Justice, citizenship and methodological denationalism

This chapter examines the relationship between citizenship and justice, understanding citizenship as a political concept and a socio-legal status. It explores how social science thinking about justice has been hobbled by methodological nationalism and relates this to debates in migration studies about the nature of citizenship. The chapter suggests how to take a methodologically de-nationalist approach to justice through ETHOS research on Roma people, justice as representation and justice and social assistance. The case of the Roma people is a way of bringing debates about hierarchies of ‘migration’ into conversation with hierarchies of citizenship, the nation state form, ideas of ‘race’ and sedentarist assumptions. The issue of social assistance is used to examine firstly how mobility is subject to control and restriction through welfare state policy, and how claimants experience disrespect. The chapter concludes by arguing that citizenship and restrictions on mobility are implicated in racialisation, misrepresentation and maldistribution.