Market embedded transnationalism: citizenship practices of Turkish elites

Abstract

This paper aims to explore one practice of citizenship spreading among privileged groups in Turkey. Making use of the tradition of birthright citizenship, increasing numbers of couples choose to give birth to their children in the United States. This is a transnational process, whereby “natural” citizens of one country use various sources of capital at their disposal to opt to give their children citizenship in another, more industrialized one. This case challenges existing conceptualizations of transnational citizenship, which focus on the palliative effect it might have for vulnerable populations within nation-states, as well as immigrants. We conceptualize the case of privileged minorities, who are able to mobilize resources to acquire a second citizenship for their children, as market embedded transnationalism. This citizenship emerges as a result of calculations about future expectations of benefits, and is obtained as a result of market mechanisms. In this case, the meanings of transnational citizenship can become part of market performances and, therefore, contribute to existing inequalities in novel ways.