Globalising Citizenship: The Impact of Global Migrations on Concept Formation

ABSTRACT

Globalising Citizenship: The Impact of Global Migrations on Concept Formation

Answers to the question of what it means to be a citizen are as old as political theory itself. These answers have changed throughout history because citizenship is an open and unstable concept, which is provided its contents and meanings based on diverse political relations and contexts, in interaction with which it is formed and changed. For centuries the concept of citizenship has been associated  with the nation-state and nationality. Today,  this modern notion of citizenship has been challenged  by globalisation and global migrations. Contemporary global transformations give rise to a new form of citizenship that is not constituted exclusively around the ideas of territoriality and belonging. The main thesis of this article is that a theory of citizenship for a multicultural and global society must be based on the separation between citizenship and nationality. Global citizenship should be understood as an inclusive political community without any claim to common identity and belonging. We identify some major theoretical implications of global migration through which we can understand the need for contemporary conceptual changes that marks a rupture with the ways in which we have previously considered citizenship. By exploring the intersections of citizenship, community, and migration, we aim to deconstruct the contradictions of national citizenship and their simplistic transference to the global level in order to find ways of achieving new concept of imagining and practising political citizenship without belonging.

KEYWORDS: citizenship, globalisation, global migrations, political concepts, political community