Perpetual Immigrant and the Limits of Athenian Democracy

Immigrants called metics settled in Athens without citizenship in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE. Classical thinkers explored the city's anxieties over intermingling and passing, but readers treat immigration and citizenship as separate phenomena. Demetra Kasimis' book reveals the long-overlooked centrality of immigration to the originary practices of democracy and political theory in Athens, dismantling interpretive and political assumptions and reframing urgent questions about how democracies order their non-citizen members.

\n Format: Hardback
\n Length: 256 pages
\n Publication date: 16 August 2018
\n Publisher: Cambridge University Press
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In the fifth and fourth centuries BCE, a group of immigrants known as metics (metoikoi) settled in Athens without a clear path to citizenship. This political reality sparked a critical examination of the nativism that defined democracy's membership rules by classical thinkers. They also explored the city's concerns about intermingling and the potential for assimilation. However, readers have tended to treat immigration and citizenship as separate phenomena, with little interest for theorists of that time.

In her book "The Perpetual Immigrant and the Limits of Athenian Democracy," Demetra Kasimis challenges this notion by highlighting the overlooked centrality of immigration to the originary practices of democracy and political theory in Athens. She dismantles the interpretive and political assumptions that have led readers to overlook the metic and reveals the significant role this figure plays in texts such as Plato's Republic.

The result of Kasimis' work is a series of original readings that boldly reframe urgent questions about how democracies order their non-citizen members. She challenges the notion that immigration is merely a contemporary issue and demonstrates how it has been a persistent concern throughout history. By examining the metic's experiences and perspectives, Kasimis offers a fresh understanding of democracy's complex relationship with immigration and its implications for contemporary political debates.

This book is a valuable contribution to the field of political theory and history, as it sheds light on the overlooked aspects of democracy's past and challenges readers to think critically about the ongoing debates surrounding immigration and citizenship in the modern world.

\n Weight: 456g\n
Dimension: 326 x 235 x 15 (mm)\n
ISBN-13: 9781107052437\n \n