Discourses Of Citizenship Research Articles

Eyes wide open: stranger hospitality and the regulation of youth citizenship

Across the Anglo-American world, a pervasive sense of wariness and concern about strangers continues to haunt influential discourses and practices that regulate and shape youth citizenship. In particular, (1) media-centred accounts of ‘stranger danger’, (2) dominant citizenship discourses taught in schools and (3) government policies regulating young people's civic lives, remain significant in shaping how strangers are made meaningful for youth. Through these discourses and practices, the stranger increasingly comes to be a fetish figure, a body and symbolic form whose very figurability is rendered a problem in the first instance. These developments are problematic, in large part because strangers are a necessary and enabling feature of modern democracies. Accordingly, in this paper, I examine the three aforementioned fields of discourse and practice as they have operated broadly over the past decade in Canada, Britain and the United States. I show how strangers are made difficult and dangerous others for youth and make clear how these constructions regulate and threaten a vibrant public world. I conclude by hinting at how stranger hospitality might be taken up differently in schools (and other public fora) as part of nurturing our collective democratic futures.

Global Citizenship Themes in the Social Studies Classroom: Teaching Devices and Teachers’ Attitudes

Globalization significantly influences the very notion of citizenship that is no longer universally seen as only a nation-related concept. Therefore, the discourse of global citizenship is getting more attention in programmatic educational texts and curricula. This study investigates how teachers use the conceptual framework of global citizenship in the social studies classroom, and what curricular devices and pedagogies social studies teachers use to address aspects of global citizenship. The study demonstrated that social studies teachers frequently use information about international issues in their classrooms, and there is a tendency to incorporate global and international perspectives into citizenship education. However, educators need more rigorous assistance to teach emerging types of citizenship. The study demonstrates that despite the fact that participants rarely use the term global citizenship in their instruction, they provide rationales that correspond to the notion of global citizenship.

Citizenship, community, and counter-terrorism

This paper analyses a corpus of UK policy documents which sets out national security policy as an exemplar of the contemporary discourse of counter-terrorism in Europe, the USA and worldwide. A corpus of 148 documents (c. 2.8 million words) was assembled to reflect the security discourse produced by the UK government before and after the 7/7 attacks on the London Transport system. To enable a chronological comparison, the two sub-corpora were defined: one relating to a discourse of citizenship and community cohesion (2001–2006); and one relating to the ‘Preventing Violent Extremism’ discourse (2007–2011). Wordsmith Tools (Scott 2008) was used to investigate keywords and patterns of collocation. The results present themes emerging from a comparative analysis of the 100 strongest keywords in each sub-corpus; as well as a qualitative analysis of related patterns of the collocation, focusing in particular on features of connotation and semantic prosody.

Community, Urban Citizenship and Housing in Bombay, ca. 1919–1980

From the late 1910s onward, co-operative housing societies in cities like Bombay offered affordable housing by using the agency of community to protect against the vicissitudes of the market. At the same time, ideas of urban citizenship premised on the liberal individual received greater attention with a broadened franchise and became increasingly linked to social rights such as affordable housing. While the community and the individual are seen as opposed to one another in the discourse of citizenship, this paper suggests that they mutually informed and constituted one another between 1919 and 1980 in ways that have enduring significance for understandings of urban citizenship.

DISCURSOS DA CIDADANIA E EDUCAÇÃO EM CIÊNCIAS NOS LIVROS DIDÁTICOS

Neste trabalho são apresentados os resultados de uma investigação que buscou identificar os sentidos da cidadania em livros didáticos de Ciências destinados às séries finais do Ensino Fundamental. Para isso, inicialmente apresentamos alguns modelos que articulam ciência e cidadania em diálogo com algumas noções da filosofia política contemporânea e que tomamos como base para as análises que realizamos. Nas análises dos livros selecionados, operamos com a categoria representação discursiva, utilizada nos referenciais da análise crítica do discurso. Nossos resultados apontam para a coexistência de diferentes discursos sobre cidadania nos textos, o que reflete o caráter de tensão permanente entre os recursos ideológicos e materiais mais estáveis e as propostas de mudança na educação em ciências.

