendentes no Canadá, Celta, Oeiras, 2004; MA Oliveira, Mito e realidade na emigração Açoreana, Ph.D. Thesis, ISCSP, Lisbon, 1996; PM Melo, The Life History of Portuguese Return Migrants: A Canadian – Azorean Case Study, M.A. Thesis, York University, 1997; C Brettell, Anthropology and Migration: Essays on Transnationalism, Ethnicity, and Identity, AltaMira Press, Oxford, New York, 2003. 5 Special compilation from the Census 2006, Statistics Canada. 6 Melo, op.cit.; Teixeira and da Rosa, op.cit.; Chapin, op.cit. 7 A Williams & L Fonseca, ‘The Azores: Between Europe and North America’, Small Worlds, Global Lives: Islands and Migration, R King & J Connell (eds), The Cromwell Press, London, 1999.
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E Noivo, Inside Ethnic Families: Three Generations of PortugueseCanadians, McGill-Queen's University Press, Montreal, 1997; Brettell, op.cit.; Chapin, op.cit.; OHR Medeiros & AB Madeira, ‘Emigração e eegresso: Os casos dos concelhos do Nordeste e da Povoação (S. Miguel Açores)’, Portuguese Studies Review, Vol. 11, No. 2, 2004, pp. 205-32. 9 Y Charbit, MA Hily, M Poinard & V Petit, Le Va-et-vient identitaire migrants Portugais et villages d'origine, Presses universitaires de France, Institut national d'études démographiques, Paris, 1997. 10 Noivo, op.cit.; G Anderson, Networks of Contact: The Portuguese and Toronto, Wilfrid Laurier University Press, Waterloo, Ontario, 1974. 11 Medeiros and Madeira, op. cit.; Melo, op.cit. 12 MB Rocha Trinidade, ‘The Portuguese Diaspora’, The Portuguese in Canada: From the Sea to the City, C Teixeira & V da Rosa (eds), University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 2000, pp. 15- 36. 13 PM Melo, The Life History of Portuguese Return Migrants: A Canadian – Azorean Case Study, M.A Thesis, York University, 1997. 14 ibid. 15 MA Oliveira, ‘Immigrants Forever? The Migratory Saga of Azoreans in Canada’, The Portuguese in Canada: From the Sea to the City, C Teixeira & V da Rosa (eds), University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 2000, pp. 83-96. 16 JC Marques & P Gois, ‘Pratiques transnationales des Capverdiens au Portugal et des Portugais en Suisse’, Revue Européenne des Migrations Internationales, Vol. 24, No. 2, 2008, pp. 147-165; A Klimt, ‘Divergent Trajectories: Identity and Community among Portuguese in Germany and the United States’, Portuguese Studies Review, Vol. 14, No. 2, 2006, pp. 211240; Charbit et al., op.cit.; Chapin, op.cit.; Brettell, op.cit. 17 Anderson, op. cit.; Chapin, op. cit.; Williams and Fonseca, op.cit. 18 Chapin, op. cit.; Noivo, op. cit. 19 Noivo, op. cit.; D Meintel & J Le Gall, Les jeunes d'origine immigrée: rapports familiaux et les transitions de vie: le cas des jeunes Chiliens, Grecs, Portugais, Salvadoriens et Vietnamiens, Direction des communications du Ministère des affaires internationales, de l'immigration et des communautés culturelles, Québec, 1995. 20 N Glick-Schiller, L Basch & B Szanton, ‘From Immigrant to Transmigrant: Theorizing Transnational Migration’, Anthropological Quarterly, Vol. 68, No. 1, 1995, pp. 48-63; A Portes, L Guarnizo & P Landolt, ‘The Study of Transnationalism: Pitfalls and Promise of an Emergent Research Field. Introduction to a Special Issue’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Vol. 22, No. 2, 1999, pp. 217-37; S Vertovec, ‘Conceiving and Researching Transnationalism’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Vol. 22, No. 2, 1999, pp. 447462; P Levitt & N Glick-Schiller, ‘Conceptualizing Simultaneity: A
