Spontaneous Architecture: May 2010: Immigration

May Day 2010. Populations move in search of opportunity. Migrations have always been directed toward areas with more to offer, be they offering work, offering safety, or just offering the idea of a better future. Recently, as migrations cross borders, people have been getting nervous.

On 23 April 2010, Arizona governor Jan Brewer signed into law a piece of legislation that could change immigration policy and immigrant politics in the United States forever. But the US is not alone in facing some of these issues. Around the world, migration and immigration are changing our global demographics as people search for opportunity. Definitions of citizenship vary from one country to the next along with the mechanisms by which citizenship may be earned. With visas, permits, and passports, in Arizona and elsewhere, the status of the individual is reduced to the status of their documentation. We study globalization and operate within a global economy, but there is no fabled “Citizen of the World.”

Participants in May’s Spontaneous Architecture are invited to consider the architecture and urbanism of immigration, citizenship, national identity, and boundary. Responses may include how and why borders are secured, how and why immigrant communities and enclaves develop, the creation and implication of a global economy of remittances, or the effects of network culture and technology on the geography of opportunity and connection to home.

Submissions are single images, formatted in 8.5 inches by 11 inches (landscape), 300 dpi tiffs. Images must be anonymous, containing no identification of their creators. Submissions may (but are not required to) include up to 100 words of text. All submissions are due by 11:59PM on 15 May 2010.