Dueling designs: The politics of rescuing dual citizens

Abstract

This article analyzes the responses to the mass evacuation of approximately 15,000 Canadian citizens from Lebanon during the Israeli-Hezbollah war of 2006. The Canadian state went to extraordinary lengths to provide for the safety of its citizens, despite the fact that they were living outside the territorial confines of the nation. However, the evacuation was complicated by the fact that many of the people provided security were not just citizens, but dual citizens. The provision of security to these subjects had the paradoxical effect of provoking a controversy about the status of dual citizenship within Canada. If dual citizenship is designed to make sense of the multiple connections and feelings of belonging that exist under conditions of globalization, then these design elements begin to fail once the limit question of security and protection comes into play. This article utilizes Cynthia Weber's typology of the design elements of ‘safe citizenship’ – dying, caring, and immersing for one's country – and problematizes them in relation to dual citizenship. Dual citizenship raises a number of challenges for designing safe citizenship: Which country does one die for and in what context? What are the responsibilities of the second country to secure citizens in these cases? Care for which country? How do dual citizens immerse themselves into network society when they are living abroad?