What Does Citizenship Mean Today - Essay Example

Name: Tutor: Title: What does citizenship mean today, and has it changed in relation to understandings of belonging and membership? Course: Date: What does citizenship mean today, and has it changed in relation to understandings of belonging and membership? Introduction The meaning of citizenship is constantly changing. Thus, in this contemporary world where globalization has become the order of the day, citizenship remains to be a crucial approach to organizing individuals’ places because of the continued changing nature of the meaning of citizenship across the space and time particularly (Gilmartin 2010). Citizenship offers people with an identity, satisfying their need or right for recognition and belonging. As a result, citizenship provides individuals with boundaries for their membership to include certain rights and responsibilities (Tamika 2013). Citizenship is commonly perceived in terms of membership in a political community, for instance, a nation-state in which certain rights and responsibilities such as civil, political as well as social requirements like providing appropriate identification whenever needed, abiding bylaws and paying the expected taxes can flow (Pell 2008, p.143). This essay aims to provide a contemporary view of citizenship and discusses how citizenship has changed based on the perspectives of belonging and membership. Basically, desires for citizenship particularly by excluded people is attributed to certain fundamental values that involve the desire for ensuring social justice, self-determination and recognition as well as a feeling of togetherness with the rest of other members of a given society. For example, the need for justice by minority or excluded groups is more often related to a craving for such individuals’ recognition of the intrinsic value accorded to every human being and the recognition of respect for their respective differences. This clearly suggests that respect and dignity are the key elements for determining the recognition for a citizen. It is important to note that the two elements provide the appropriate grounds on which the marginalized communities across the globe struggle to build relationship with the society and state in which they live. Studies indicate that self-determination is fundamentally used as the approach of struggles by marginalized or minority groups to fully participate and represent their members within the public domain (Ejorh 2006). Research shows that although citizenship means belonging to a particular community in a place, today citizenship is basically used to define existing relationship between a person and a nation-state. Thus, the national citizenship as a concept, has over time gained prominence due to the global development of modern nation-state. Today, it has become a common argument that the nation-state and citizenship are mutually redefined by globalization where it is considered that people are now living in an era of denationalized citizenship. It cannot be doubted that citizens has become a flexible identity where individuals are now carrying different passports, living in different places and crossing boundaries. Therefore, it becomes necessary to argue that even though a small group of people may be living in a place as flexible citizens who appears to have the freedom of belonging in different places, a number of people have continuously experienced restricted access to own citizenship. In this case, denationalized citizenship is seen as the appropriate practice because it signifies that citizenship is a practice that occurs at varying scales, for instance, ranging from local through urban to the global. As a result of such practices, citizenship is perceived in different ways and based on the nation-state scale of view (Gilmartin 2010). According to Cresswell, Tim (2006, p.161), citizens means continued production of others, indicating that the definition of citizen is based on the noncitizen or shadow citizen constitutional point of view. However, Cresswell argues that other models of citizenship can be used to counter such tendencies by paying more attention on communities of belonging at different other spatial scales. Recently, citizenship has been defined as a process by which multiple practices and identities are produced apart from the normal rights and responsibilities expected of the formal membership in a political community. Therefore, it has become a common idea to consider citizenship as a relationship existing between the status of a person and the practices of citizenship. Given this worrying perspective on certain practices or identities and status/individual rights of citizenship, it is worthwhile to understand the significance and limitations of political participation in democratic societies. This implies that citizenship should be analyzed and detached from the aspect of membership particularly in the nation-state as a way of assessing whether how, when and where citizenship can be considered to be beyond, within limit, above or below a particular political community. From the perspective of democratic citizenship, a person’s participation and identification has become a major focus in a community where citizenship is perceived as a way of identification. This suggests that citizenship is intimately related to the practice of belonging to a specific group based on the rights and responsibilities expected of membership. It means that in a democracy, the concept of citizenship primarily signifies the main political inclusion and exclusion. However, it is important to mention that placing such boundary involves understanding the identities and practices associated to citizens themselves because they are the determinants of what should be consider as political. In this case, therefore, it is worth mentioning that there are increased and competing views of what citizenship means including in political communities dominated with privileged as well as marginalized citizenships (Pell 2008, p.149). Generally, citizenship means the membership of a particular group or community that bestows both rights and responsibilities to a person of such membership. Therefore, it signifies the status or identity of an individual and the practice or the process through which that person relates to a social world where the rights/protections are respected and obligations fulfilled. Research shows that feminists and gender equality activists through their gender perspective have re-framed the concept of citizenship. As a result, distinct shifts have occurred in regard to how