ABSTRACT
If indeed ‘citizenship’ has become a major object of struggle over the last three or four decades, it surely has to do with many profound transformations that are taking place on a global scale. Many scholars have studied the relationships between these transformations and the concept of citizenship itself. Some urged tightening the use of citizenship to indicate that the latter is strictly membership in a state (status) whilst others have encouraged more differentiated uses of the term to describe various practices of belonging, identification, and struggles. Thus, various uses of the term such as ‘multicultural citizenship’, ‘sexual citizenship’, ‘transnational citizenship’ or ‘digital citizenship’ have entered into circulation. Terms such as ‘media citizenship’ or ‘cultural citizenship’ are now widely used. These uses create tensions when legal citizenship can have a precise meaning of who may or may not act under certain capacities as differentiated uses proliferate where seemingly anyone can act like a citizen. This tension might well be a productive and inherent tension in the concept itself. This encyclopedia entry outlines a critical approach to citizenship that acknowledges its need to be continually differentiated while recognising that it may need a precise meaning. I propose to consider citizenship functioning under different senses that mobilise it: citizenship (in) law, citizenship (in) practice, citizenship (in) theory, and citizenship (in) acts. I argue that there are always gaps between these senses and the creative work of citizens takes place in these gaps.
