Cultural Citizenship

Cultural Citizenship

The notion of cultural citizenship developed in the 1980s as an approach with which to examine the socio- cultural identity, political will, and cultural creations of primarily Latino populations in the United States. The term was developed by the anthropologist Renato Rosaldo who first used it in the late 1980s to make a case for the democratization of institutions of higher education through diversity in the classroom, curricula, decision making and society in general. Cultural citizenship examines the colloquial meanings of alienation and belonging as they apply to marginalized groups with respect to the national community. In this context, claims to rights made against the state by subordinate communities arise as a consequence of degradation and exclusion in their daily environments but may also result from acts of self-definition and the search for affirmation. In the early years of the twenty-first century, cultural citizenship has been applied to modernizing efforts in an international context.

External links and references

• Cultural Citizenship: An Overview
• Cultural Citizenship in Contemporary America, by Alan N. Shapiro
• Cultural Citizenship and Cosmopolitan Practice: Global Youth Communicate Online1