IV. Canon law and the problem of expulsion: The origins and interpretation of Usurarum voraginem (VI 5.5.1)

The canon Usurarum voraginem (VI 5.5.1), promulgated in 1274 at the Second Council of Lyon,called for the expulsion of foreign usurers and threatened recalcitrant authorities with excommunication and interdict. This article argues that the expulsion provision was indebted to contemporary French royal legislation for its contents and wording, rather than to any prior tradition within canon law. The case of Usurarum voraginem is therefore a rare example of direct influence of ius proprium on the ius canonicum. As seen from the dozens of surviving commentaries on the canon from the thirteenth through the mid-fifteenth century, Usurarum voraginem not only spurred canonists to debate its reach and implementation, but also led them to engage with current discussions of citizenship and foreignness. Finally, the article examines how the ecanon came to provide justification for expelling not only Christian usurers, but their Jewish counterparts as well.

Voces aprendidas de los ciudadanos europeos: de la subjetivación gubernamental a la subjetivación política

El artículo se centra en estudiar la forma en que las voces operan dentro de los actuales discursos sobre democracia, ciudadanía y aprendizaje. Partiendo de un análisis de los «dispositivos de aprendizaje» y de los «dispositivos de ciudadanía», mostraremos cómo se pide al individuo que se articule de un modo particular, como prueba de su compromiso, inclusión y participación democráticos. Es la personalidad del sujeto –a través de la insistencia en cuestiones relacionadas con la identidad, las preferencias, los sentimientos de pertenencia– lo que se tiene en cuenta a la hora de valorar su nivel de compromiso cívico y participación política. Este proceso de personalización –que cataloga al individuo como una persona que torna en ciudadano europeo– será descrito como un aspecto importante de la actual subjetivación gubernamental. Para abordar esta cuestión exploraremos, en la línea de Jacques Rancière, el concepto de «subjetivación política». Mientras que la subjetivación gubernamental implica un proceso de identificación con el orden social, la subjetivación política es un paradójico proceso de desidentificación con el orden social. Se trata, por un lado, de articular la voz de uno como un igual dentro del orden social; un orden social en el que, por otro lado, ese mismo uno no tendrá voz dentro de la organización dominante de las posiciones.

Mapping women in Tehran's public spaces: a geo-visualization perspective

Functioning public spaces, as ‘public’ political, social, and cultural arenas of citizen discourse, affect not only the citizen's quality of life, but are also indispensable infrastructure in democratic societies. This article offers a nuanced understanding of Iranian women's usage, feelings, and preferences in public spaces in present-day Tehran by not simply importing Western theories that sustain distinctions between traditional and modern women, but instead by hearing women's stories. This article raises concerns related to the gender identities, the politics of space, and design of these places. Meidan-e-Tajrish, Sabz-e-Meidan, and Marvi Meidancheh in Tehran accommodate an ethnographic visualization of gendering space. The process by which Iranian women attach symbolic meanings to those public spaces offers insight into the mutual construction of gender identities and space politics. The contrasting urban locations, different design styles, and distinct social activities provide an excellent comparison between the selected public spaces. Findings suggest caution in using gender as an essential category in feminist geography research to better represent the diversity of experiences in public spaces. Binary categorization of modern versus traditional, secular versus religious, public versus private, and male versus female in urban studies should be carefully validated as Iranian women's lived experiences challenge the homogenizing Western theories, particularly the predominant critics of modern public spaces in North America. The research process also highlights the benefits of geo-visualization in understanding the complex interaction between gender identities and the built environment.

British Citizenship and the ‘Other’: An Analysis of the Earned Citizenship Discourse

ABSTRACTThis paper presents an analysis of interviews conducted with citizenship officers in London, working within the field of British naturalisation. We draw from a rhetorical psychology perspective to study the dilemmatic tensions that exist in the participants' discourse about naturalisation applicants who are constructed as ‘good’ and ‘bad’, as both ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ of British citizenship. In line with a rhetorical approach, we argue that these different constructions of the migrant are strategic and are associated with different constructions of Britain as humanitarian and tolerant, on the one hand, and as being under threat by the influx of immigration, on the other hand. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of this ambivalence for processes of inclusion and exclusion. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Urban Insecurity as a Language of Political Contention in Madrid (Spain)

Public policies for urban planning developed since the 1980s in Spanish city centres have been marked by the idea of “refurbishing” areas that are “in crisis.” The discourse of citizens’ insecurity has become the framework of shared meaning for diagnosing problems, as well as for legitimizing policies. Using an ethnographic analysis carried out in a central Madrid neighbourhood, I will analyze how the experience of insecurity of one sector of the residents, which is shaped in the framework of the general discourse of citizen insecurity, is, however, rooted in a specific life trajectory that indicates socio-cultural and economic keys that have little to do with the causes of insecurity that the hegemonic discourse continually indicates. More generally, I hope to show, with this case study, how anthropological analyses can contribute to the evaluation of public urban policies.

