Table Of ContentCitizenship and Identity
Politics and Culture
A Theory, Culture & Society series
Politics and Culture analyses the complex relationships between civil society,
identities and contemporary states. Individual books will draw on the major
theoretical paradigms in politics, international relations, history and philosophy
within which citizenship, rights and social justice can be understood. The series will
focus attention on the implications of globalization, the information revolution and
postmodernism for the study of politics and society. It will relate these advanced
theoretical issues to conventional approaches to welfare, participation and
democracy.
SERIES EDITOR: Bryan S. Turner, University of Cambridge
EDITORIAL BOARD
J. M. Barbalet, Australian National University
Mike Featherstone, The Nottingham University
Stephen Kalberg, Boston University
Carole Pateman, University of California, Los Angeles
Also in this series
Welfare and Citizenship
Beyond the Crisis of the Welfare State?
Ian Culpitt
Citizenship and Social Theory
edited by Bryan S. Turner
Citizenship and Social Rights
The Interdependence of Self and Society
Fred Twine
The Condition of Citizenship
edited by Bart van Steenbergen
Nation Formation
Towards a Theory of Abstract Community
Paul James
Virtual Politics
Identity and Community in Cyberspace
edited by David Holmes
Gender and Nation
Nira Yuval-Davis
Feminism and Citizenship
Rian Voet
Citizenship and Identity
Engin F. Isin and Patricia K. Wood
®
SAGE Publications
London · Thousand Oaks · New Delhi
© Engin F. Isin and Patricia K. Wood 1999
First published 1999
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 0 7619 5828 2
ISBN 0 7619 5829 0 (pbk)
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Typeset by Engin F. Isin
CONTENTS
PREFACE vii
1 REDISTRIBUTION, RECOGNITION, REPRESENTATION 1
Introduction 1
Citizenship: Status, Rights, Redistribution 4
Identity: Belonging, Solidarity, Recognition 14
Citizenship and Identity 19
2 MODERN CITIZENSHIP: CIVIL, POLITICAL AND SOCIAL 25
Introduction 25
Constituting Modern Citizenship 25
Group Rights: A Third form of Liberty? 32
Classification Struggles and Group Rights 36
3 DlASPORIC AND ABORIGINAL CITIZENSHIP: POSTCOLONIAL IDENTITIES 47
Introduction 47
Global Diasporas: Geographies of Postcolonialism 50
Politics of Resistance and Inclusion: Reinventing National Identity 56
Decentring the Nation-State: First Nations and Aboriginal Rights 64
The Postnational State and Group Rights 67
4 SEXUAL CITIZENSHIP: IDENTITIES OF GENDER AND SEXUALITY 71
Introduction 71
Gender and Modernity: Moving from the National to the International 72
Space, Identity and Women 78
Gay and Lesbian Rights 81
Space, Identity and Gays 85
Sexual Citizenship and Transgendered Identities 89
5 COSMOPOLITAN CITIZENSHIP: CONTESTED SOVEREIGNTIES 91
Introduction 91
Advanced Capitalism, Class, Globalism 92
Urban Citizenship: Rights to the City 97
Technological Citizenship 105
Ecological Citizenship 113
Cosmopolitan Democracy 118
6 CULTURAL CITIZENSHIP: CONSUMING IDENTITIES 123
Introduction 123
Cultural Capital, Citizenship and Identity 123
Classification Struggles: From the Power Elite to Cultural Intermediaries 125
Consumption as Identity 138
Class and Consumption: Distinction 140
Liberalism, Advanced Liberalism and Governing Consumers 143
Identities as Commodities: Consumer Culture or Citizenship? 148
Cultural Citizenship 151
7 RADICAL CITIZENSHIP: FRAGMENTATION VERSUS PLURALIZATION 153
Introduction 153
Limits of Modern Citizenship 155
Globalization and Cosmopolitan Citizenship 156
Postmodernization and Cultural Citizenship 157
Consumer Citizenship and the End of History 157
New Ethics of Care and Ecological Citizenship 158
New Social Movements and Sexual Citizenship 158
Computers and Technological Citizenship 159
Postcolonial Identities and Diasporic Citizenship 159
Global Cities and Urban Citizenship 160
Coda 160
REFERENCES 163
INDEX 185
PREFACE
...to see differently, and to want to see differently to that degree, is no small
discipline and preparation of the intellect for its future 'objectivity'—the latter is
understood not as 'contemplation without interest' (which is, as such, a non-
concept and absurdity), but as having in our power our 'pros' and 'cons': so as
to be able to engage and disengage them so that we can use th edifference in
perspectives and affective interpretations for knowledge....There is only a
perspective seeing, only a perspective knowing; the more affects we allow to
speak about a thing, the more eyes, various eyes we are able to speak about the
same thing, the more complete will be our 'concept' of the thing, our
'objectivity'.
Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality, III, 12
Although this book draws upon theoretical studies on citizenship and identity, it
is neither theoretical nor normative, but diagnostic and reflexive. It is diagnostic
because we take theoretical and normative attempts to transcend the conflict
between citizenship and identity and work out their possibilities and dangers in
specific forms of citizenship. What happens when we take the ethos of
pluralization seriously in specific fields of politics today against a fear of
fragmentation? What would an ethos of pluralization look like when we
examine citizenship from multiple, intersecting and overlapping perspectives?
Those who address the issue of group-differentiated or overlapping citizenship
make their arguments still from a singular perspective without taking into
account plural perspectives and challenges. What happens when we take
seriously the ideas of multiple subject-positions and the necessity of developing
a multilayered conception? Our response was to delineate further forms of
citizenship. In the end, we raise more questions than answers for each form of
citizenship and its relationship to others. But this diagnostic approach allows us
to accomplish two goals: first, to introduce our readers into debates across
disciplines over different forms of citizenship and group-rights; and, second, to
confront conceptual difficulties without raising false hopes for a promised land
where citizenship and identity are forever reconciled.
