Descripción del proyecto
La desigualdad global provocada por la mercantilización de la ciudadanía
Los programas de ciudadanía para inversores que conceden legalmente a ciertas personas una segunda ciudadanía a cambio de una inversión en el país de acogida han proliferado dentro de la Unión Europea (UE). El resultado ha sido la mercantilización de la ciudadanía y el surgimiento de una industria de la ciudadanía. El nuevo sistema está teniendo importantes repercusiones sobre la ciudadanía, la migración y la desigualdad social. Sin embargo, el fenómeno de la ciudadanía para inversores ha captado poca atención científica y el auge de la industria de la ciudadanía permanece inexplorado. El proyecto CitIndus, financiado con fondos europeos, investigará cómo ha surgido el mercado mundial de la ciudadanía y estudiará su papel en la proliferación de la ciudadanía para inversores, en la formación de nuevos sistemas de migración y en la creación de un poder político corporativo. Comprender la industria de la ciudadanía nos permitirá aclarar el papel de la mercantilización en el aumento de las desigualdades.
Objetivo
Originally introduced by the Caribbean microstate St. Kitts and Nevis in 1984, the possibility of buying citizenship via citizenship-by-investment (CBI) schemes has more recently spread across the Caribbean and to Europe. This proliferation of CBI, the associated commodification of citizenship and migration, the increase in corporate political power and reworking of social inequality are of fundamental importance to Europe and global society. Yet, CBI has received scant scholarly attention and particularly the ‘Citizenship Industry’ – the corporations and industry bodies driving and profiting from CBI – remains largely unexamined. ‘CitIndus’ addresses these gaps. It will explore how corporations effectively created, skilfully perform and arguably control the global citizenship market; illuminate their role in the proliferation of CBI, in shaping global migration regimes and as increasingly influential intermediaries between governments and citizens. Examining the Citizenship Industry will also further our understandings of how citizenship mediates global and local social inequalities and how its commodification reworks these structures of inequality. CitIndus thus advances interdisciplinary social science on citizenship, migration and social inequality. It also meets growing calls to embed migration research more effectively within social theory and advances the conversation between cutting-edge postcolonial and political economy approaches. Methodologically, CitIndus takes the innovative approach of 'following’ the Citizenship Industry, synthesising complementary qualitative methods, including document analysis, interviews, participant observation and qualitative GIS. CitIndus will be supervised by two world-leading experts: Prof Torpey, an authority on citizenship and the state at CUNY, and Prof Jazeel, an authority on postcolonial geography and migration at UCL and its Migration Research Unit, a European hub for migration research.
Ámbito científico
Programa(s)
Régimen de financiación
MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)Coordinador
WC1E 6BT London
Reino Unido