sarah starkweather   research

My central research interest is the meaning of national citizenship and identity in the contemporary era, as communities of national citizens become ever less congruent with the national territorial boundaries of the nation-state. International migration - an integral circuit in the globalization of economic, socio-cultural and political systems - creates a pressing need for theoretical and practical reimaginings of national citizenship, a concept whose foundations lie in an imagined association between population and territory.

In the American context, there has been extensive research into the question of immigration and the non-citizen inside the boundaries of the nation-state, but less attention to emigration and the position of the citizen outside. However, negotiations over citizenship rights for citizens living outside the borders of the nation-state starkly illuminate the contradictions between the territorially-based concept of national citizenship and the reality of a transnationally situated political community. Therefore, I undertake research into the nature of extraterritorial citizenship not only to advance understanding of how globalization and transnationalism shape day-to-day citizenship practices, but also to address theoretical questions about the nature of national citizenship.