Faces of globalization and the borders of states : from asylum seekers to citizens

Intensifying processes of globalization have led to a series of tensions around the way in which even the most cosmopolitan democracies now treat people who move across their borders. Non-citizens have become problems. The postcolonial settler nation states – Australia, Canada, the USA and others – were ‘founded’ by immigrants and refugees who moved globally to become citizens in these ‘new lands’. Such countries were made by migrants displacing indigenous others. However, in a conflict-ridden world in which the displacement of persons has become endemic – and in a media connected world where the possibility of finding a better place to live has become increasingly imaginable and desired – these countries are now attempting to manage that global flow of people by stringent homeland security measures that are becoming increasingly problematic. While they are constituted through the modern imaginary of liberal democratic norms, human rights and rule of law, in each country over the last few years, rules have been bent, breached or bolstered in order to keep people out. The essay argues that given the globalization of people movement, the nation-state has reached the limits of responding though unilateral or even regional multilateral arrangements.