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______________________________________________________________ Transnational Social Field Perspective on Society’, International Migration Review, Vol. 38, 2004, pp. 1002-39. 21 J Le Gall, ‘Familles transnationales: Bilan des recherches et nouvelles perspectives’, Cahiers du GRES. Diversité Urbaine, Vol. 5, No. 1, 2005, pp. 31. 22 See J Le Gall, op.cit., pp. 29-42. 23 L Baldassar, ‘L’aide transnationale au sein des familles d’immigrés qualifiés établis en Australie: Une comparaison entre les immigrés Italiens et les réfugiés Afghans’, Enfances, Familles, Générations, Vol. 6, 2007a. Viewed on 20 April 2009, ; L Baldassar, ‘Transnational Families and Aged Care: The Mobility of Care and the Migrancy of Ageing’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Vol. 33, No. 2, 2007b, pp.275-297; Baldassar et al., op.cit. 24 J Treas & S Mazumdar, ‘Kinkeeping and Caregiving: Contributions of Older People in Immigrant Families’, Journal of Comparative Family Studies, Vol. 35, No. 1, 2004, pp. 105-122. 25 Parreñas, op.cit. 26 L Baldassar, CV Baldock & R Wilding, Families Caring across Borders: Migration, Ageing and Transnational Caregiving, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2007. 27 ibid. 28 J Godbout & J Charbonneau, La circulation du don dans la parenté. Une roue qui tourne, I.N.R.S., Montréal, 1996; R Dandurand & FR Ouellette, Entre autonomie et solidarité: Parenté et soutien dans la vie de jeunes familles montréalaises, Institut québécois de recherche sur la culture, Québec, 1992; C Attias-Donfut, N Lapierre & M Segalen, Le nouvel esprit de famille, Odile Jacob, Paris, 2002 ; A Pitrou, ‘Les solidarités familiales en question’, Les solidarités familiales en question. Entraide et transmission, D Debordeaux & P Strobel (eds), L.G.D.J., Paris, 2002; J Coenen-Huther, J Kellerhals, M von Allmen, HM Hagmann, F Jeannerat & E Widmer, Les réseaux de solidarité dans la famille, Réalités sociales, Lausanne 1994. 29 I Van Pevenage, Pour agir : comprendre les solidarités familiales. La recherche : un outil indispensable. Fiches synthèses de transfert de connaissances, INRS, Montréal, partenariat Familles en mouvance et dynamiques intergénérationnelles, 2009, pp. 33-34. 30 ibid., pp. 53-54. 31 ibid., pp. 24-25. 32 Attias-Donfut et al., op.cit. 33 GH Elder, MK Johnson & R Crosnoe, ‘The Emergence and Development of Life Course Theory’, Handbook of Life Course, JT Mortimer & MJ
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______________________________________________________________ Shanahan (eds), Kluwer Academic Publishers, Springer, New York, 2004, pp.3-22. 34 Festivities (Festas) dedicated to local worship traditions like Epirito Santo or Senhor Santo Christo, involve various rituals such as processions or popular gatherings when traditional meals are shared. 35 G Anderson, Networks of Contact: The Portuguese and Toronto, Wilfrid Laurier University Press, Waterloo, Ontario, 1974. 36 For instance, the air company of the Azores, SATA International, has weekly direct flights to the Azores from the main American and Canadian cities where most Portuguese are settled (e.g. Boston, Toronto). 37 Definition of normative and non normative transitions in PA Cowan and EM Hetherington, Family Transitions, Family Research Consortium, Summer Institut, Advances in Family Research Series, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, 1991. 38 All names are fictive. 39 I Dos Santos, Les ‘brumes’ de la mémoire. Expérience migratoire et quête identitaire de descendants de Portugais en France, Ph.D. thesis, EHESS, Paris, 2010. 