Publication by Mira Burmeister-Rudolph in Citizenship Studies

Mira Burmeister-Rudolph published her paper “Policy Differentiation and the Politics of Belonging in India’s Emigrant and Emigration Policies” in Citizenship Studies, available as open access here. Her paper contrasts India’s policy responses directed at emigrants in the Gulf countries, who work predominantly in low-wage employment, with policies targeted at those in the Global North. India has extended citizenship-like rights and symbolic inclusion to Indian citizens and (descendants of) former citizens residing in the Global North. However, emigrants in the Gulf are mostly omitted from these symbolic policies and are often unable to access the social protection schemes, which the Indian state particularly provides to low-wage migrants, and other substantive citizenship rights. Burmeister-Rudolph’s article shows that the Indian state links inclusive/exclusive boundaries of (symbolic) national membership, inherent in emigration and emigrant policies, to classifications regarding emigrants’ social identities, in this case class and religion.