ABSTRACT
Citizenship has played a critical role in the evolution of states from antiquity to modern times. Core concepts of citizenship appear as having ‘flown’ from the Roman Empire and the Greek city-states and – signifying law and descent correspondingly – to the modern, liberal and democratic idea of citizenship. In this chapter we turn to the dynamic nature of citizenship, both as an idea and in practice. This perspective provides insights into the shifting parameters and institutions through which citizenship is mediated across time and space. Furthermore, it highlights the role of many additional variables such as memory, visualization and social construction through which citizenship is constantly reimagined and renegotiated by the stakeholders themselves. This opens up space for a theory of citizenship to emerge, one yielded not simply from the experience of the older, liberal democracies, but also that of younger, postcolonial states. Furthermore, citizenship, seen through the transcultural lens of hybridity, extends the discussion far beyond the confinement of the modern nation-state.
