Identity and citizenship in a cosmopolitan open world

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this work, we focus on the idea of identity strictly linked to the idea of citizenship. It is the subject of a profound revision and an innovative proposal. Due to globalisation, global citizenship and global identity are currently the object of an attempt at a profound re-elaboration in light of the new contemporary scenarios globalisation has generated. This study provides a reading of and an important step toward cosmopolitan sociology as a paradigm, methodology, and working style, although it still implies the fight against zombie concepts – ‘culture’ and ‘identity’, according to Beck – replaced, for instance, by memetics and evolutionary contingency. We propose the critical concept of European citizenship, open to the idea of a European political and cultural space, where we seek to identify, at least roughly, the object, the spatial continuum, and the subjective profiles of an evolving identity, the European identity, until an elaborate attempt at innovation. Our starting point is the growing awareness that the ideas of world citizenship and European citizenship constitute the most desirable solution. It is not free from problematic elements, which, from our point of view, belong to three sets of issues that we have identified as the focus of this research.