Temporary migration, identity and allegiance

Abstract

Allegiance to the state has been often considered by liberals as a fundamental and defining characteristic of the relationship between the citizen and her political community. A shared culture and identity have also sometimes been added to allegiance as crucial elements in defining citizenship. Migration has, thus, often troubled liberal theorists because the migrant has been seen as an anomaly within thedemos, whose presence had to be ‘normalised’ through a process of integration leading to full citizenship, not only as a matter of rightvis-à-visthe migrant, but also to preserve the integrity and liberal character of the political community. In this context, temporary migration programmes have been considered particularly troubling by liberal theorists who have tended, in general, to condemn them as unfair to the migrants themselves and dangerous for the liberal ethos and public culture of the political community. Liberals have generally argued that all migrants, once admitted, should be given, in time, access to full membership and supported in their process of integration until they become full members of the political community. In so arguing, however, liberal theorists have relied on unexamined empirical and normative assumptions of permanent migration as theonlymigration model. In this chapter, we argue that these assumptions are unwarranted, and that migrants, in fact, oftenchoosetemporary migration. Moreover, a lack of identification with the receiving community is integral, we shall argue, to such migratory choices, and should not be considered problematic as long as the migrants’ status as temporary ‘members’ of the political community is recognised. Integration and full membership are, therefore, not appropriate responses to these migrants’ claims and condition; rather, a special set of rights should be instituted to protect the migrants’ temporary ‘migration projects’ and to secure their status within the receiving community.