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Department of Sociology, University of Essex - 25 th Graduate Conference 22-23 February 2012 - Europe from its border: the perception of European Citizenship in Europes Distant Islands. The Lampedusa and the Lanzarote case studies. Supervisor: Dr. Yasemin Soysal Supervisor: Dr. Darren Thiel PhD Student: Giacomo Orsini gorsin@essex.ac.uk

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Department of Sociology, University of Essex - 25 th Graduate Conference 22-23 February 2012 - Outline 1.Bordering Islands: a very brief overview 2.Research Question(s) 3.Theoretical framework 4.Methodology

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Department of Sociology, University of Essex - 25 th Graduate Conference 22-23 February 2012 - Lampedusa Total Population (2010): 6.252 Area: 20,2 Km Distance from the coast of Tunisia: 113Km Distance from the coast of Italy: 127Km

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Department of Sociology, University of Essex - 25 th Graduate Conference 22-23 February 2012 - Lanzarote Total Population (2012): 142.217 Area: 806 Km Distance from the coast of Western Sahara: 110Km Distance from the coast of Spain: almost 1000Km

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Department of Sociology, University of Essex - 25 th Graduate Conference 22-23 February 2012 - Research Question(s) How is European citizenship perceived by fishermen living in the two European marginal territories of Lampedusa and Lanzarote? How are EU policies, regulations and normatives locally implemented and which is their local impact? On the basis of these EU related local changes, how do local fishermen perceive their own European citizenship?

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Department of Sociology, University of Essex - 25 th Graduate Conference 22-23 February 2012 - Theoretical framework citizenship can be described in different ways according to the emphasis that is given to its various elements (Nash, 2009: 1067) Narrowing a concept: Citizenship as a status of individuals in relation to a political unit [the EU] which emerges, evolves and changes within concrete practices. More specifically this is done by locating citizenship within those [EU] treaties, legislative measures and practices that are linked to the status of individuals [fishermen in Lampedusa & Lanzarote] (Olsen, 2008: 41-42)

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Department of Sociology, University of Essex - 25 th Graduate Conference 22-23 February 2012 - EU regulations EU directives EU policies EU border management Policy EU structural funds EU cohesion funds Common Agricultural Policy Common Fishery Policy EU migration Policy EU Parliament votes...

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Department of Sociology, University of Essex - 25 th Graduate Conference 22-23 February 2012 - Why the fishermen? Fishing represents, with tourism, the 1 st economic sector in both islands Lampedusa has a fleet of 94 fishing vessels and around 180 fishermen Lanzarote has a fleet of 142 fishing vessels and 350 fishermen Fishing in Europe is regulated and subsidised in a capillary manner inside the frame of the Common Fishery Policy (CFP)

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Department of Sociology, University of Essex - 25 th Graduate Conference 22-23 February 2012 - Why at the border? With the implementation of the Schengen aquis the islands became part of the European external border: Since the turn of the millennium, more than 300,000 boat migrants [...] have reached the shores of Spain and Italy (J. Caling & M. Hernndez-Carrtero, 2011) mostly in Lampedusa and the Canary Islands Detention centres have been opened in the islands (1 in Lampedusa, 5 in Lanzarote) Militarization of the sea through FRONTEX operation

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Department of Sociology, University of Essex - 25 th Graduate Conference 22-23 February 2012 - Why at the border? As it expands its borders, the EU bureaucracy has imposed its will, above all, on populations at border perimeters whose daily lives and relationships are likely to be most profoundly affected among Europes peoples by its top-down pronouncements [...] The border [is then taken] as a point dentre [...] to better understand the nature of the entity - the European Union itself - that the internal and external border delineate. (Warwik, 2008: 4-5) Policies and regulation settled for the flat borderless European space accumulate their effects where this space ends

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Department of Sociology, University of Essex - 25 th Graduate Conference 22-23 February 2012 - The perception of European citizenship rather than taking [an exclusively] top-down perspective from the political centre of [...] Brussels, I will look at the [...] frontier from below in (Driessen, 2007: 78).

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Department of Sociology, University of Essex - 25 th Graduate Conference 22-23 February 2012 - Methodology Structured interviews with local institutional and non-institutional stakeholders from both Lamepdusa and Lanzarote: interviewees will be asked about the main local impacts/changes determined by the process of European integration and in particular since the inclusion into the Schengen space 10 semi-structured interviews with fishermen in each island: interviewees will be asked about their perception of the EU and of the changes determined in their own daily lives by becoming EU citizens.

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Department of Sociology, University of Essex - 25 th Graduate Conference 22-23 February 2012 - TO BE CONTINUED...