ABSTRACT
There is one dimension of the citizenship~space~education relationship we have not discussed in detail yet but which captures the ecological core of all that has been said so far. While ‘sustainability’ has been a fairly high-profile public agenda for some time now, its cultural, critical or radical and anti-individualistic aspects are less clearly articulated. In fact, there are ways in which sustainability is properly seen as the cornerstone of a place-based concept of citizenship. If equal share and ownership of resources is a stakeholder citizenship issue, and global citizenship means being responsible for not only yourself but also other people in other societies, we have to engage with critical arguments about the unsustainability of ‘development’ and capitalism, which are essentially competitive. Recent global economic meltdown and the waves of discontent and violence that have followed should be enough to alert us to the interconnectedness of everything. Seen in these terms, sustainability and ecology actually provide the widest lens for looking at citizenship. Furthermore, accepting these principles mandates a form of education that promotes a politics of equal responsibility, an understanding of sustainability that is not only about our physical environment and using fewer resources but also about equal sharing of those resources, and develops the cultural capital and capabilities societies need to manage natural capital.
