Citizenship in Transnational Perspective: Australia, Canada, and New Zealand ed. by Jatinder Mann (review)

This edited collection explores the transformation of citizenship regimes in three settler societies: Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. How Indigenous resurgence and the increasing ethnocultural diversity of these societies shape citizenship regimes and practices is the theme that binds the book's chapters. In the introduction, Jatinder Mann makes a persuasive case for a comparative and multidisciplinary approach to the study of citizenship.

The first section focuses on transnationalism. Augie Fleras highlights the benefits of rethinking citizenship through transnational lenses, while Daiva Stasiulus explores how Lebanese dual nationals in Australia and Canada negotiate their security and access services in two national spaces. The second section focuses on the evolution and trajectory of citizenship regimes in the three settler societies. In her chapter on New Zealand, Kate McMillan explains the process that led the country's parliamentarians to adopt in 1975 the most liberal franchise rules in the world for non-citizens. She argues that 'non-citizen voting rights were less the product of an innovative desire to enfranchise new immigrants … than the result of a lingering reluctance to distinguish non-citizen "Britons" from their imperial kin, white "New Zealanders"' (p. 118). The section also contains chapters exploring the evolution of Australian (Brian Gallian) and Canadian citizenship (Jatinder Mann), as well as a chapter by Carwyn Jones and Craig Linkhonr on the plural and evolving nature of Māori citizenship. The third section focuses on settler-indigenous citizenships. Tim Rowse explores the challenges associated with national apologies in Australia, Māmari Stephens shows that a Māori welfare-based initiative offers a portal into the nature of Māori citizenship, while Paul Spoonley demonstrates that New Zealand's recognition of its bicultural character combined with its 'soft citizenship' regime has led to a 'different mix' than other settler societies. In her chapter on Canada, Joyce Green reminds us that 'the kinder gentler colonialism of equitable inclusion in state citizenship may be preferable to the status quo, but it is definitively incorporation into, not liberation from, the settler state' (p. 185).

The final section of the book focuses on the themes of deep diversity and securitisation. Drawing on a number of surveys, Andrew Markus shows a high level of support in Australia for immigration and multiculturalism, as well as a strong sense of attachment to Australia by newcomers. However, Kim Rubenstein explores in the next chapter a different facet of Australia, focusing on how the country has recently made the journey 'from an acceptance and foundation of a form of cosmopolitan or supranational citizenship, to one of vulnerability of dual citizens' (p. 245). In the next two chapters, Yasmeen Abu-Laban and Audrey Maklin explore in a complementary fashion the evolution of citizenship in Canada under the Harper and Trudeau governments. While Abu-Laban focuses mostly on discursive shifts between the two governments and a continuing focus on security, Maklin explores legal changes concerning citizenship and their relationship with Canada's portrayal of itself as a 'normative immigration country' (p. 286).

This is an excellent edited book. By exploring the issue of citizenship in three settler states through the dual lenses of ethnicity and indigeneity, it makes a significant contribution to the literature.