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Key Text The Search for 'Inclusive' Citizenship: Meanings and Expressions in an Inter-connected World

Author: N Kabeer
Date: 2005
Size: 27 pages

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Summary

What does ‘citizenship’ mean for excluded groups around the world? What do these meanings tell us about the goal of building inclusive societies? This introductory chapter from ‘Inclusive Citizenship: Meanings and Expressions’ outlines some of the values and meanings associated with citizenship. It considers how debates around citizenship, rights and duties can be interpreted in the light of these values, and discusses the emergence of an explicit rights-based approach in the development agenda.

There are certain values that people associate with citizenship that cut across the barriers that divide them: (i) Justice: This is not retributive justice, but a notion of when it is fair for people to be treated the same, and when it is fair for them to be treated differently (ii) recognition: Of the intrinsic worth of all human beings, but also of their differences (iii) self-determination: People’s ability to exercise some degree of control over their own lives (iv) solidarity: The capacity to identify with others and to act with them in their claims for justice and recognition.

These values are taken from the narratives of marginal groups and offer a particular standpoint to consider some of the debates around citizenship. Excluded groups may share similar values at an abstract level, but how these are ranked and interpreted will vary:

Universalism versus particularism: These two sets of claims can be treated as the abstract and concrete sides of the same coin, rather than as opposing principles. Different contexts will shape the concrete form given to abstract rights.
Individual versus collective rights: Liberal individualism, despite claiming universality, is a product of the history of industrialisation in the West. Individualism has little place in many societies, which have a strong sense of kin and community ties. These societies strive to balance individual rights with collective rights, putting a strong emphasis on the latter.
Hierarchy versus indivisibility of rights: Liberal theorists privilege civil and political rights, but the contributors to this book support the view that rights are indivisible, that each is essential for the realisation of others.
Rights and duties: The rise of neo-conservative thinking has argued that people’s reliance on the state to fulfil their basic needs breeds dependency. This has led to duties being regarded as the condition for rights. The accompanying vision of social service provision by the third sector has led to the co-optation of civil society groups.

The second half of the chapter looks at the ‘rights-based’ approaches to development, and challenges to conventional understandings of citizenship.

The rise of neoliberal approaches to citizenship has been countered by the rise of ‘rights-based’ approaches to development, which integrates concerns with sustenance and freedom.
Some in the Third World view this movement with cynicism, seeing it as another ‘donor’ fad.
Donors’ commitment to rights-based approaches will only be taken seriously if they adopt the same principles of accountability and transparency that they demand of recipient countries.
The narratives in this book challenge conventional understandings of citizenship, which see it in terms of the relationship between individuals and the state, from both a local and a global perspective.
From a local perspective, membership of a nation-state often means little compared to membership of other sub-national communities which form around shared struggles and experiences of oppression.
At the global level, state-centred views of citizenship are challenged by supranational interconnections: Through forces of economic globalisation and the globalisation of the neo-liberal world view on the one hand, and interconnections of global solidarity on the other.

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Source: Kabeer N. 2005 ‘The Search for 'Inclusive' Citizenship: Meanings and Expressions in an Inter-connected World’ in (ed) N. Kabeer Inclusive Citizenship: Meanings and Expressions, Zed Books, London