Centre Norbert Elias (Marseille) is recruiting a researcher in social sciences (three-year contract) to join the team of the new collaborative project called “Un-making the Past, Making the Future: an intergenerational analysis of ancestral citizenship and visions of Europe“, conducted by researchers based in France, Germany and the Netherlands.
The project focuses on the intergenerational analysis of citizenship acquisitions specifically based on claims of co-ethnicity and bloodline. Ancestral citizenship provisions have been introduced in different European countries with the intention of unmaking the national past, trying to remedy historical mistakes, responding to shifting territorial borders or to the massive emigration that occurred due to economic hardship. Yet, they simultaneously make the future of Europe, as they are based on competing visions of Europe and constitute a legal pathway for migration.
Through a mixed methods and multi-level research design, this project analyses: 1) the reasons why citizenship laws based on bloodline emerged and how they have changed over time, in particular with respect to European integration and 2) the shifting motivations for acquiring an ancestral citizenship over time. This historically informed study will unearth the broader ramifications of this seemingly particularistic pathway on the notion of citizenship and legal mobility across the EU.
The project concentrates on the case-studies of Bulgaria, Italy and Germany and is conducted together with the Migration Department and the Cluster “Data-Methods-Monitoring” of DeZIM Institut Berlin and ISS- Erasmus University Rotterdam.
Mission
- Further development, implementation and coordination of the whole project, together with PIs
- Participation and organization of quarterly project meetings alongside involvement in Centre Norbert Elias meetings
- Conducting qualitative fieldwork: analysis of Italian parliamentary debates on citizenship, biographical interviews with Italian emigrants’ descendants & stakeholder interviews and observations
- Production of high-quality research & publication of scientific as well as non-scientific outputs, together with project members
- Liaising with relevant stakeholders