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Guest Editors: Gökce Yurdakul and Inna Michaeli, Humboldt University of BerlinAs immigrants present particular challenges to the preexisting boundaries of territory and identity, political authorities introduce new citizenship regulations and population-management policies on regional and national levels to reject or accommodate the social and political claims of immigrants (Bloemraad, Korteweg and Yurdakul 2008). These regulations and policies–and the normative public discourses surrounding them–generate exclusions and inclusions, leaving some subaltern immigrant groups outside the polity altogether. In this process we see that citizenship and other forms of membership are articulated, justified, and legitimized in the intersections of gendered and racialized terms. Women, children, and members of LGBTI groups are affected in different gendered and racialized ways, and they also create strategies to deal with exclusions. In this special issue, we aim to bring together articles on immigrant challenges to citizenship in the recent years, especially in the most recent processes of political and economic instability and continuing armed conflicts in the Mediterranean. Drawing on the previous valuable research that has been done by Kambouri and Zavos (2011), Kemp (2010), Lutz (2011) and others, we aim to analyze the most recent gendered changes in membership to the polity (citizenship in a broader sense) that result from increasing and diversifying immigration within Mediterranean countries and between the Mediterranean and Europe. We will also consider immigrants’ claims and actions vis-à- vis exclusionary aspects of citizenship, and the role of gender, “race,” ethnicity, religion, and class in these dynamics.We welcome submissions offering insights on the new developments in the triad of citizenship, gender, and immigration, particularly manuscripts dealing with structural economic problems, political instability after the “Arab Spring,” and ongoing conflicts in specific countries–many of which have resulted in unprecedented fatalities. We specifically welcome contributions from scholars and social activists that analyze the inclusionary and exclusionary experiences of women, children, and members of LGBTI communities, labor and political migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers or return migrants.Please submit your abstracts electronically via our website or by email to jls@vanleer.org.il by August 1st, 2015.Only original and unpublished articles with first-hand collected data will be considered; please do not send policy reports, literature reviews, or other forms of political assessments.Journal of Levantine Studies (JLS) is an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal published biannually in print and online by the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute.Visit us at www.levantine-journal.org