the status of a person as well as the practice of citizenship has been interpreted. For example, the need for equal rights for each and every member of a community has become a key element of different understandings of universal citizenship. By re-framing the concept of citizenship from the gender equality perspective, it can be noted that citizenship has become a practice of both relationships and the expression of power. Today, the citizenship rights are dynamically seen as objects of struggle that must be defended and re-interpreted to address the increased inequalities that make certain group of people to be excluded from the basic rights and responsibilities that defines a full citizenship. Most of the gender exclusions from the citizenship are based on individual’s differences of ethnicity, gender, class and race which in turn cause the public-private divide of the role or identity between men and women (Meer & Sever 2004). From the context of globalization, the concept of citizenship is understood as a community of people and the polity which is embedded within a geographically bounded home or nation-state identified with boundaries as well as laws upheld by force. Since the current globalization is largely driven by the spread of capitalism across the globe, through internationalization of various functions of production in addition to the changes occurring in the communication technology. It can be noted that globalization is connected to citizenship where the movement of individuals across the national boundaries in the struggle to live and work in other nations creates fundamental questions about the aspect of national identity and belonging. In particular, the issues of membership within a polity as well as the rights associated with that membership (Jenson 2001). The general significance of globalization is that it results in the transnational and multinational organizations mostly established on the national sovereignty. Such organizations exist in parallel with the nation state but complicate and more often do not protect the rights and privileges accorded to citizenship. Although globalization seems to be a common phenomenon within the history of a nation state, it should be noted that its current manifestation makes it new because it creates more pressures on the idea of power and citizenship. A number of people of travel more rapidly because the can afford expenses, making movement of goods and capital across the world easier and wide-spreading than before, and thus intensifying globalization (Gans 2005). The process of globalization is continuously compressing space and time, and thus bringing people from different parts of the globe closer together. As a result, the changing boundaries of various communities have begun to re-shape their traditional national as well as cultural identities. Furthermore, the intercultural communication has become the common way through which individuals can challenge their society’s values because a number of people now support the view that embracing the changing perspectives of the world increases an individual’s understanding of the globe. To this extent, therefore, it is relevant to point out that globalization has influenced and changed the manner in which people understand and interpret citizenship, and thus the occurrence of the idea of global citizenship. It is important to note that global citizenship means the ability to realize that all people are basically occupants of a single planet, sharing ramifications across the world. Therefore, global citizenship represents people’s commitments to understanding of and paying more attention to issues of global concern regardless of whether or not may cause a direct impact either on their country or individual personality. It has become a common assumption that people’s ability to identify themselves as global citizens is best way that each person can hope to live in a faire and sustainable world (Croucher 2004). Ron (2013) defines a global citizen as a person who ably identifies with being part and parcel of the developing world community and someone whose actions are positively directed towards building the values and practices of the community. This implies global citizens are able to identify up-and-coming world community that has unique values and practices. Conclusion Based on the above discussions, it can be concluded that there are increased and competing views of what citizenship means including in the political communities where underprivileged and marginalized citizenships are so common. In today’s globalized world, citizenship remains to be a crucial way of organizing individuals’ places because of the continued changing nature of the meaning of citizenship across the space and time particularly. It is apparent that the process of globalization is persistently compressing space and time, and thus bringing people from different parts of the globe closer together. It is worthwhile to note that the citizenship rights are dynamically perceived as objects of struggle that must be defended and re-interpreted to debate against the increased inequalities that make certain group of people to be excluded from the basic rights and responsibilities that defines a full citizenship. List of references Croucher, S.L., 2004, Globalization and Belonging, The Politics of Identity in a Changing World, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., Lanham Maryland. Cresswell, T., 2006, On the Move: Mobility in the Modern Western World, Routledge, London and New York. Ejorh, T., 2006, Inclusive Citizenship in 21st Century: Citizenship and Belonging within the African Community and the Politics of Alienation, Ireland. Dublin: Africa Centre. Gans, J., 2005, Citizenship in the Context of Globalization, Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy, The University of Arizona. Gilmartin, M., 2010, “The meaning of citizenship in the twenty first century? And will the meaning change in the future?” The National University of Maynooth, Ireland. Retrieved November 6, 2014 from, Jenson, J., 2001, The Changing Boundaries of Citizenship, CPRN, Inc, Montreal. Meer, S & Sever, C., 2004, “Gender and Citizenship, Bridge Development-gender”, Institute of Development Studies. Retrieved November 6, 2014 from, Pell, S., 2008, Making citizenship public: identities, practices, and rights at Woodsquat, Citizenship Studies, Vol.12, No.2, pp.143-156. Ron, I., 2013, “What does it mean to be a global citizen?” Retrieved November 6, 2014 from, Tamika, W., 2013, Ideas of Australian Citizenship, Retrieved November 6, 2014 from, Read More