Saturday, September 30, 1pm Galerie Rabus

Susanne Tönsmann
Degrees of passports: Having one or having none and what is in-between

My paper offers some thoughts on the changes that the passport as an institution and a practice is undergoing in the enlarged Europe. I focus on passport regimes and practices in Latvia and read them in the context of the Passport Union and EU citizenship.
It was due to pressure from the EU that Latvia issued non-citizen’s passports to their non-citizen population. This was meant to improve the situation of non-citizens, since a legal document would allow them to travel and cross borders.
I suggest, however, that the non-citizen passport stands in contrast to the concept and instruments implicit in EU citizenship policies. Rather than enhancing a common identity, this document establishes a negative relation between the state and an individual, and reinscribes and deepens perceived gaps between groups in society.
I discuss the information that is documented in passports, the political relations that passports establish and the “middle ground” between having a passport and not having a passport.


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