Citizenship

Defining Citizenship

Geographical investigations of citizenship concern the relationships between individuals living and working in a particular place (communities, nation-states, etc.) and how these relationships affect everyday lives because of who these individuals are and where they live. As citizens, people are seen to have certain duties and obligations, and in return they can expect certain rights and benefits. Traditionally, at least in democracies, these benefits include various bundles of civil or legal rights (e.g., freedom of speech, assembly, movement, and equality before the law), political rights (e.g., the right to vote and engage in political activity), and economic rights (e.g., rights to social security, welfare, and basic standards of living). Despite the fact that this definition suggests a sense of inclusion and equality, notions of citizenship can also serve to exclude people. Historically, only certain groups of people, namely, property-owning white men, were entitled to these rights of full citizenship. Other groups, such as women and ethnic minorities, have had to fight to have these rights extended to them. Some social groups continue to remain “partial citizens,” as [Page 413]they are excluded from particular civil, political, or economic rights; for example, even though members of some minority groups can enjoy legal rights, they may still feel like second-class citizens because of discrimination.

One approach to citizenship and geography is concerned with how the spaces of material human society, represented as administrative political units such as towns, cities, or nation-states, are intertwined with individual social, political, and economic rights and obligations that help define one's membership in a civil society. The way in which political power is organized in particular places is a critical element in determining who is and is not granted certain rights. These geographical connections are usually based on notions of the right to use public space (e.g., parks, streets, plazas), and they are linked to political perceptions of equality, democracy, and liberty. When one thinks of citizenship as a set of rights and responsibilities framed within particular bounded spaces, these spaces suggest an “outside” and an “inside.” For example, spaces of citizenship sometimes serve to marginalize women, racial and ethnic minorities, the disabled, and so on. In this sense, geographers are interested in challenging the power structures and the status quo of a place by making claims for social justice and civil rights for those who work or live in a particular place and who may be marginalized by society. Many political geographers are interested in questions of how states, nations, territories, and boundaries play a role in notions of citizenship—for example, what might be at stake when certain people in a place call for political independence from other places, and where boundaries might be placed that mark these new territorial allegiances.

...