Citizenship/border 1.0

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20. A redefinition of citizenship in Europe must start from migrants’ practices of crossing the borders and reclaiming citizenship beyond its nationalistic and exclusionary origins. The various manifestations of borders that we are challenging and fighting against from day to day reflect different situations: they are geographical and state borders, detention camps for migrants, electronic control systems, walls and barbed wires [1]. But they are also internal controls and visa regimes. The borders of Europe now reach far beyond the geographical limits of the EU member-States, establishing an externalisation of migration controls [2].

21. Physical borders are continuously contested and reshaped by the movement of those who cross and are being crossed by them. Various practices and routes bring people to enter, leave and re-enter the space of Europe. However it is also the multiple movements of the internal migrants, which express and respond to the deepening disparities and inequalities in Europe. These practices are central in contesting what is Europe today and in foreseeing what Europe may be tomorrow.

22. Challenging citizenship in Europe is perceiving it ‘from the border’ itself - we imagine and practice an open, ongoing and inclusive citizenship, disconnected from the place of birth and the place of departure, independent from permanent or temporary residency in one place, not subdued to labour condition and instead grounded on a shared, open and democratic social space.

23. We need to constantly question any position of privilege that downplays demands for ‘inclusion’, however this term may be contested, of anyone who experiences material constraints and differential treatment to access social rights and freedoms. ADD Sentence on Security and Peace beyond the conjuncture but making explicit link to the footnote

Footnotes

[1: such as the Spanish SIVE, military control naval missions such as the ones organized by Frontex, walls and barbed wires of Ceuta-Melilla, and Greek-Turkish border]

[2 bilateral and EU agreements with countries of origin such as those with Northern African countries or Turkey]

[3 as recently stated in the Carta of Lampedusa]

(Footnote: to rephrase... and to acknowledge the borders as dispositives to reshape the organisation labour, as in the case of “feminisation” of labour and global migration, “affective labour” - migrant caretakers and sex workers […] //Increasingly this is a reality also for internal migrants of EU member states who see their access to welfare curtailed in case they do not demonstrate they are worthy of it.)

(Footnote: Looking at Europe 'from the point of view of the border' we cannot ignore the significance of the ongoing social and political struggles of both individuals and collectivities, such as we have recently seen in Ukraine and Bosnia and Herzegovina, connected to the reshaping of European borders.)