ABSTRACT
Scholars of international relations have tended to focus on states and international institutions as the main subjects of research, or “objects of inquiry,” an approach that is at once mainstream but theoretically narrow (Soguk, 1999; Hyndman, 2000). This book has further destabilized state-centric assumptions by invoking more embodied and everyday geopolitics at regional and local scales that reveal new understandings of security, but also expose the vulnerabilities of those facing extended exile. Nonetheless, there is a palpable tension in this work between unsettling the state and a desire, following Arendt, that people facing long-term displacement can access the “right to have rights,” guaranteed by states. Restoring citizenship is not easy, but its promise in a world where mobility is predicated on what passport one holds is still powerful. As Peter Nyers (2004: 203) writes:
Citizenship is at once one of the most celebrated and most problematic of political concepts. Celebrated, because citizenship is said to be the political identity that embodies modern claims to liberty, equality, rights, autonomy, self-determination, individualism, and human agency. Whenever and wherever this occurs, it always stands as a remarkable historical achievement. And yet, citizenship remains problematic precisely because its accomplishments are almost always realized in a highly unequal-indeed, exclusionary-fashion.