We are considering one of the most fundamental and challenging questions:
group rights and their just distribution. We might argue that liberal democracy
has brought Western nation-states closer to justice than previous polities through
its emphasis on equality, its commitment to the participation of the citizen, its
appeal to due process and rule of law. But we also believe that these ideals have
served as masks to disguise forms of discrimination, oppression and
misrecognition based on class, gender, race, ethnicity, age and ability.
Unpacking the relationship between citizenship and identity under advanced
capitalism challenged us to find an analytical framework. Liberals insist on the
supremacy of the individual a la Bill of Rights and dismiss the possibility of
viii CITIZENSHIP AND IDENTITY
assigning any legal or political meaning to group rights; communitarians assert
the group as the defining centre of identity that all individuals imagine
themselves only in relation to the larger 'community' as the basis of a common
ground. Meanwhile, 'republican liberals', 'civic republicans' and 'radical
democrats' claim to synthesize or transcend the vexing tension between group
and individual identities, and between the polity and the person, while still
succumbing to binary oppositions. Politics, culture and philosophy get tangled
up in our definitions of ourselves and our position in the world in which we live
The views created by an either/or construction of identity have clearly become
inadequate to reflect upon ourselves and our subject-positions.
Taking the idea of multiple subject-positions seriously pushed us to carry the
ethos of pluralization to its limits and thus to expose its promises and dangers. It
also demanded a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary study. The conceptual
difficulties of the relationship between citizenship and identity reverberate
across different fields such as social and political theory, international relations
theory, ecological theory, feminist theory, cultural theory, urban theory and
postcolonial theory. For example, the debate over essentialism versus
constructivism in cultural studies has affinities with the debate over structure
versus agency in social theory, or liberalism versus communitarianism in
political theory.
In our negotiation of these concepts and diverse fields, we found ourselves
returning to T.H. Marshall, to his Citizenship and Social Class (1950), but also
to his lesser known works. Marshall's concept of citizenship described its
development in terms of hierarchies of power and his framework resonates in
our circumstances. But Marshall's work does not go far enough: we want to
build on Marshall's analysis, in order to address new political struggles and
bring ourselves to the present day. We are encouraged by the fact that feminist
theorists have also critically returned to Marshall (Lister, 1997a; Marston,
1990), as have others (Bulmer and Rees, 1996; Manning, 1993).
What does it mean to say that we are building on the work of T.H. Marshall?
We are building a deeper conception of citizenship. Marshall delineates the
evolution of civil, political and social rights, and illustrates how that evolution
was shaped by the development of modern capitalism. We want to go beyond
the forms of citizenship he mentions and advocate ethnic, sexual, technological,
ecological and cultural forms. At first glance, it may appear that we are merely
endorsing the extension of civil, political and social rights to marginalized
groups of ethnicity, race and gender. But this is only the first step. We argue that
the initial forms of citizenship, due to their connection to capitalism, were
articulated in such a way as to oppress and silence such groups that interfered
with the relentless pursuit of accumulation. The focus of early citizenship was
the specificity of particular rights and freedoms, which were to reside in the
individual. The actual practice and process of these rights were only ever
conceived in the abstract. Moreover, they were not conceived with any
recognition of the relevance of space, that is, the locations from which people
exercise their citizenship rights. As advanced liberalism continues its socio-
economic reorganization, there is a renewed attempt, often in the language of
PREFACE ix
new technologies, to obliterate (in word, if not in fact) the difference space
makes. Our examination of the importance—indeed, the centrality—of space to
questions of identity and citizenship is a further way in which we build on, but
go far beyond, Marshall.
Our exploration of ethnic, sexual, cultural, cosmopolitan and technological
forms of citizenship is underlined by a belief in the necessity of taking group
rights seriously. This evolves parallel to the citizenship needs developed by
Marshall; that is, new concepts of citizenship are emerging as modern capitalism
is transformed in new ways and thereby dislocates us as producers and
consumers. But to understand citizenship rights in terms of the right to an
identity (i.e., the right to have rights), as opposed (or in addition) to the passive
right of status, involves, first, a reconception of the meaning of citizenship, and,
second, a reconception of the means of allocating citizenship rights and the
polities from which such rights draw legitimacy, from polis to cosmopolis. This
is where our emphasis on the process of rights-claims , rather than the rights
themselves, becomes crucial. What we hope to achieve here is to emphasize the
process of citizenship, in the sense of allocation of rights rather than the actual
substance of those rights.
The several forms of rights we examine here are only the beginning of the list.
With more skill, time and space, we might also have considered religious
citizenship, ability citizenship, children's citizenship, senior citizenship, and so
on. Citizenship is a legal status and practice that progressively widens its sphere
to include various rights. It is a contested field and democracy ensures that it
will remain thus. Again, by focusing on the process, we aim to avoid becoming
preoccupied with the specifics of any particular form of cultural politics and to
resist the temptation to declare any rights as 'universal' and somehow immune to
the contingencies of era and place.
We could not have started the list we have built here without the support of
others. We are thankful for our fine research assistant, Charlene Fell, whose
services were acquired with the financial assistance of the Faculty of Arts and
the Division of Social Science at York University. We are grateful to Robert
Rojek at Sage Publications for his encouragement and facilitation of the book
every step of the way. We would also like to thank our spouses, Evelyn Ruppert
and Steve McKinney, for their respect, recognition and extraordinary support.
We dedicate this book to them.
