(Re)Bordering the Nations: Citizenship, Politics and Societal inclusion in the “New” Eastern Mediterranean.

The twentieth century has witnessed a range of ethnic and sectarian conflicts in the nation-states of the Eastern Mediterranean, where the breakup of the multi-ethnic and multi-religious Ottoman Empire meant the rise of majoritarian identities and politics. Citizenship has proven problematic for minority ethnic and religious groups, who have struggled to attain the full rights of citizenship, such as to represent and be represented. The twenty-first century, on the other hand, has brought a new dynamic to the region with flows of people across borders, upending claims of ethnic homogeneity. This project examines and compares the dynamics and constraints of citizenship in the region by looking at new border regimes in the EU and the region as they intersect with regime changes since the Arab spring. The project focuses attention on citizenship politics in Greece, north Cyprus, Republic of Cyprus, Turkey, Israel, Lebanon, Malta and Jordan. The aim is to understand how the politics of citizenship may be changing in contexts where the influx of peoples challenges the three dimensions of citizenship—legal, national belonging, and societal membership—that for much of the past century have constituted a relatively stable, if contested, domain.