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Supra-Citizenship offers a novel framework for migration by bringing together state actors, existing supra-national bodies, digital platforms and the billions of people on the move across our planet. Citizenship can no longer be maintained by an exclusive contract between the subject and the nation-state. The fragility of this contract is exposed as an increasing number of people are forced to emigrate from areas ravaged by wars, natural disasters and economic strife. Meanwhile, as emphasised by Benjamin Bratton, the author of The Stack: On Software and Sovereignty (2016), the emergence of new global actors and forms of utilising citizenship has charted a global landscape within which digital platforms are increasingly acting like sovereigns that govern over their users while nation-states are increasingly functioning like platforms that offer services to their customer-citizens.

The notion of citizenship that is based on rooted belonging, locality-tied civil participation and fiscal responsibility to one’s nation-state has been irredeemably fragmented. On the one hand, citizenship has been financialized as a means of attracting capital and investment while being divorced from fiscal residency through tax breaks, offshores and e-residency for businesses, and on the other hand, it has been splintered by various forms of digital belonging such as participation in online communities.

In such a world defined by flux and complex technological and social relations, it is crucial to let go of that which no longer serves this reality while at the same time not throwing out the baby with the wash water. Supra-Citizenship integrates the institutional experience and knowledge of established organisational forms as offered by existing state and supra-national mechanisms with the resources and capabilities of technological platforms, and an updated understanding of human rights for the 21st century.

Supra-Citizenship mobilises a networked vision for citizenship in service of everybody’s right to adapt.