Acts of Citizenship [Hardcover]

This book introduces the concept of 'act of citizenship' and in doing so, re-orients the study of what it means to be a citizen. Isin and Nielsen show that an 'act of citizenship' is the event through which subjects constitute themselves as citizens. They claim that such an act involves both responsibility and answerability, but is ultimately irreducible to either.

This study of citizenship is truly interdisciplinary, drawing not only on new developments in politics, sociology, geography and anthropology, but also on psychoanalysis, philosophy and history. Ranging from Antigone and Socrates in the ancient world to checkpoints, euthanasia and flash mobs in the modern one, the 'acts' and chapters here build up a dynamic and wide-ranging picture. Acts of Citizenship provides important new insights for all those concerned with the relationship between individuals, groups and polities.

Preface

Introduction: Acts of Citizenship - Engin F. Isin & Greg M. Nielsen

Part I. Politics, Ethics, Aesthetics
1. Theorizing Acts of Citizenship - Engin F. Isin
2. Can an Act of Citizenship be Creative? - Melanie White
3: What Levinas Can and Cannot Teach Us about Mediating Acts of Citizenship - Bettina Bergo

Acts I: Heroic Intrusions and the Body of Law
Act 1. Abraham's Sacrifice - Charles Wells
Act 2: Antigone's Offering - Charles Wells
Act 3: Socrates's Death - Bora Ali Isyar
Act 4: Euthanasia - Bora Ali Isyar
Act 5: Pat Tillman: soldier-citizen-hero? - Darryl Burgwin

Part II. Citizens, Strangers, Aliens, Outcasts
4. Citizenship without Acts? With Tocqueville in America - Brian C. J. Singer
5. Acts of Piety: The Political and the Religious or a Tale of Two Cities - Bryan S. Turner
6. Arendt's Citizenship and Citizen Participation in Disappearing Dublin - Kieran Bonner
7. No One Is Illegal Between City and Nation - Peter Nyers
8. Acts of Demonstration: Mapping the Tel“5