Inclusive Citizenship

People’s understandings of what it means to be a citizen go to the heart of the various meanings of personal and national identity, political and electoral participation, and rights. The contributors to this seek to explore the difficult questions inherent in the notion of citizenship from various angles. They look at citizenship and rights, citizenship and identity, citizenship and political struggle, and the policy implications of substantive notions of citizenship. They illustrate the various ways in which people are excluded from full citizenship; the identities that matter to people and their compatibility with dominant notions of citizenship; the tensions between individual and collective rights in definitions of citizenship; struggles to realize and expand citizens’ rights; and the challenges these questions entail for development policy.

Author Biography

Professor Naila Kabeer is a fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, where she researches and teaches on gender, poverty and development issues. The contributors come from a wide variety of societies, including the industrial countries in the North. The series editor is John Gaventa of the Institute of Development Studies.