Relational approaches for conceptualizing and researching citizenship

Abstract

Although relational approaches have become popular in many fields of social scientific research, they remain less so in citizenship studies. The panel invites participants to reflect on citizenship in this larger meta-theoretical context to envision, widen and explore the meanings and significance of practices of citizenship today. The ambition of this panel is to deepen the concepts of citizenship as a pluralistic, contested, contextual feature of social reality –allowing a greater engagement with new forms of citizenship and civic education (Isin 2008, 2019). Further, it is noted that the relational approach to citizenship has largely been envisioned within a processual relational paradigm embedded in the network approaches (Somers 2014). The insights of these approaches have been manifold; from mapping contested discourses on citizenship and its impact on civic praxis (Koyama, 2017) to underscoring the technologies and strategies for active engagement (Boonstra 2015; Bohler & Giannoumis 2017). The relational actor-network orientation has also granted insight into new types of activism and forms of citizenship (Yun, 2020). However, in an over-emphasis on actions, networks, these approaches tend to reify processes and meta-theoretically neglect the role of relatively stable social structures and contexts. This panel offers an innovative way to conceptualize citizenship (and its study) in drawing from wider arena of relational thought including dialectical, dialogical, and geographical relationalism (among others). By exploring these different orientations within relationalism, this panel seeks to widen the scope of relational studies in Citizenship in theoretical, methodological and empirical contexts. Themes: 1. Theoretical approaches to citizenship 2. Critical reviews of citizenship literature 3. Innovative conceptualizations of relationalism in citizenship studies 4. Empirical cases of citizenship as enactment, and performative citizenship Instructions for Authors Authors are invited to submit abstracts and or full papers for the panel. Deadline for the abstracts is May 1, 2022 (rvetik@tlu.ee). This panel is open to all researchers at any stage. Please note that abstracts should not be longer than 650 words and must include at-least 3 keywords. Full paper submissions should not be longer than 10,000 words including endnotes, footnotes, tables, graphs, and the bibliography. Please also select one of the four themes listed above for your paper. If more than one theme applies to your paper please only select one. If no theme applies – please submit the paper with the note stating ‘Others’.

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