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Academics, auditors, entrepreneurs, footballers, investors, journalists, lawyers and managers move as professionals through distinct but overlapping fields (of expertise, knowledge, and competence) that traverse national borders. (Sans-frontiérisme has become their shibboleth.) Yet, when people move across these borders as citizens, unless authorized, they are treated as trespassers and their bodies are caught in border regimes that constitute them as migrants, refugees, or aliens. (Sans-papierisme has become their slogan.) There is a widening gap between those who can act across borders and those who remain confined within them. Cosmopolitanism or universalism have sought to close this gap but so far neither has identified a field in which citizens can act. This may be the end of citizenship. If not, what prospects can there possibly be for citizens without frontiers?
Professor Isin is currently undertaking three different, though related, ‘genealogical investigations’: (i) concerning ‘oriental citizenship and justice’ with a focus on the Islamic and Ottoman institution, waqf; (ii) concerning ‘acts’ especially as it pertains to those acts that constitute subjects as claimants of justice across frontiers; and, (iii) concerning ‘governing affects’ with a focus on the role of mobilizing emotion in politics. He is the principal investigator of two European Research Council (ERC) projects ‘Enacting European Citizenship’ (2008-2011) and ‘Citizenship After Orientalism’ (2010-2014). His personal website is: http://www.enginfisin.eu.
