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MiCRiNet

About us

The Migration and Citizenship Rights Network (MiCRiNET) is a Strategic Project of the University of South Africa (UNISA) administered by the VerLoren van Themaat Centre for Public Law Studies in the College of Law. MiCRiNET was launched in May 2010 and will run as a strategic project until December 2012. The aim of the project is to establish a sustainable Network of scholars and policy makers investigating the impact of migration on citizenship rights in the SADC region. The specific focus of the project falls on the voting rights of citizens who have emigrated from and non-citizens who have immigrated into the various SADC members states.

In his first State of the Nation Address on 3 June 2009, President Jacob Zuma confirmed that the national development agenda under his Presidency will place “particular emphasis on improving the political and economic integration of SADC”. Migration is a key variable affecting both the economic and political integration of the region. With the adoption of the Protocol on the Facilitation of Movement of Persons by SADC in 2005 and the African Common Position on Migration and Development by the Executive Council of the African Union (AU) in 2006, migration has been accepted as an effective tool for economic development and integration in Africa. This is a precarious undertaking, as the outbreak of xenophobic attacks in May 2008 in various towns around South Africa sadly confirmed.

The attacks underscored the urgent need to develop strategies to politically, socially and economically integrate migrants into host societies, so that the strength of national identities and democratic citizenship is not eroded, but is rather enhanced. For this reason it is of strategic importance to investigate how migration impacts on conceptions of citizenship within the SADC region and how the granting (or refusal) of political rights to migrants might impact on the economic development and integration within the region. A better understanding of the relationship between the economic and political integration (or citizenship) of migrants within the SADC region is crucial. The same applies to the relationship between local, national, trans-national (SADC based) and global (cosmopolitan) forms of citizenship.

MiCRiNet aims to respond to the challenges that are posed by the recent attempts to embrace migration as a development strategy within the SADC region (see background) by hosting a serious of lectures, workshops, seminars and conferences. In addition MiCRiNET aims to establish and host a website to serve as a network hub and resource for researchers and policy makers in the field. 

In the process MiCRiNet aims to direct the resources and capacities of the University of South Africa in a community development initiative that centres on long-term collaborative partnerships with other Universities and community based organisations. The community in question extends beyond the borders of South Africa to the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

What we do
MiCRiNet hosts regular seminars over the duration of the project, and a selection of reports from proceedings will be made available. MiCRiNet researchers are also on occasion asked to give speeches at conferences and workshops, and the texts of these will also be made available. Whenever the MiCRiNet hosts an event, an announcement will be made on our upcoming events section. We would warmly welcome you to join us at these public events. We regularly invite prominent figures in with interest in migration and citizenship rights to speak at our seminars. If you are interested in speaking on a topic, we may be able to host you at one of our seminars.

MiCRiNET aims to establish and coordinate a sustainable network of SADC scholars and policy makers investigating the impact of migration on citizenship rights in the region. In particular, MiCRiNET aims to stimulate and coordinate research and policy initiatives within the SADC region pertaining to the voting rights of citizens who have emigrated from, and non-citizens who have immigrated into, the various SADC member states. MiCRiNET hosts a website that serves as a network hub and resource for researchers and policy makers working at the intersection of migration and citizenship.