Citizenship Beyond the State: Thinking with Early Modern Citizenship in the Contemporary World

Abstract

In our introduction, we pose some of the broader questions raised by the interdisciplinary and inter-period work of our contributors, while also drawing upon our own research on early modern London and contemporary Mexico. We argue that elements of the earlymodern tradition of urban citizenship have indeed survived alongside national citizenship, at least in certain contexts. Beyond that, we argue that early modern citizenship also helps to set in relief the scalar, emancipatory vision of nineteenth-and twentieth-century national-territorial projects; that it helps to think about keeping a distance from nation-states and transnational institutions while still partaking of them; that it draws our attention to the complexities of inclusion and exclusion in contemporary citizenship; and that it helps us think beyond the narrowly-defined "rights" of national citizenship to include the freedom that is entailed in the pursuit of livelihoods.

Contesting Neoliberal Urbanism in Glasgow's Community Gardens: The Practice of DIY Citizenship

“…Those citizens unable to fulfil their role as consumers receive disciplining through workfare, benefit reduction and increasingly punitive sanctions. But, as Andrew Gordon and Trevor Stack (:130) argue, “neoliberal states have failed to produce the ‘free subject who self‐actualizes’ precisely because they have continued to act as states by reserving their rights on citizenship”. Thomas Simon () expands this notion of state manipulation of citizenship in more combative tones by referring to citizenship “as a weapon” used by the state against insiders and outsiders.…”

Citizenship in Palestine: a fractured geography

“…The accent on such entities means we are not considering a cosmopolitan conception of citizenship, or the idea of 'citizenship beyond the state' (Benhabib 2007, Gordon and Stack 2007, Isin and Turner 2007. On the contrary, in Palestine we are more likely facing the case of a 'state beyond citizenship', because Israel's institutions and policy goals as a state are not related either to the residents of the territory it administers nor to its nationals (Israeli passport holders).…”

Within and beyond citizenship: alternative educational initiatives in the Arab society in Israel

“…A decade and a half later, he saw Israel moving, alongside western liberal states, towards a 'post-citizenship society' (Peled 2007). In other words, the 'room for manoeuvre' for citizenship activism, which since the emergence of the modern nation-state encourages citizens to take advantage of their leverage as citizens and act on their constituted rights and legal capacities, was closing on Israel's Palestinian citizens (Gordon andStack 2007, p. 121, Isin 2007). It is against this backdrop that the very concept of 'citizenship activism' turned to be limited in its capacity, first, in describing what counts as actions of citizenship, and second, in prescribing acts of citizenship (Isin 2009).…”

“…However, being all the more concerned with citizenship and acts of citizenship, we are equally interested in shifting the focus of attention from what the state does in education, without underestimating its importance, to the level of the city, the neighbourhood, the school, and, most significantly, the social agents themselves -the citizens. Thus, shunning the confines of the control model (Lustick 1980), which rendered the Arab citizens passive, we seek to expand on how citizens seek in the school, in the city, and in their immediate environment 'a room for manoeuvre' (Gordon andStack 2007, Isin 2007) to ameliorate their children's future. In this respect, we propose to understand the emergence of alternative Arab schools not merely as another instance of 'parental choice', although this idea facilitated this change.…”