Passport and Citizenship: Nation-Building or Nation-Destruction?

The growing interest in migration, citizenship, and nationalism among scientists has led in the last two decades to the formation of an interdisciplinary field of critical passport studies. Initially passport scholars were following the institutionalist approach to nationalism, as well as the theories of disciplinary regime and surveillance society. Thus they were focusing on how this travel document together with the associated institutional infrastructure, administrative and social practices have been used in developing modern nation-states by forging the physical, social and cultural boundaries of the nation and disciplining the citizens. More recently, an increasing number of scholars have been investigating the grassroot forms of the perceptions and practices of passport use. Their studies reveal how passports and passes can help citizens in navigating the attempts of nation-states to “bind” their own populations, as well as in subverting a citizenship regime that looks to involve citizens into national projects and socially exclude non-citizens. The review of critical literature on the passport allows us to conclude that the multidimensional nature of this document enables different social actors to involve it in both nation-building and nation-destruction. In light of this literature we can recognize the weakening of the link between citizenship and nation-state, and the fact that citizenship and civic consciousness are currently being produced by various actors at different societal levels.