ABSTRACT
In this chapter I propose to examine some of the ways in which citizenship is produced as a productive and disciplinary category, which is regularly deployed within formal and informal relations of power. To do that I shall argue that constitutional and other legalistic defmitions and 'guarantees' are readily and characteristically linked to more popular forms of understanding, conceptualised here as 'narratives'. These narratives, so I claim, are characteristically deployed in both gendered and de-gendered forms, of which I cite examples. In order to explain this political phenomenon, I examine very closely the concept of gender in the light of recent theorisations and my observation of contemporary usage. I draw attention to the disjunction between gendered and de-gendered narratives of citizenship, and to the way that this discursive strategy operates within the current politics of sexuality. In conclusion I reformulate a number of political questions in ways that are subversive of traditional hierarchies of power.
