Births and passports: birth mobilities and strategic citizenship in contemporary Brazil

• Grant number: 23/03070-1
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: August 01, 2023
• End date: July 31, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Sociology - Other specific Sociologies
• Principal Investigator: Svetlana Ruseishvili
• Grantee: Svetlana Ruseishvili
• Host Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 24/15946-1 - Digital social networks as a mobility infrastructure: monitoring Telegram discussion groups, BP.TT

Abstract

The aim of this research project is to investigate "birth mobilities" ("birth tourism" as it is called in common sense) as a path to strategic citizenship. The increasing flow of foreign women who come to give birth in countries of birthright citizenship (jus soli) to acquire that country's passport has drawn attention from migration authorities and the media in American countries. The present research aims to fill gaps in the scientific literature on strategic citizenship by: i) addressing reproductive practices as a pathway to acquire additional citizenship by birth and ii) introducing the gender element into the debate, as this acquisition of citizenship is conditioned on the reproductive capacity of the female body. The project will employ a diversity of qualitative methods (literature and document review, interviews with subjects involved in the practice of birth mobility, participant observation, social media listening and online questionnaire) to gather a wide range of data that will allow us to comprehensively analyse the practice of birth mobility of Russian women in Brazil. As a central hypothesis, I argue that birth mobility results from neoliberal subjectivity that transforms traditional meanings of national belonging and childbirth. From the prescribed category, national belonging becomes a resource in the context of insecurity generated by geopolitical conflicts and growing global inequality. From a passive biological event, childbirth is transformed into a practice aimed at maximising profits, understood not only in an economic sense but in a dimension of care. (AU)

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

RUSEISHVILI, SVETLANA. Beyond 'birth tourism': transnational birth mobilities and dual citizenship amid geopolitical instability. CITIZENSHIP STUDIES, v. 28, n. 7, p. 20-pg., 2024-10-02. (23/03070-1, 23/05431-1)

RUSEISHVILI, SVETLANA; RYAZANTSEV, SERGEY. Transcontinental trajectories: Exploring Russian war-induced migration dynamics in Brazil. INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION, v. 62, n. 6, p. 22-pg., 2024-08-09. (22/04437-3, 23/03070-1)