Keynote Address by Professor Engin Isin, ‘Extraterritorial Citizenship’

The international order, such as it still exists, is in crisis. Faith in the exchange of people, ideas and resources across borders, leading to greater cooperation, once widely shared, is now viewed as suspect by many in power. This workshop seeks to shed new light on these trends by focusing on the theory and practice of one of the most important components of the liberal international order: the international mobility of people. This topic is sadly all too timely. Whether in the growing hostility to migrants in Europe, the detention of international students in the United States, or the violence being inflicted against international aid workers in Gaza, foreign nationals are feeling the consequences of the disintegration of global governance.

The promises and protections of transnational movement have always been contingent on exclusion. From the assurances of safe passage given to merchants during the Middle Ages, to the passport regimes of the twentieth century, mobility has always been subject to one’s membership to a particular state or entity. However, we also note the increasingly deadly consequences of securitised border regimes: according to the UN's International Organisation for Migration, 2,5500 people died on Mediterranean crossings between 2014 and 2024. In September 2025, the United States launched a series of deadly and seemingly extrajudicial airstrikes on boats in international waters that the government alleged were trafficking drugs from Venezuela. 

What’s more, an older system of sovereign states rendering protection to overseas nationals now lies dormant. Beyond state-assisted evacuations, such as the one enacted at the beginning of the civil war in Sudan in 2023, few tools are available to states to protect overseas citizens. The detention, deportation and even extrajudicial killing of foreign nationals around the world rarely lead to serious repercussions.   

Through this workshop and future collaborations, we hope to explore the past and present activities and treatment of nationals abroad. We seek to facilitate dialogue between scholars working on any aspect of the movement (or prevention of movement) of people, past and present, across sub-fields and disciplines. We are eager to hear from scholars working in the fields of history, law, geography, anthropology, sociology, citizenship studies, political science, theory and international relations, as well as practitioners in fields relating to civil protection and humanitarian aid.

This one-day workshop will take place at the Arts and Humanities Institute at Maynooth University, 7 April 2026, with a keynote speaker to be confirmed. We welcome contributions from anyone for whom this call and the following research questions resonate, regardless of the geographical region or time period they work on. We are open to in-person and virtual presentations.