Etienne BALIBAR

Introduction

These new reflections on the issue of "transnational citizenship" and its aporias, which I have the possibility to submit for discussion owing to the generous invitation of the Institute on Globalization and the Human Condition at McMaster University, will be presented from a European point of view, as I have done in previous essays on the same subject. But I will try to do so also in the perspective of a comparison, or better said, a confrontation, with North America, of which you are part, and where I have been working now regularly for years, albeit across the border.

I do not believe in the possibility of speaking about "the global" from a point of view itself "global" — that is, from nowhere or everywhere. But I believe in the (relative) possibility of dis-locating one's point of view, one's place of enunciation, and above all of exposing oneself to the dis-location that comes from others.

What I am offering here has no pretension to present a full doctrine of "transnational citizenship," no more than it was the case before, but I will try to clarify certain issues and to take into account some discussions that have developed over the last few years (in particular after the publication of important essays by our Italian colleagues Alessandro Dal Lago and Sandro Mezzadra),which themselves were prompted by rapid transformations of the status of borders, the policies of "territorial defence" against illegal migrants, and the rise of "populist" ideologies and parties throughout Europe.

All this, indeed, comes in the wake of the growing polarization of world politics after 9/11, and therefore is not unrelated to similar tendencies observable internationally.
My contention is that we are observing a growing confusion of the historical and political categories of the "stranger" and the "enemy," which in a sense only brings to the fore a tendency inherent in the structure of the nation-state, and periodically activated by situations of cold or hot war, but also "normally" limited in its expression by laws and customs, which now seems to become irresistible —as was the case in some tragic moments of the past century. But the scale is not the same, and the resulting political alternatives cannot be the same either.

If the name "auto-immunity crisis," which has been proposed by the philosopher Jacques Derrida in some of his last essays (2005), is a good guiding thread, it would not be only a political question of choosing between fascism and democracy (and repelling one in the name and the perspective of the restoration of the other in its full comprehension), but more radically a meta-political or "constitutional" question of accepting a regression of the universalistic notion of citizenship, or inventing, against the current, a new historical
advance of that notion.

I feel indeed that we are only in the preliminary inquiries for achieving such a progress.

Cross-Borders

Cross-Borders, Transnational,

borders have changed place. Whereas traditionally, and in conformity with both their juridical definition and “cartographical” representation as incorporated in national memory, they should be at the edge of the territory, marking the point where it ends, it seems that borders and the institutional practices corresponding to them have been transported into the middle of political space. (…) More and more, however, borders are creating problems in the heart of civic space where they generate conflicts, hopes, and frustrations for all sorts of people (…)
Etienne Balibar: “We, the People of Europe?”


Searches for the (political) subject beyond nationalism and ethnicism. What about the EU? Who is a EU citizen? Is there a EU citizen?

It became clear that the European unification is a challenging and troubling process. On the one hand, we can speak about the real impossibility of European unification as long as we operate in categories such as “us” and “them”, “old” and “new”, “big” and “small”. At the same time, the EU proved to erase borders and construct a quasi-state.

According to the contemporary French political philosopher Etienne Balibar, Europe needs a new democracy; he calls Europe’s current social democratic model a “conflictual democracy” – one which recognises individuals as the bearers of collective rights protection. For new, real, radical democracy of Europe we urgently need to rethink and recontextualize concepts such as: state, borders, nation, belonging, identity, sovereignty, citizenship, communism, solidarity.

Articles for Migration Project

Making Migration Work

Hopefully my new project for a conference?

"Living together in diversity: National Societies in the multicultural age"
CEU

New Project

I have decided to embark on a new project! Will submit a paper to the "First Symposium Citizenship After Orientalism." Now will have to think about what to write about...

Odyssey Dawn!

What does it mean? Who comes up with these names?

Thoughts on Fast Changing World, Motherhood

Things are certainly moving fast. Western allies have decided to bring down a tyrant, who not long ago was a good friend. A friend, who set up a tent in the middle of Paris. Yes, politics has certainly strange bedfellows.

I read somewhere that one has children in order to fight off depression. I do not know whether I had them with this thought in mind, but I find myself more and more relying on them to feel better. Have two daughters, aged 36 and 39 and I enjoy them immensely. Lately, I find myself calling them when I feel down and tired. Deep down I know that I should not that they have a life. So do I! I run, cycle, swim, work, read, and study but still seem to rely on them to put me on track. Like this morning.

And, Maayan! My cute 7-month-old granddaughter! How come I look at her picture on the refrigirator and my face breaks out in a smile?

It is OK, Tina.