Open borders in the nineteenth century: constructing the national, the citizen and the foreigner in South America

Public Seminar Series, Hilary term 2018

Series convenor: Dr Lilian Tsourdi

About the seminar

In the early nineteenth century, all the previously Spanish possessions in South America as well as Brazil achieved independence. With this new freedom, countries turned their attention to asserting their statehood through the delineation of three constitutive elements: government, territory and population. The new governments had to define who were going to be considered as nationals, citizens and foreigners, and the rights that pertained to each of these categories. These countries were all concerned with attracting new settlers and very early on introduced constitutional provisions on open borders and equal treatment for foreigners. White, male Europeans were the principal addresses of open borders provisions in an effort to entice them to settle in territories presented as empty to the exclusion of indigenous groups, bring new industries, and contribute to the whitening of mixed race populations that had also resulted from the forced migration of millions of Africans. Whilst weak statehood came with independence, forming nations was a much longer process and States used migration and citizenship policies as tools to define nationhood in countries with profound divisions by race and class. The presentation will conclude with some reflections on the ongoing importance of early configurations of nationality in today´s legal regime of migration and citizenship in South America.

about the speaker

Diego Acosta Arcarazo is a Reader in European and Migration Law at the University of Bristol. He was previously Lecturer in Law at the University of Sheffield and holds a PhD in European Law from Kings College London. His area of expertise is EU Migration Law and he is currently interested in migration law and policies in South America and in the process of construction of a South American citizenship. He is regularly invited to present his work at international conferences and has provided consultancy on the subject for International Organizations, Governments, Political Parties and NGOS in Europe, South America and Africa, including the European Union, the International Centre on Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) or Brazil's Ministry of Labour among others.

He has published widely in the area of European Migration Law, including his book: The Long-Term Residence Status as a Subsidiary Form of EU Citizenship. An Analysis of Directive 2003/109 (Martinus Nijhoff, 2011). He has also co-edited three other books: Global Migration. Old Assumptions, New Dynamics (Praeger, 2015, with Anja Wiesbrock); EU Justice and Security Law: After Lisbon and Stockholm (Hart, 2014, with Cian Murphy); and EU Immigration and Asylum Text and Commentary (Martinus Nijhoff, 2012, with Peers, Guild, Groenendijk and Moreno-Lax). His work has appeared in the most important journals in the area including the International Migration Review, European Law Review, European Law Journal, Journal of Common Market Studies or European Journal of Migration and Law.