Citizenship

A lesser human? Utopian registers of urban reconfiguration in Maputo, Mozambique

“…While the idealised purity of the polis may seem far removed from contemporary complex cities, the notion nonetheless continues to inspire contemporary political anthropologists and geographers, such as Sian Lazar (2014), who explores this classic Greek idea for understandings of citizenship or Carrie Mott (2016), who sees in the notion of the polis a potential for open-source activist-oriented governing bodies. Another example is David Graeber, who, in one analysis, takes polis to reflect (universal) ideals of small-town New England in constituting a collective political drive, stating that 'the point is that democratic assemblies can be attested in all times and places ' (2013: 139).…”

From Village Commons to Public Goods

“…First, public spaces emerge "with the diff erentiation of a nominally representative state on the one side and civil society and the market on the other," implying a separation from the household as the private sphere of social reproduction (Low and Smith 2006: 6). Public plazas and squares particularly embody the conception of public space as a site for the collective expression of citizenship (Low 2000;Low and Smith 2006;Miller 2007;Lazar 2014). It is hard to apply Habermasian notions of the public sphere in China's case (see Huang 1993;Madsen 1993;Rankin 1993).…”

“…A third notion of "public" has a be er bearing on the situations encountered in the fi eld, namely the public as a group of people uniting around a shared issue or interest (Dewey 1991(Dewey [1927). This notion allows for grounding the public in physical space and viewing public spaces as sites of a diverse range of citizenship practices (Smith 1996;Mitchell 2003;Lazar 2014;Woodman and Guo 2020;Low 2017). In China, emerging publics can be citizens claiming civil rights through legal action (Brandtstädter 2013), or equally, ordinary citizens claiming their right to access space, forming a public through their simple, quotidian, o en collective practices in public space (Farquhar 2009;Thireau 2020).…”

Playing Gender, Religion, and Ethnicity: Girls’ Football and Public Playgrounds in the Schilderswijk, The Hague, the Netherlands

“…In this dissertation, I will discuss how constructions of cultural and sexual citizenship play out on girls and boys who play football in the Schilderswijk. Additionally, I show how these girls and boys question and resist dominant constructions of cultural and sexual citizenship through their football practices in the public playgrounds in their neighbourhood, as citizenship is not only produced through dominant discursive (sexual and cultural) norms, but, importantly, also through public, political, and embodied practices that negotiate and question precisely those norms (Lazar 2014;Nyhagen and Halsaa 2016;Puwar 2004). I thus show how the practices of young residents in public spaces, such as the playing of street football, can be forms of resistance to dominant gendered and racialised power relations and can create alternative constructions of ethnic, religious, and gendered belonging in urban public football spaces.…”

“…Approaching citizenship mainly from the perspective of the dominant culturalisation of citizenship overlooks how citizenship is also something that is always performed, practised, and lived. Citizenship is not only produced through dominant discursive (sexual and cultural) norms, but, importantly, also through public, political, and embodied practices that negotiate and question precisely those norms (Lazar 2014;Nyhagen and Halsaa 2016;Jaffe and De Koning 2015).…”