ABSTRACT
In this entry, the author disaggregates citizenship to focus on its cultural dimensions. While civic citizenship in theory gives equal rights and duties to all, in practice, citizenship can be unequal or graduated based on class, race, ethnic, and typically, in the case of India, caste differences. She shows how in the case of the people of Northeast India, cultural questions related to food, dress, and other practices, add one more dimension and constitute the basis for the denial of citizenship. In this regard, negotiating citizenship and belonging for many groups in Northeast India not only involves challenging stereotypes through a politics of representation but also pro-actively working to build robust institutional means to facilitate cultural citizenship.
