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Mehta, L & R, Napier-Moore
In J Gaventa & R Tandon (eds) Globalizing Citizens: New Dynamics of Inclusion and Exclusion. London: Zed
Due to copyright restrictions, we can only share the first three pages of this chapter online. The book can be ordere...
Due to copyright restrictions, we can only share the first three pages of this chapter online. The book can be ordered from Zed Books at www.zedbooks.co.uk/citizenship or purchased at the IDS bookstore.
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Mehta, L & R, Napier-Moore
IDS Working Paper, Number 354
Crucial for displaced people is citizenship (or the lack of it). In conventional terms, citizenship is seen as politi...
Crucial for displaced people is citizenship (or the lack of it). In conventional terms, citizenship is seen as political membership in a given nation-state through which citizens possess civil, political, economic and social rights. Most states, however, have groups within them who do not belong and are denied citizenship rights, even though they may have formal citizenship. In particular, displaced people (both within and crossing borders) are denied formal citizenship and rights but are claiming them, subjectively seeing their de facto experience as lived citizenship. Protest, claim assertion and transnational alliances are manifest ways of struggling for those rights. Much of the existing literature tends to focus top-down understandings of displaced people as citizens/non-citizens and the formal processes available (or not available) to them, ignoring the importance of informal processes as well as local agency and practice. This paper explores the informal processes and feelings of belonging through case study examples, linking them to changing dynamics in different displacement regimes (e.g. refugee, IDP – internally displaced people – and DID – (development-induced displacement). We look at impacts of globalisation and changing international and national legal structures to bottom-up and lived notions of citizenship. The paper also examines displacement in light of differing theoretical meanings of citizenship, asking to what extent the forced migrant is a global or transnational citizen.
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Thompson, L, Mehta, L & N, Nleya
In L Thompson & C Tapscott (eds) Citizenship and Social Movements: Perspectives from the Global South. London: Zed
Due to copyright restrictions, we can only share the first three pages of this chapter online. The book can be ordere...
Due to copyright restrictions, we can only share the first three pages of this chapter online. The book can be ordered from Zed Books at www.zedbooks.co.uk/citizenship or purchased at the IDS bookstore.
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Mehta, L
IDS Working Paper, Number 288
Research on development is normative, engaged and seeks to make a difference since it focuses on the excluded, on pow...
Research on development is normative, engaged and seeks to make a difference since it focuses on the excluded, on power relations and aims at the empowerment of the voiceless and increasingly on the ‘pedagogy of the powerful’. This makes it even more loaded and contested than other kinds of research. However, how aware and reflexive are researchers of their own biases and positionalities? Do final research accounts pay attention to questions concerning power and politics in the course of the research process? What are the dilemmas and contradictions encountered by researchers in both the North and South when they work with
marginalised and powerless groups? This paper focuses on these issues by drawing on the experiences and testimonies of researchers involved in the Development Research Centre (DRC) on Citizenship, Participation and Accountability based at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex. By focusing on the methodologies and methods that DRC researchers drew on while researching questions of citizenship and marginality in India, Nigeria, Mexico and Brazil, the paper discusses the increasing distance between researchers and the research participants and the politics of researching citizenship and marginality. It also provides theoretical and personal insights on issues related to methods, ethics, positionality, reflexivity and power. The paper intersperses personal statements and reflections (presented in italics) with theoretical reflections to highlight the messiness and confusion embedded in the research process which rarely come to the fore in conventional research papers and reports. It demonstrates that development research that seeks to make a difference must rethink questions concerning policy influence, change at local and global levels and the politics of research given the interconnectedness between the problems in the South with policies and politics in the North. It urges us as researchers to ask critical questions, decide more forcefully how to engage with the powerful and take the sides of the weak while maintaining a pragmatism of hope.
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Mehta, L
IDS Working Paper 288
Research on development is normative, engaged and seeks to make a difference since it focuses on the excluded, on pow...
Research on development is normative, engaged and seeks to make a difference since it focuses on the excluded, on power relations and aims at the empowerment of the voiceless and increasingly on the pedagogy of the powerful. How aware and reflexive are researchers of their own biases and positionalities? This paper, based on five years work of the Citizenship DRC, provides theoretical and personal insights on issues related to methods, ethics, positionality, reflexivity and power.
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Mehta, L
In P Newell & J Wheeler (eds) Rights, Resources and the Politics of Accountability. London: Zed
Due to copyright restrictions, we can only share the first three pages of this chapter online. The book can be ordere...
Due to copyright restrictions, we can only share the first three pages of this chapter online. The book can be ordered from Zed Books at www.zedbooks.co.uk/citizenship or purchased at the IDS bookstore.
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Mehta, L
IDS Working Paper 260
This paper focuses on why poor and marginalised people still lack access to economic, social and cultural rights (als...
This paper focuses on why poor and marginalised people still lack access to economic, social and cultural rights (also known as positive rights), despite a fairly mainstream support to positive rights in mainstream development debates. In part this is due to the problematic division between so-called first and second generation of rights. This is particularly true in the water debate where dominant narratives more often see water as an economic good rather than as a human right. Rights also fail to be realised due to sins of omission where poor states may lack the institutional capacity or financial resources to provide rights. Similarly, citizens may not be aware of rights and may not have the capacity to mobilise around them. Lack of rights may also be due to sins of commission. Thus states or non-state actors such as the World Bank may knowingly put vulnerable people’s rights at risk or even violate them with impunity. Economic globalisation also leads to policies that violate basic rights where diffuse and unclear rules of accountability exist for global and local players. The paper focuses on the right to water in South Africa to examine sins of omission and looks at forced displacement caused by the Narmada dams in India to examine sins of commission.
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Mehta, L
In N Kabeer (ed.) Inclusive Citizenship: Meanings and Expressions. London: Zed
Due to copyright restrictions, we can only share the first three pages of this chapter online. The book can be ordere...
Due to copyright restrictions, we can only share the first three pages of this chapter online. The book can be ordered from Zed Books at www.zedbooks.co.uk/citizenship or purchased at the IDS bookstore.
Water is uniquely and fundamentally essential for all aspects of life, well-being and productivity. It is also the lifeblood of ecosystems, essential for many eco-hydrological functions. For poor people, access to clean and affordable water is a prerequisite for achieving a minimum standard of health and undertaking productive activities. However, it is estimated that 1.1 billion people lack access to safe water, and almost 2.5 billion people – 40 per cent of the world’s population – lack access to adequate sanitation...
