The central paradox of today’s liberal democracies, according to Étienne Balibar, is that they must simultaneously “understate and affirm” the equation between nationality and citizenship. Squeezed between the ubiquitous transnational movement of capital and people on one hand, and the national roots of their legitimacy on the other, liberal democracies employ complex administrative and coercive apparatuses [shard: order maintenance] to differentiate between citizens and non-citizens, those who belong and those who are excluded, those that can be “integrated” and those that will remain second-class. [shard: Migration Regime under Runaway Climate Change]
The line of separation – the border – thus also runs through state territories not simply around them. And further. The pervasive border lingers in the body itself. As Shahram Khosravi has suggested, “the unwanted” are themselves “forced to be border”. Even when they are afforded the status of citizens, they may be called to “live up to their passports” at any moment, their rights can be put in question at random. To them the law is available but not accessible. Put simply, they do not belong. Citizenship is not enough; one has to be a national as well. But it’s difficult to become one. Many fail, becoming, or remaining, shard⁄homelandless.
References:
Balibar, Étienne. 2008. Šta je granica?. Treći program Radio Beograda, Br. 137–138, I– II/2008.
Shahram Khosravi, 2010. ‘Illegal’ Traveller: An Auto-Ethnography of Borders