As part of the Lunchtime Seminar Series, the African Centre for Migration & Society invites you to a seminar titled The effects of governing unauthorized migration on citizenship by Stefan Salomon (Institute of International Law, University of Graz).

Traditional international law might be characterized by maintaining a twofold strict division: a division between aliens and citizens on the one hand, and a division between citizenship and nationality on the other. This division was doctrinal and conceptual. It materialized in boundaries of separate legal frameworks of migration and citizenship, assuming that change occurs within each framework and that they do not overlap. Citizenship and migration, however, are not two separate legal frameworks but are historically and conceptually linked. Historically, the transformation of the normative boundaries of citizenship came about by non-citizens claiming rights in the sphere of citizenship. Migration, however, is already defined by techniques of governance. Governance of unauthorized migration conceptually links citizens and non-citizens: control of the latter occurs in the name of the former. As governance of migration is spatially ‘outsourced’ to the territories of other states and ‘insourced’ into the midst of the polity, citizenship itself turns into an object of governance.

Biography

Stefan Salomon is lecturer at the Institute of International Law at the University of Graz (Austria), where he is the founder and head of the Refugee Law Clinic. Previously, he worked at the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a European Union agency. His research focuses primarily on international and European refugee and migration law, human rights law, and legal theory. Stefan currently works on a research project on how transnational governance of irregular migration transforms citizenship. In a second research project, he looks at the production of territory in international and EU law. Stefan regularly contributes to various newspapers as freelance journalist. Stefan’s research is funded by a research grant of the Austrian Sciences Fund.

Date: Tuesday 15 May 2018

Time: 12.30 -13.30

Venue: ACMS Seminar Room 2163, South East Wing, Second Floor, Solomon Mahlangu House, University of the Witwatersrand East Campus