13/05/2016: MACIMIDE Workshop on Citizenship and Diaspora Policies in Post-Communist Central and Eastern Europe

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Date/Time
Date(s) - 13/05/16
All Day

Location
Grote Gracht 80-82, Spiegelzaal (Soiron Building) Maastricht

Categories


MACIMIDE Workshop

Citizenship and Diaspora Policies in Post-Communist Central and Eastern Europe

With the support of the Maastricht Centre for Citizenship Migration and Development (MACIMIDE) and Limburg University Fund – SWOL

Organisers: Costica Dumbrava and Christin Hess

The workshop explores the development of citizenship regimes in post-communist CEE by providing insights into national and regional issues, such as dual citizenship, diaspora politics and inter-ethnic conflict. Over the past quarter of a century, all the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) have changed or amended their citizenship laws. Some of these changes responded to the need to modernise citizenship laws in line with rediscovered liberal democratic principles. Others were triggered by dramatic developments in the region, such as transformations of statehood, border changes, wars and population movements (e.g. internal displacement, refugee flows, ethnic immigration, and economic emigration). The new citizenship laws divided populations that once belonged to the same state, leading to the proliferation of both multiple citizenship and statelessness. While certain groups of residents (immigrants, ethnic minorities) were excluded from citizenship, other people were recognised as citizens despite the fact that they lived outside borders (ethnic diasporas, emigrants). Commentators in the early 1990s spoke of a rift between citizenship regimes in Western and Eastern Europe, thus reiterating older views about a dichotomy between civic-Western and ethnic-Eastern nations. We now have a growing comparative literature on citizenship that has overcome such simplistic views by revealing a complexity of patterns and trends of citizenship policies in Europe and globally. However, this literature still tends to focus primarily on issues such as immigration and naturalisation, which are more pressing to researchers from and/or working in Western Europe.

The workshop is linked to a forthcoming special issue on the same theme of the Central and Eastern Europe Migration Review, edited by Costica Dumbrava.

Programme

The Workshop will be opened by a keynote lecture by Maarten Vink (Maastricht University) on Comparing Citizenship Policies: Patterns and Trends.

Read the full programme (pdf).

Registration

There are a limited places available for external participants. If you are interested to attend please send us an e-mail at c.dumbrava@maastrichtuniversity.nl.