The Rise of Constitutional Patriotism in Malaysian Civil Society

This paper aims to account for the resurgent interest in the protections provided in the Malaysian Federal Constitution and to understand the rights-based language used by Malaysian civil society actors over the past few years. Observers of Malaysian politics have concluded that since the 1980s the country has been “taking the long march to desecularisation” (Kessler, 2008). I argue, however, that Habermas’ notion of “constitutional patriotism” is alive and well in Malaysia and that it stands as a counterpoint to the trend of desecularisation. Constitutional patriotism is in fact growing, partly as a response to the concatenation of Islamisation and the discourse of Malay ethnic hegemony (ketuanan Melayu) which perpetuates identity boundaries between Malays and non-Malays and between Muslims and non-Muslims.Using discourse analysis to examine blogs and media reports, this paper illustrates that conscientious individuals and civil society invoke the discourse of citizenship and constitutional rights to counter the dominant politics of race perpetuated by the National Front (Barisan Nasional).They actively assume or perform “acts of citizenship” (Isin and Nielsen, 2008) that invoke patriotism towards the Constitution. I posit that constitutional patriotism in the Malaysian case is a call to return to the Constitution’s liberal democratic ideals that recognise religious and ethnic diversity.

Commodifying Global Activism and Racial Unity During the 2010 FIFA World Cup

The NIKE(RED) Lace Up, Save Lives campaign debuted during the 2010 FIFA World Cup and invoked multiple discourses of nationalism, global citizenship, and sport to promote conscious consumerism. By co-opting symbolism of Africa's first World Cup, NIKE(RED) sold activist identities through myths of postracial harmony. The global appeal of NIKE(RED) relied upon support from soccer superstars who endorsed consumerism as cool. We argue that NIKE(RED) and the subsequent INSPI(RED) partnership exemplify commodity activism and reproduce colonial stereotypes of powerful Western consumers acting as saviors in the Third World. We critically examine news, Web sites, grassroots soccer organizations, and advertisements from the United States, UK, and Italy to address the multimedia global nature of NIKE(RED) and grassroots soccer activism.

Sukanya Banerjee, Becoming Imperial Citizens: Indians in the Late Victorian Empire (Durham: Duke University Press, 2010), 272+ix pp., HB £66.00, £16.99, HB $84.95 (USD), $23.95 (USD), ISBN-13: 978-0822345909

Becoming Imperial Citizens joins a new wave of criticism on the relationship between the colony and metropole that is informed by a carefully historicised consideration of transnational connections and discontinuities in the discourses of citizenship.

Which national group will I identify myself with? The role of preferred and perceived identity representations

AbstractResearch shows that the more people identify with a national in‐group, the more their citizenship representation becomes in line with the citizenship discourse attached to this national‐identity. However, although national identification may lead to a preference for a specific citizenship representation, national identification might itself depend on preexisting citizenship representation preferences. In line with this, a longitudinal study among Flemish‐Belgian high‐school students (N = 275) showed reciprocal relations between national identification and citizenship representation. A second study among Flemish‐Belgian high‐school students (N = 407) then showed that strength of national identification does not simply depend on preexisting citizenship representation preferences but on the (mis)match between such preferences and the citizenship representation perceived to be attached to a national‐identity. In addition, results showed that the relation between national identification and out‐group attitudes depends on the national‐identity under consideration.

The migration–development nexus: Rendering migrants as transnational financial subjects through housing

Finance driven growth is providing a new development agenda for migrants’ remittances. Although there is a considerable amount of scholarship on migrants’ transnational social and economic practices and their potential development impacts in origin and destination countries, the migration–development nexus has yet to be examined as part of the globalising process of economic financialisation of the last three decades. In light of the growing importance of remittances as a source of finance for sending countries, migrant workers have emerged as important agents to be incorporated into the dynamics of the global financial system.Drawing on empirical data collected at the London–Colombia migration network, this paper explores the Colombian government’s efforts to channel remittances to housing and finance and migrant households’ (alternative) strategies for accessing housing transnationally. It argues that conceptualising migrants as transnational financial subjects is a useful tool for understanding the latest round of enthusiasm around the migration–development nexus. In particular, the recasting of migrants as agents of development is linked to wider attempts at the institutionalisation of migrants’ transnational socio-economic practices. These attempts are embedded in ideologically-driven neoliberal discourses of citizenship that privilege financial markets as the medium for households’ socioeconomic reproduction and ambition to exploit migrant households’ connection to broader circuits of capital and finance. However, the evidence suggests that Colombian migrant households are resisting these state-assigned financial subjectivities, which points to the government’s failure to shape the everyday actions of remitters and their families and thus, the limits and uncertainties of the process of neoliberal financialisation.

