PEER-TO-PEER IMMIGRATION

Context:
In times of climate change, environmental crises, social-political transformation and an increasingly connected, mobile and transparent society the qualification of national states and exclusive boarders to meet the requirements of the world`s population is to be questioned. Instead of the currently active hierarchical and authoritarian “permit-or-no-permit” migration model, a global and democratic approach to people`s transnational movements, which fits nowadays realities, needs to be found. PEER-TO-PEER IMMIGRATION wants to question the notion of national states, the exclusiveness of boarders and the efficiency and appropriateness of institutionalized decision making in nowadays societies and propose an alternative to governmental policies regarding voluntary international migration of people.

Proposal:
PEER-TO-PEER IMMIGRATION (P2P-I)

The emergence of a more nomadic, interconnected and decentralized lifestyle, possible through digital technologies – all ahead the internet – stimulated by it`s ensuing social-economic landscape, demands a more democratic, flexible and efficient approach to global migration. The current governmental policies regarding migration still reflect the model of the decaying industrial-age, that of a separated world based on boarders, national states and institutionalized decision making:?you still cannot move globally where you want to without going through a bureaucratic process based on politics and power relations;?you still cannot move globally where you want to even if you know somebody personally from the land you want to move to; you still cannot move globally where you want to even if you know somebody personally from the land you want to move to who wants to move in your home country at the same time; ?P2P-I wants to give you back the decision where and for how long you want to stay, starting with the TRANSFERABLE RESIDENCE PERMIT PROGRAM (TRPP). TRPP makes your residence-permit of your home country a transferable good within a democratic, self-determined process, which you can exchange with others on your personal demands. It allows you to replace the engagement with an anonymous, bureaucratic apparatus with a personal, one-to-one-relationship you establish and govern.

Showcase: Mr. Schmidt, an EU-Citizen from Austria, wants to live and work in New York City for a couple of time. Mr. Crew, a US-Citizen, wants to live and work in Barcelona, Spain, European Union at the same time. Conventionally, they both have to undergo the tiring and uncertain process of visa-application in each others countries. TRPP spares this out. Due to mutual understanding, they both can exchange each others residence permits, for the time they want to live in each others countries. So Mr. Schmidt gets Mr. Crew`s permit to live and work in the US and Mr. Crew gets Mr. Schmidt`s permit to live and work in the EU.?This status automatically ends as soon as either of them wants to and the residence permit will be re-exchanged (within a prior arranged period of time) to its original “owner” (So Mr. Schmidt gets back his status as EU-citizen and Mr. Crew his status as US-citizen). If either of them wants to continue to stay he has to find another P2P-I-Partner or undergo the process of conventional visa-application.

PEER TO PEER IMMIGRATION is based on the believe in and the recent experiences of a functioning social control within society and the process of self organization, like it can be seen in Peer to Peer Financing, Craigslist, Couch Surfing and many other successfully working “real-life”-social networks.