Migration and citizenship have mainly been treated as independent specialized topics, giving rise to different lines of research (i.e. migration studies and citizenship studies) and have rarely been thematically linked, although both are intertwined with the logic of sovereignty. The contemporary understanding of migration refers to a movement that is constructed around the modern nation state and its binary logic of deserving/undeserving territorial entry and the subsequent dynamics of integration or deportation. In contrast, the main theories of citizenship can be substantially divided into two types, normative and empirical, focused respectively on the formal/legal and substantial/practical dimensions of citizenship and its inclusive/exclusive dynamic. There are rare examples of studies that have attempted to overcome the dichotomies on which migration and citizenship are based to move towards a synthetic approach that integrates and reconciles the opposites, addressing its complex nexus from different angles.

The overall aim of this Research Topic is to refine a more comprehensive and integrated knowledge on migration and citizenship. The Research Topic intends to offer insights from a variety of disciplinary fields (sociology, demography, political science, anthropology, economy, and law), addressing different methodological and empirical perspectives with particular attention to the geographical and political heterogeneities within Europe. With this view, it aims to pay attentiveness to the wide variability of country-specific legal regimes on nationality, citizenship acquisition, and dual/multiple citizenship, and the variability of country-specific research traditions on migration and naturalization, as well as its diffusion. It is intended to promote a synergistic reflection on key issues in the study of migration and citizenship, including the main theoretical, analytical, and methodological challenges in the two interconnected research fields. In particular, this Research Topic aims to (i) ask new research questions by engaging in analytical discussions and drawing on empirical approaches to illuminate and develop a more nuanced and integrated understanding of the relationship between migration and citizenship; (ii) critically reflect on the dynamics and interconnectedness of migration and citizenship regimes for overcoming methodological nationalism (iii) strengthen the evidence base by drawing on national, transnational, and local comparative studies and interdisciplinary mixed methods in empirical research.

Conceived to rethink the migration-citizenship nexus from an interdisciplinary perspective, the Research Topic offers the possibility of proposing papers on different thematic areas and methods including, but not limited to:

• Citizenship lottery and demographic behavior;

• Political participation, mobilization, and representation in countries of immigration;

• Gendered, racialized, intersectional boundaries of citizenship;

• Citizenship, belonging, and recognition of migrants’ children and their descendants;

• Entanglements and new configurations of citizenship in different migratory/mobile contexts;

• Artistic performance and cultural participation as forms and sites of citizenship;

• External citizenship (external voting rights and dual citizenship), involvement of expatriates in the democratic representation and decision-making of sending states;

• Methods of producing statistical data and developing indicators for measuring citizenship and integration policy;

• Paying attentiveness to country-specific databases that provide information on both immigration and naturalization, including longitudinal approaches;

• Narratives of crisis, their relation to migration and their effects on citizenship regimes.

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