Engin Isin – författare

This book outlines a critical theory of citizenship, with an emphasis on how citizenship institutes power relations and organises the rights and obligations of those who become its subjects.

Whether it is the question of the rights of animals, children, migrants, minorities, mothers, or mountains, and whether such rights are protected or guaranteed by national law, international law, or human rights law, the issue of citizenship has already indelibly marked the 21st century. As an institution, citizenship governs the relationship between a polity and its peoples by dividing them into citizens and noncitizens, with differentiated rights and obligations. So necessarily, this book argues, citizenship is an institution of domination and emancipation that brings into play the struggles of those who want to protect certain privileges and the struggles of those who are against being caught in either second-class or noncitizen categories. Deconstructing dominant theories and practices of citizenship, a critical theory of citizenship must, therefore, not only analyse intersecting rights, but also connect citizenship to these broader social struggles. For it is these struggles, the book maintains, that give meaning to citizenship itself.

The book will be of interest to scholars and students in sociolegal studies, sociology, politics, and as well as those working in citizenship, migration, and refugee studies.

This book outlines a critical theory of citizenship, with an emphasis on how citizenship institutes power relations and organises the rights and obligations of those who become its subjects.

Whether it is the question of the rights of animals, children, migrants, minorities, mothers, or mountains, and whether such rights are protected or guaranteed by national law, international law, or human rights law, the issue of citizenship has already indelibly marked the 21st century. As an institution, citizenship governs the relationship between a polity and its peoples by dividing them into citizens and noncitizens, with differentiated rights and obligations. So necessarily, this book argues, citizenship is an institution of domination and emancipation that brings into play the struggles of those who want to protect certain privileges and the struggles of those who are against being caught in either second-class or noncitizen categories. Deconstructing dominant theories and practices of citizenship, a critical theory of citizenship must, therefore, not only analyse intersecting rights, but also connect citizenship to these broader social struggles. For it is these struggles, the book maintains, that give meaning to citizenship itself.

The book will be of interest to scholars and students in sociolegal studies, sociology, politics, and as well as those working in citizenship, migration, and refugee studies.

This collection offers a postcolonial critique of the ostensible superiority or originality of ‘Western’ political theory and one of its fundamental concepts, ‘citizenship’. The chapters analyse the undoing, uncovering, and reinventing of citizenship as a way of investigating citizenship as political subjectivity. If it has now become very difficult to imagine citizenship merely as nationality or membership in the nation-state, this is at least in part because of the anticolonial struggles and the project of reimagining citizenship after orientalism that they precipitated. If it has become difficult to sustain the orientalist assumption, the question arises; how do we investigate citizenship as political subjectivity after orientalism?

This book was originally published as a special issue of Citizenship Studies.

This collection offers a postcolonial critique of the ostensible superiority or originality of ‘Western’ political theory and one of its fundamental concepts, ‘citizenship’. The chapters analyse the undoing, uncovering, and reinventing of citizenship as a way of investigating citizenship as political subjectivity. If it has now become very difficult to imagine citizenship merely as nationality or membership in the nation-state, this is at least in part because of the anticolonial struggles and the project of reimagining citizenship after orientalism that they precipitated. If it has become difficult to sustain the orientalist assumption, the question arises; how do we investigate citizenship as political subjectivity after orientalism?

This book was originally published as a special issue of Citizenship Studies.