Jun 27, 2023 05:11 PM
https://blog.apaonline.org/2023/06/19/na...privilege/
INTRO (Rachel Fraser, Tushar Menon): What passport do you have? If your passport is North American, South Korean, Emirati, or Western European, then you have one of the most powerful passports in the world. Because of your powerful passport, your professional life as an academic has been privileged in ways that you’re probably not even aware of.
Passport power is a rough measure of the ease with which holders of a given passport are able to travel. Powerful passports let you travel to more places visa-free. The difference between a more and a less powerful passport can be immense. To give you an idea of the difference, compare a UK passport—a passport with the third highest possible score on power—with an Indian passport, which is 64 places below. (The lowest ranked passports—Afghanistan and Syria—are at rank 94. See here.)
My UK passport lets me travel to 124 countries without a visa. For 48 more countries, I can get an e-visa or a visa upon arrival. Thanks to my UK passport, only 26 countries require a more laborious visa application process. This is almost a mirror image of my partner’s situation.
Tushar is an academic philosopher with an Indian passport. He can enter only 24 countries without a visa, and is eligible for an e-visa or visa upon arrival in 47 countries. The number of countries that I can visit visa-free (124) is comparable to the number of countries that, for him, require a grueling trip to the embassy. For 127 countries, if he wants to travel there from the UK—where he lives—he needs to travel to London to submit documents and biometrics in person. You can check the rank of your own passport here.
Tushar and I are philosophers with very different lived experiences. But we both think passport privilege is a serious issue for academics from the Global South. In this piece, we discuss how a lack of passport privilege disadvantages academics from the Global South, and how institutions might help to ameliorate this disadvantage.
(Rachel) You have an Indian passport. How has that impacted your career?
(Tushar) The most obvious way is that it has severely restricted my ability to travel. In the last five years, I’ve had to turn down or repeatedly postpone many invitations to speak at conferences and colloquia.
It has also had an impact on the sorts of jobs I’ve been in a position to accept... (MORE - details)
INTRO (Rachel Fraser, Tushar Menon): What passport do you have? If your passport is North American, South Korean, Emirati, or Western European, then you have one of the most powerful passports in the world. Because of your powerful passport, your professional life as an academic has been privileged in ways that you’re probably not even aware of.
Passport power is a rough measure of the ease with which holders of a given passport are able to travel. Powerful passports let you travel to more places visa-free. The difference between a more and a less powerful passport can be immense. To give you an idea of the difference, compare a UK passport—a passport with the third highest possible score on power—with an Indian passport, which is 64 places below. (The lowest ranked passports—Afghanistan and Syria—are at rank 94. See here.)
My UK passport lets me travel to 124 countries without a visa. For 48 more countries, I can get an e-visa or a visa upon arrival. Thanks to my UK passport, only 26 countries require a more laborious visa application process. This is almost a mirror image of my partner’s situation.
Tushar is an academic philosopher with an Indian passport. He can enter only 24 countries without a visa, and is eligible for an e-visa or visa upon arrival in 47 countries. The number of countries that I can visit visa-free (124) is comparable to the number of countries that, for him, require a grueling trip to the embassy. For 127 countries, if he wants to travel there from the UK—where he lives—he needs to travel to London to submit documents and biometrics in person. You can check the rank of your own passport here.
Tushar and I are philosophers with very different lived experiences. But we both think passport privilege is a serious issue for academics from the Global South. In this piece, we discuss how a lack of passport privilege disadvantages academics from the Global South, and how institutions might help to ameliorate this disadvantage.
(Rachel) You have an Indian passport. How has that impacted your career?
(Tushar) The most obvious way is that it has severely restricted my ability to travel. In the last five years, I’ve had to turn down or repeatedly postpone many invitations to speak at conferences and colloquia.
It has also had an impact on the sorts of jobs I’ve been in a position to accept... (MORE - details)