Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

For some time now, American citizenship has been a subject of intense debate. Great waves of migrations from Latin America and Asia, circulations of business travelers and students, and the ever growing number of individuals with dual citizenship all add to a society of astonishing flux and diversity. More and more people - migrants, refugees, expatriates, and global managers consider themselves part of transnational networks that diffuse the sense of citizenship as a watertight category. Scholars have moved beyond citizenship as a set of legal rights - either you have it or you don't - to an unavoidable consideration of membership that encompasses a range of subjects who include non-citizens. Culture wars since the 1970s have broadened discussion beyond the juridico-legal meanings to the symbolic and social meanings of American citizenship. Discussion of the changing experience of citizenship has been enriched by anthropological approaches and insights. First, there is the distinguished history of anthropologists grappling with the everyday meaning - the marrow, the soul, and the ethics - of American citizenship. In particular, African American anthropologists have considered their scholarship inseparable from a critique and rumination on the spiritual substance of citizenship in America. Indeed, the African American Civil Rights movement in the 1960s inspired struggles for more ... log in or subscribe to read full text