Conspicuous Mobility: The Status Dimensions of the Global Passport Hierarchy

• Author: Yossi Harpaz
• DOI: 10.1177/00027162211052859
• Published date: 01 September 2021
• Date: 01 September 2021

32 ANNALS, AAPSS, 697, September 2021

DOI: 10.1177/00027162211052859

Conspicuous

Mobility: The

Status

Dimensions of

the Global

Passport

Hierarchy

By

YOSSI HARPAZ

1052859ANN THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMYCONSPICUOUS MOBILITY

research-article2021

The world’s passports are not equal. Travelers from rich

countries enjoy extensive travel freedom across the

globe, whereas citizens of less developed nations are

subject to stringent visa controls. This article examines

this global hierarchy from a social cognition perspective,

highlighting the status competition around international

travel. It analyzes interviews with ninety-eight persons in

Serbia and Israel who have acquired a second passport

from a European Union country. The interviews illus-

trate how a social cognition perspective can shed new

light on international mobility and global inequality: the

analysis suggests that passengers continuously monitored

how they and others were treated by border control

authorities, perceiving different treatment as indicative

of status. Respondents experienced shame when the

treatment they received fell short of their expected

standards and felt pleasure and pride when treated bet-

ter than comparable others. Respondents tended to

compare their travel freedom to that enjoyed by citizens

of nations that they perceived as culturally similar.

Keywords: social status; globalization; citizenship;

migration; social comparison; identity

The world’s passports are not equal. Citizens

of rich countries enjoy extensive travel

freedom around the globe, while people from

less developed countries must undergo strict

visa procedures before traveling abroad,

whether for short trips or long-term migration.

This international regime of visa restrictions is

mostly shaped by the efforts of rich countries to

prevent unwanted immigration. While scholars

have explored the formal structure of the global

hierarchy of travel freedom (Bigo and Guild

Yossi Harpaz is an assistant professor of sociology at

Tel-Aviv University and a visiting scholar at the

Weatherhead Center at Harvard University. His book,

Citizenship 2.0: Dual Nationality as a Global Asset, was

published in 2019 with Princeton University Press. His

research has also been published in the International

Migration Review, the Journal of Ethnic and Migration

Studies, and other venues.

Correspondence: yharpaz@tauex.tau.ac.il

CONSPICUOUS MOBILITY 33

2005; Neumayer 2006; Mau etal. 2015; Harpaz 2019), we still know little about

its subjective dimensions (see, however, Jansen 2009; Sarabia 2015). Given the

rapid growth in international travel in recent decades, crossing borders has

become an increasingly common human experience and a key context in which

people come face to face with global inequality. The wish for greater travel free-

dom drives demand for immigration and dual citizenship (Kim 2018; Harpaz

2019; Knott 2019; Altan-Olcay and Balta 2021; Surak 2021); and questions of

visa-free access play a significant role in international relations, for example,

between Turkey and the European Union (EU) (Schengen Visa Info 2021).

There is, therefore, a growing need to understand international travel freedom as

it manifests in individuals’ subjective experience.

This article draws on the literature on social cognition and competition to

analyze the hierarchy of international travel freedom from individuals’ point of

view (Fiske 2011; Anderson, Hildreth, and Howland 2015; Durkee, Lukaszewski,

and Buss 2019). I argue that passengers often experience gaps in travel freedom

as differences in social status. The easy, unhindered movement provided by the

passports of rich countries is experienced as indicating high status, while con-

straints on mobility produce a sense of low status. Passengers closely monitor the

treatment they receive from border control authorities and use these observa-

tions to form status judgments (cf. Goffman 1967).

To test this argument, I analyzed ninety-eight in-depth interviews with Israelis

and Serbians who have acquired a second passport from an EU country. These

dual-citizen respondents could compare the experience of travel with EU and

non-EU passports. The analysis demonstrated three main points. First, respond-

ents closely monitored all aspects of border control procedures, comparing the

level of bureaucratic deference that they received to that accorded to others.

Second, nondeferential treatment, such as long waiting times and intrusive ques-

tioning, led to feelings of shame and humiliation; meanwhile, better bureaucratic

treatment led to feelings of pleasure and high status. Third, respondents evalu-

ated their travel freedom relative to others whom they perceived as similar.

Serbians evaluated the Serbian passport in relation to the passports of neighbor-

ing Central European nations and found it lacking. They sought EU passports to

overcome this perceived disadvantage. Israelis did not compare their travel

freedom to other nationalities. Instead, they focused on gaining a conspicuous

mobility advantage over other Israelis.

The article’s findings contribute to the study of migration by highlighting the

interaction of status and mobility. Immigration control policies produce status

hierarchies as an unintended consequence, and these in turn motivate people to

seek higher-status citizenship. The article also contributes to the literature on

social cognition by extending its insights to a new domain: status distinctions

based on travel freedom. Furthermore, it contributes to the literature on globali-

zation by exploring the subjective status dimensions of global citizenship-based

inequality. Overall, the article highlights the usefulness of combining institutional

and cognitive approaches in the attempt to understand mobility and migration

(Fiske and Vari-Lavoisier, this volume).