Current Sociology

Please welcome our Sociologist of the Month for October 2024, Ana Velitchkova (University of Mississippi, USA). Her article for Current Sociology Citizenship as a caste marker: How persons experience cross-national inequality is Free Access this month.

Ana Velitchkova

Could you please tell us about yourself? How did you come to your field of study?

A. Velitchkova: My global perspective has been shaped by living and working on three continents: Europe, North America, and South America. My interest in big societal questions in turn has been influenced by experiencing Eastern Europe’s transition from state socialism to capitalism and democracy and later 9/11 and its aftermath. These formative experiences pushed me toward the social sciences. Eventually, I completed a PhD in sociology and peace studies from the University of Notre Dame. My graduate studies were the beginning of my continuing journey trying to understand the complex and troubled world we live in.

What prompted you to research the area of your article, “Citizenship as a caste marker: How persons experience cross-national inequality”?

A. Velitchkova: At the University of Mississippi, where I work, sociologists are concerned with systems of inequality, especially gender and race. My colleagues’ focus on inequality urged me to think deeply about different ways in which inequality affects people globally. I realized that my experiences were not fully reflected in our understanding of inequality. As someone who comes from the former communist/Second world and who has managed to travel and live on three continents, I have felt the humiliation of applying for visas, of fearing border crossings, and of feeling like a second-class person. I knew this had to do with my citizenship status. At the same time, I knew I was one of the lucky ones. Undocumented migrants and people from the so-called “Third World,” have it much worse. My experience is part of a broader system of global stratification, in which citizenship plays a major role. Working on the article helped me untangle some of the threads making the global citizenship regime the caste system I argue it is.

What do you see as the key findings of your article?

A. Velitchkova: The key findings of my article are that the global citizenship regime is the foundation of a global caste system and that people experience global inequality through their citizenship as a caste marker. Features characteristic of other caste systems are observable in the global citizenship caste order as well. One such feature is social closure, which helps explain the centrality of borders, the global segregation they facilitate, and the difficulty of moving from one citizenship status to another. Visas, border crossings, and naturalization amount to purity rituals that control interactions among citizenship castes. Nationalism serves as the civil religion of the global citizenship caste order. Nation-states deploy both physical and symbolic violence to enforce citizenship distinctions.

What are the wider social implications of your research in the current social climate? How do you think things will change in the future?

A. Velitchkova: My research helps explain the widespread anti-immigrant sentiments across the globe, especially but not only in the global north. The existence of a caste order implies that some citizenships confer higher global statuses, with more privileges, than others. Anti-immigrant sentiments can thus be understood as quasi-religious fear of losing citizenship “purity” and privileges associated with higher citizenship castes. People belonging to higher citizenship castes might do anything they can to protect their status, including dehumanizing others whom they perceive as having a lower global status. A good analogy is the way the European nobility fought demands for equal rights coming from ordinary people as feudalism declined. It took a while for most people to accept that all people (within a state) were equal. It may take a while for most people to accept that all people around the world are equal and should have equal rights. It is a question of global justice. I hope my work contributes to us getting there sooner than later.

Do you have any links to images, documents or other pieces of research which build on or add to the article? Or a suggested reading list?

A. Velitchkova: The Documentary Podcast. 2023. “The Price of Citizenship.” (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0dw771j)