Citizenship Restitution as State Policy and Individual Opportunity: Between Uncomfortable Pasts and Uncertain Futures

Abstract

This panel explores various contemporary cases of citizenship restitution, mostly through ancestral ties, as complex processes through which states and individuals are confronting uncomfortable pasts while also navigating uncertain futures. The resulting pathways to citizenship are highly selective and constitute both: attempts of historical reparation and strategic resources. Citizenship restitution has proliferated immensely in recent years owing to legal reforms across several EU Member States, and political developments that sparked interest from non-EU citizens worldwide. While previous research has approached citizenship restitution from moral, political, or legal-historical perspectives (Owen & Bauböck 2025; Frost 2024; Courtman 2025), fewer studies bridge policy-level and applicant-centered analyses. This panel aims to advance such dialogue by examining citizenship restitution as both a project of historical justice and a potential instrument of migration governance. It interrogates how these policies create new forms of (im)mobility and belonging, functioning simultaneously as symbolic redress and as opportunities for transnational mobility or social mobility capital (Harpaz 2019; Altaras 2024). The contributions in this panel cover a wide array of perspectives, spanning both the policy design and the individual interests and engagement shaping this phenomenon. On the one hand, papers analyze the political rationales, official narratives, and/or implementation of citizenship restitution policies, as well as the role of intermediaries within the broader dynamics of memory politics. On the other, they explore the experiences and motivations of (potential) applicants, speaking to their expectations, hesitations, or community responses. The five papers included in this panel look at explicitly reparatory pathways to British, German, Austrian, and Spanish citizenship and combine analyses of the legal frameworks or official narratives surrounding these reforms with insights into what they mean for beneficiaries living in many different parts of the world, from Latin America, the Middle East, Central Asia, and Eastern Europe, to Hong Kong and the Chagos Islands. With a particular emphasis on comparative and interdisciplinary approaches, this panel addresses – though is not limited to – the following questions: - How do states justify and operationalize citizenship restitution policies, and what political, demographic, or other goals do they pursue? - What roles do intermediaries play in shaping access to and outcomes of these policies? - How do applicants and their communities interpret these offers, across generations and social backgrounds? - What does all this tell us about evolving conceptions of migration, citizenship, and justice in contemporary Europe?

Title	Details
Jewish Roots, Spanish Passport: Genealogy, Citizenship, and the Rediscovery of Sephardic Ancestry in Mexico	View Paper Details
The Coloniality of Postimperial Reparative Citizenship: Chagossians, Hong Kongers, and the Windrush Generation in Britain	View Paper Details
(Spät)Aussiedler Citizenship: A (Non-)Contentious Matter? A Mixed-Methods Analysis of Parliamentary Debates in Germany 1949–2023	View Paper Details
Making Rights After Injustice: Citizenship Restitution in Germany and Austria from Law to Practice	View Paper Details
Citizenship Restitution and Territorial Repopulation: A Multi-Level Analysis of Spain’s Return Policies Promoted for the Diaspora in Argentina	View Paper Details