FIELDWORK AND RESEARCH EXPERIENCE INCLUDES:

Albania, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, FYR Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Russian Federation, Serbia, Slovakia Slovenia, Spain, Ukraine, United Kingdom.

Statelessness in Europe

The Rothschild/Ford Foundation project on statelessness, racism and exclusion in Europe entailed the collection of empirical data in Estonia, France, Slovenia and the UK on conditions under which people without secure status (e.g. unsuccessful asylum seekers and overstayers) manage their lives inside ‘Fortress Europe’. The findings from this project will appear in Statelessness in The European Union: Displaced, Undocumented and Unwanted, published by Cambridge University Press in 2010. 

The Benefits of Citizenship

Arguably, the granting of citizenship may undo many of the harmful acts associated with the denial and deprivation of citizenship. Yet, surprisingly, in spite of the significance of this area of investigation, few scholars have sought to uncover concrete evidence of the benefits of citizenship as a means of countering human rights violations and social, economic and political instability. This study investigates the practical benefits of citizenship and the degree to which basic human rights are currently enjoyed by formerly stateless populations. It is motivated by three main research questions: 1) Has the granting of citizenship enabled individuals to access rights and resources?  2) How has the granting of citizenship enabled individuals to enhance the quality of their lives? 3) What barriers prevent people who have been granted citizenship from the full enjoyment of their rights? The empirical basis for this study is derived from semi-structured interviews (n=60) conducted with formerly stateless individuals and a small number of policy and human rights experts as well as representatives of social service organisations in five countries: Kenya, Kuwait (and neighbouring Gulf states), Slovenia, Sri Lanka, and Ukraine. Initial findings from this research project were published as Statelessness and the Benefits of Citizenship: A Comparative Study by the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights and the Observatory on Statelessness in July 2009. The extended findings from this study will be published as Statelessness and Belonging: A Comparative Study on the Benefits of Nationality by Edward Elgar Publishing in 2010.

Freedom of Movement

Freedom of Movement provides an original account that seeks to explain why the right to free movement, often considered to the right to have rights, has become so controversial in Western societies.  It draws together the literature on migration, citizenship and equality by considering how restrictions on individuals’ mobility contribute to new modes of exclusion.   Using data gathered during interviews (n = 170) across multiple countries, Freedom of Movement documents how official and informal restrictions on individuals mobility have effectively created new, stratified, forms of citizenship.  The first part of the book charts the intellectual development of the right to free movement in Western liberal democracies.  In three separate chapters, it considers the philosophical, economic, and political arguments in favour of the free movement of persons before examining the way in which this right has developed through customary practice and formal policy.  The second part of the book reviews some of the contemporary challenges that prevent migrants from enjoying the right to freedom of movement and introduces the concept of ‘civic differentiation’.  I argue that migrants enjoy vastly different outcomes and that their migrant status affects the degree to which they can access the state, private sector, and other essential services.  The variation in social, economic and political access enjoyed by migrants enables us to talk of differentiated forms of citizenship and describe new forms of exclusion.  The concept of civic differentiation is then illustrated in four comparative studies which provide an insight into both formal (e.g. national quotas, visas, and other immigration controls) and non-formal barriers (e.g. discriminatory practices) that frustrate non-citizens and ‘outsiders’ from enjoying their rights to free movement. The empirical chapters in this section are informed by personal accounts of exclusion from six European states and Russia and supplemented by secondary literature of current restrictions in China.  The final empirical chapter considers some of the future challenges to free movement posed by increased surveillance and technology-reliant systems that track the mobility of individuals.  This book concludes that while there is evidence of successful integration and incorporation of new migrants, there are many asymmetries which undermine the claim to free movement.