Archive

Reclaiming Humanity: The Utopias of World Citizenship

When we think of cit­i­zen­ship nowa­days, we most­ly see it as a con­test­ed notion for it being reduced to an admin­is­tra­tive cri­te­ri­on that is actu­al­ly selec­tive­ly dif­fer­en­ti­at­ed: inclu­sion in, or exclu­sion from the nation-state mem­ber­ship, from priv­i­leged mem­ber­ship of Western nation-states.

Performing States

We have now in twen­ty years moved half the world’s pop­u­la­tion, give or take, to one city. And we all live in one city. And we keep walk­ing out into the street and get­ting past­ed by trams. And we don’t even under­stand what the trams are. We not only do not know how to live togeth­er online, we don’t even real­ly under­stand that it’s a problem.

The Real Name Game

Citizenship, after not think­ing about it for a while, feels like some­thing we’re all think­ing about quite a lot these days. In the words of Hannah Arendt, cit­i­zen­ship is the right to have rights. All of your rights essen­tial­ly descend from your cit­i­zen­ship, because only coun­tries will pro­tect those rights.