From the intersection of citizenship, critical migration studies, and science and technology studies (STS), this book examines, across the various case studies, configurations between technologies, infrastructures and citizenship that may constrain acts of citizenship in migration and border regimes; constitute contestation and participation over citizenship; or enable and shape alternative acts of citizenship in migration and border regimes. Technologies and infrastructures on the border are designed to position migrants in multiple and potentially contradictory forms; migrants crossing the border, in their turn, may choose to challenge and repurpose those technologies and infrastructures to match their interests. By elaborating on the notion of ‘material citizenship politics’, the contributors provide a detailed analysis of socio-material practices on the border that moves beyond portraying migrants as mere victims of border technologies and migration infrastructures and anchors critique on the inside of those practices. The chapters in this volume hope to contribute to setting the research agenda and to stimulate further research along these lines revisiting the (in)visibilities of migrant subjects along technologies and infrastructures. As the current pandemic unfolds, exposing societal vulnerabilities, this book highlights the need to critically reflect on the establishment of existing technologies and infrastructures in order to examine to what extent those affect and shape migrant subjects in particular, but may also be extended and used on wider populations after being tested and normalized on vulnerable subjects. This book will be of interest to a broad readership across the social sciences, including scholars working in Critical Migration and Border Studies, Citizenship Studies, Critical Security Studies, and Science and Technology Studies. The chapters in this book were originally published in the journal Citizenship Studies.

Community as the Material Basis of Citizenship addresses community as the site of participation, production, and rights of citizens and brings to bear a profound critique of a collective process that has historically excluded working class communities and communities of color from any real governance. The argument is that the status of citizenship has been influenced by a society that emphasizes the role of property in defining legitimacy and power and therefore idealizes and institutionalizes citizenship from an individualistic perspective. This system puts the onus on the individual citizen to participate in their governance, while the political reality is that organizations and corporations and their interests have great power to influence and govern. The chapters present an exciting departure from the long-standing traditions of the social basis of citizenship. In Community as the Material Basis of Citizenship, Rodolfo Rosales and his contributors argue that citizenship is a communally embedded and/or socially constituted phenomenon. Hence, the unfinished story of American Democracy is not in the equalization of communities but rather in their ability to participate in their own governance - in their empowerment.

At the nexus of political science, development studies, and public policy, Developing States, Shaping Citizenship analyzes an overlooked driver of political behavior: citizens’ past experience with the government through service provision. Using evidence from Zambia, this book demonstrates that the quality of citizens’ interactions with the government through service provision sends them important signals about what they can hope to gain from political action. These interactions influence not only formal political behaviors like voting, but also collective behavior, political engagement, and subversive behaviors like tax evasion. Lack of capacity for service delivery not only undermines economic growth and human development, but also citizens’ confidence in the responsiveness of the political system. Absent this confidence, citizens are much less likely to participate in democratic processes, express their preferences, or comply with state revenue collection. Economic development and political development in low-capacity states, Hern argues, are concurrent processes. Erin Accampo Hern draws on original data from an original large-N survey, interviews, Afrobarometer data, and archival materials collected over 12 months in Zambia. The theory underlying this book’s framework is that of policy feedback, which argues that policies, once in place, influence the subsequent political participation of the affected population. This theory has predominantly been applied to advanced industrial democracies, and this book is the first explicit effort to adapt the theory to the developing country context.

This refreshed and dynamic Eighth Edition of Keeping the Republic revitalizes the twin themes of power and citizenship by adding to the imperative for students to navigate competing political narratives about who should get what, and how they should get it. The exploding possibilities of the digital age make this task all the more urgent and complex. Christine Barbour and Gerald Wright, the authors of this bestseller, continue to meet students where they are in order to give them a sophisticated understanding of American politics and teach them the skills to think critically about it. The entire book has been refocused to look not just at power and citizenship but at the role that control of information and its savvy consumption play in keeping the republic.

The Constitution has governed the United States since 1789, but many Americans are not aware of the structural rules that govern the oldest democracy in the world. Important public policy challenges require a knowledgeable, interested citizenry able to address the issues that represent the rich pageantry of American society. Issues such as climate change, national debt, poverty, pandemics, income inequality, and more can be addressed sufficiently if citizens play an active role in their own republic. Collectively, citizens are vulnerable to exploitation and manipulation if we place limits on our individual political knowledge. A more informed, engaged citizenry can best rise to the great policy challenges of contemporary society and beyond. Brian L. Fife provides readers with essential information on all aspects of American politics, showing them how to use political knowledge to shape the future of the republic. Activist citizens are the key to making the United States a more vibrant democracy. Fife equips citizens and would-be citizens with the tools and understanding they need to engage fully in the political process. At the end of each chapter, he analyzes why citizenship matters and how citizens can use that chapter’s material in their own lives. Fife also provides readers with a citizen homework section that presents web links to further explore issues raised in each chapter.

Geographies of children and young people is a rapidly emerging sub-discipline within human geography. There is now a critical mass of established academic work, key names within academia, growing numbers of graduate students and expanding numbers of university level taught courses. There are also professional training programmes at national scales and in international contexts that work specifically with children and young people. In addition to a productive journal of Children’s Geographies, there’s a range of monographs, textbooks and edited collections focusing on children and young people published by all the major academic presses then there is a substantive body of work on younger people within human geography and active authors and researchers working within international contexts to warrant a specific Major Reference Work on children’s and young people’s geographies. The volumes and sections are structured by themes, which then reflect the broader geographical locations of the research.

In Material Politics, author Andrew Barry reveals that as we are beginning to attend to the importance of materials in political life, materials has become increasingly bound up with the production of information about their performance, origins, and impact. Presents an original theoretical approach to political geography by revealing the paradoxical relationship between materials and politics Explores how political disputes have come to revolve not around objects in isolation, but objects that are entangled in ever growing quantities of information about their performance, origins, and impact Studies the example of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline – a fascinating experiment in transparency and corporate social responsibility – and its wide-spread negative political impact Capitalizes on the growing interdisciplinary interest, especially within geography and social theory, about the critical role of material artefacts in political life