40 Pitrou, op.cit.; Attias-Donfut, op.cit.; Godbout and Charbonneau, op.cit. 41 A Gherghel, Monoparentalité et réseaux de soutien. Les femmes immigrées à Québec, rapport de recherche postdoctorale, Centre Jeunesse de Quebec, Institut universitaire, et centre de recherche JEFAR, Université Laval, Québec, 2009; G Lazure & C Benazera, Devenir Parent Au Québec: Le Parcours Des Familles Immigrantes Dans La Région De Québec, Centre de santé et de services sociaux de la Vieille Capitale, Québec, 2006; Le Gall, op.cit. 42 Baldassar, et. al., op.cit.; L Guarnizo & MP Smith, ‘The Locations of Transnationalism’, Transnationalism From Below, MP Smith & L Guarnizo (eds), Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, pp. 3-33. 43 E Noivo, ‘Diasporic Identitites at Century's End’, The Portuguese in Canada: From the Sea to the City, C Teixeira & V da Rosa (eds), University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 2000, pp. 158-172. 44 ibid. 45 N Glick-Schiller, Beyond Methodological Ethnicity: Local and Transnational Pathways of Immigrant Incorporation, Willy Brandt Series of Working Papers in International Migration and Ethnic Relations, Malmo University, 2/08, 2008, p. 10.
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–––, Mito E Realidade Na Emigração Açoreana. Ph.D. Thesis, ISCSP, Lisbon, 1996. Oliveira, M.A. & Teixeira, C., Jovens Portugueses e Luso-Descendentes no Canadá. Celta, Oeiras, 2004. Parreñas, R.S., Children of Global Migration: Transnational Families and Gendered Woes. Stanford University Press, Palo Alto, CA, 2005. Pitrou, A., ‘Les solidarités familiales en question’. Les solidarités familiales en question. Entraide et transmission. L.G.D.J., Paris, 2002. Portes, A., Guarnizo, L. & Landolt, P., ‘The Study of Transnationalism: Pitfalls and Promise of an Emergent Research Field - Introduction to a Special Issue’. Ethnic and Racial Studies. Vol. 22, No. 2, 1999, pp. 217-37. Rocha-Trinidade, M.B., ‘The Portuguese Diaspora’. The Portuguese in Canada: From the Sea to the City. University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 2000, pp. 15- 36. Teixeira, C. & da Rosa, V., ‘Introduction: A Historical and Geographical Perspective’. The Portuguese in Canada: From the Sea to the City. University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 2000. Treas, J. & Mazumdar, S., ‘Kinkeeping and Caregiving: Contributions of Older People in Immigrant Families’. Journal of Comparative Family Studies. Vol. 35, No. 1, 2004, pp. 105-22. Van Pevenage, I., Pour agir : comprendre les solidarités familiales. La recherche : un outil indispensable. Fiches synthèses de transfert de connaissances. INRS, Montréal, partenariat Familles en mouvance et dynamiques intergénérationnelles, 2009. Vertovec, S., ‘Conceiving and Researching Transnationalism’. Ethnic and Racial Studies. Vol. 22, No. 2, 1999, pp. 447-462.
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______________________________________________________________ Williams, A. & Fonseca, L., ‘The Azores: Between Europe and North America’. Small Worlds, Global Lives: Islands and Migration. King, R. & Connell, J. (eds), The Cromwell Press, London, 1999. Zontini, E., ‘Continuity and Change in Transnational Italian Families: The Caring Practices of Second-Generation Women’. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. Vol. 33, No. 7, 2007, pp. 1103-19. Ana Gherghel is a Researcher at Centro de Estudos Sociais da Universidade dos Açores (Portugal) and an Associated Researcher at research center JEFAR (on the adaptation of youth and families at risk), University Laval (Canada). Her research focuses on life course and family migration, especially the analysis of family transitions and trajectories of immigrants. Josiane Le Gall is a Researcher at Centre de Santé et des services sociaux de la Montagne (Montreal, Canada) and an Associate Professor at Université du Québec à Montréal. Her research interests focus on transnational families and intergenerational transmission.