Legal/illegal: protesting citizenship in Fortress America

This article examines the issue of legality and illegality, focusing on U.S. citizenship, anti-immigrant rage, and pro-immigrant protests. The central case study is an analysis of what I call digital rage, namely, the rhetorical strategies present in anti-immigrant online activism. I argue that online performance of rage invests in acts of bordering (Nyers 2008) which propel a discourse of white supremacist pure nation and neurotic citizenship (Isin 2004). The final part of this article explores No Human Being is Illegal, a protest art exhibition. Imaginatively refusing forms of citizenship grounded in legal/illegal axis, the exhibition exposes U.S. citizenship itself as illegal, rooted in the colonization of indigenous people and in current neocolonizing practices of exploitation.

From New Labour to New Conservatism: the changing dynamics of citizenship as self-government

This article examines the shift in discourses of citizenship from Britain from notions of entitlement and obligation to those of self-government, and the reciprocity between the responsibilisation of individual and collective citizen-subjectivities. Against the backdrop of debates about society as the telos of government, this article will interrogate the claim that New Conservatism's ‘Big Society’ represents a unique rationality of government and an alternative formula of advanced liberal rule. By doing so, the article will extend our understanding of ‘post-welfare regimes of the social’ and illustrate precisely how they operate in contemporary Britain.

Tackling child poverty in South Africa: Implications of ubuntu for the system of social grants

In South Africa both liberal and more communitarian and relational discourses of citizenship can be seen – the latter in the form of the southern African idea of ubuntu. Policy for assisting children, however, is dominated by the framework of liberal citizenship, most clearly through the Bill of Rights and in particular the Child Support Grant. Using analyses from a purpose-built microsimulation model we show how a neglect of children's broader relationships in the current liberal citizenship inspired policy context limits the effectiveness of the child poverty strategy. The empirical analyses demonstrate how a greater recognition by policymakers of the relational principles of ubuntu could be expected to have more effect on reducing child poverty.

Opening discourses of citizenship education: a theorization with Foucault

We argue two major difficulties in current discourses of citizenship education. The first is a relative masking of student discourses of citizenship by positioning students as lacking citizenship and as outside the community that acts. The second is in failing to understand the discursive and material support for citizenship activity. We, thus, argue that it is not a lack of citizenship that education research might address, but identification and exploration of the different forms of citizenship that students already engage in. We offer a fragmentary, poststructuralist theorization oriented to explore the ‘contemporary limits of the necessary’, drawing on specific resources from the work of Michel Foucault and others for the constitution of local, partial accounts of citizenship discourses and activities, and exploration of their possibilities and constraints. We argue this as a significant tactic of theorization in support of an opening of discourses of citizenship and in avoiding the discursive difficulties that we have identified. Our theorization, then, is significant in its potential to unsettle discourses that confine contemporary thought regarding citizenship education and support exploration of what might be excessive to that confinement.

Reclaiming Tangier: Mohammed Choukri's <em>Al-Khubz al-Ḥāfī</em> and Subaltern Citizenship in Urban Literature

This article examines Choukri’s Al-Khubz al-Ḥāfī in relation to the widely circulated Euro-American geo-literary imaginary of cosmopolitan Tangier. The paper highlights the political expediency of the Arabic text showing how Choukri challenges the rhetorical violence of silencing the Moroccans in European and American accounts by casting them in roles of natives/ Muslims outside discourses of citizenship in the modern city. Most fully, the following analysis illustrates how Choukri uses realist representation to engage with the city’s spheres of monetary circulation and social indifference to unsettle totalizing representations of Tangier’s cosmopolitanism. Finally, the paper reexamines dismissive Arab critics’ reception of the text, arguing for the necessity of reimagining it in relation to discourses of the modern city.