Current topics of Migration Online: Citizenship and Czechness

Citizenship

Marek Čaněk, Multicultural Center Prague (mise@mkc.cz)

Together with you, we would like to consider what citizenship means for the state, citizens and recent immigrants. By granting citizenship, the state relinquishes a part of the controlling power it had previously exercised over a foreigner. Subsequently, such foreigner miraculously disappears: he is removed from foreigner statistics because he has become a “citizen”. He can travel and return to the country without fear and is no longer threatened by deportation. He does not need to reapply for a residency permit - he just lives in the country. Are foreigners interested in the Czech citizen ID card because it certifies that they are Czechs and/or are their actions motivated by practical reasons such as the freedom to travel across the EU? What is the motivation of various groups of foreigners for applying or not applying for Czech citizenship? What is the experience of foreigners regarding the process of naturalization? The Czech nation-state and citizenship have been historically mainly defined by ethnic origin and the country's experience with immigration is only brief. To what extent has this fact shaped the law and practice as regards availability of citizenship? Is citizenship static in other words how difficult is it to adapt it to the new realities of immigration? Apart from existing Czech laws, we will examine the draft government document relating to a new framework for citizenship that could eventually bring about such changes as dual citizenship (not just as an exception).

Czechness

Kateřina Janků, University of Ostrava (katerina.janku@osu.cz)

What is “Czechness”? We may see it as a set of characteristics giving a person the right to feel as a Czech or to be identified as one. It is a specific worldview or a differentiating aspect, where such differentiation may facilitate both integration and discrimination. Last but not least, Czechness includes the experience of people who live their lives not respecting the boundaries of individual analytic concepts. Czechness is a space where various group identities, lifestyles and symbols may be fashioned, from the culture of mushroom picking to the generation of 1968. We would like to make our readers and contributors think and offer them a wide-ranging perspective of Czechness, although it is always somewhat precarious to perceive Czechness as one issue. We are interested in Czechness in particular in connection with migration in Central Europe. What happens if an immigrant living in the Czech Republic starts identifying with the Czech ethnic culture? Will ethnic Czechs allow immigrants to identify themselves as Czechs at all? Is the feeling of national or cultural unity disappearing or changing over time when an ethnic Czech lives in a different country and culture? How and with what does the Czech ethnic culture live?

We are interested in Czechness defined geographically, culturally and institutionally or reflected as a process of excluding the unwanted, a socializing imperative or a platform for realizing opportunities offered by life to those who are different and want to either adapt or emphasize their differences. Do you see it in a different way? Let us know!