Citizenship studies: on the need for tradition and critique

Abstract

ABSTRACT Drawing from arguments within sexuality/gender studies, I argue that we need to move away from the rigid binary thinking and ideological blindness that pervades much contemporary politics, and be more ‘queer’, if you will. To this end, we need to move beyond a focus predominantly on critique and recognise the need for both tradition and critique within citizenship studies itself and societal politics more generally. I argue that we need to move beyond narratives that are (deliberately, or not) founded on an exclusionary logic that divides and instead better recognize the need for – and power of – tradition in a dialectical relationship with critique. This is a serious challenge but one that may be best achieved through a transformative politics of justice, generosity, and forgiveness, where we work through painful histories such that we can engage the Other in a spirit of hospitality.