28
chapter one
As a result, modern political theories about citizenship, its processes,
practices and consequences, in the form of liberal, republican and ethnonational citizenships are growing increasingly inadequate. Despite their
respective differences, such typologies of citizenship – as those outlined
by Gershon Shafir and Yoav Peled and further explained in Chapter Five –
mostly remain state-centric and dependent on that ground as the main
source of legitimacy and authority. But while these models of citizenship
may help us understand the nature and characteristics of various forms
of rights, representation and responsibilities that exist across liberal-
democratic states, they are unable to capture the inherent changes in the
processes and practices of citizenship in the twenty-first century (Isin and
Turner 2002, 4). In other words, the dislodging of a geographically defined
territory as the sole source and benefactor of the acts and practices of citizenship through forces of globalization and post-modernist forms of organization has expanded the way in which citizenship is discussed and
realized, in a manner that has yet to be sufficiently captured by liberal,
republican and ethno-national models of citizenship.
Citizenship beyond the State
In a powerful introduction to the study of citizenship, social science
scholar Engin F. Isin provides insight on how it is that citizenship is usually approached by academics. He points out that
… routinized academic practices, where the origins of ‘city’, ‘democracy’ and
‘citizenship’ are etymologically traced to the ‘Greek’, ‘Roman’ and ‘medieval’
cities, and affinities between ‘their’ and ‘our’ practices [in contemporary
Western liberal societies] are established, not only orient toward but also
reproduce such images. After being ‘reminded’ that polis, politics and polity;
civitas, citizenship and civility; and demos and democracy have ‘common
roots’, we are provided with images of virtuous Greek citizens debating in
the agora or the pnyx, austere Roman citizens deliberating in the republican
senate, and ‘European’ citizens receiving their charters in front of the guildhall (Isin 2002, 305).
This recurring tendency among citizenship scholars and political theorists
ought to be acknowledged, and the imagined political and conceptual
links provoked by etymological references between ancient forms of citizenship and that which exists in contemporary liberal societies under
conditions of modern capitalism and globalization ought also to be made
explicit and challenged. Otherwise our approach to the study of citizenship would not only continue to fail to capture the specific textures and
Select target paragraph3
Connect to a paragraph
Connect to an entity
Disable highlights
Add to table of contents