Scholarship on global citizenship has been dominated by scholars based in Western higher education institutions located in the global North, giving greater emphasis to the European philosophical and enlightenment traditions which have shaped them, as well as colonial histories that underpinned knowledge of the world and its ‘others’. However, the fact that particular ideas of global citizenship have gained particular policy and strategic purchase in the global North should not obscure the breadth and diversity of expressions of global citizenship within and between the global South, nor the emergence of new global civic spaces within which new global citizenships are emerging.
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Whilst global civil society is a contested concept, there are increasing opportunities, mechanisms, and fora which bring together and enable diverse citizens to refl ect and act on issues that transcend national borders. Th is is not to romanticise global civic spaces. Th e success and growth of online activist groups such as Avaaz (avaaz.org/en/), which defi nes itself in terms of ‘people powered politics’, provide new opportunities for global citizenship which do not demand mobility and are focused around issues that are not necessar- ily determined by professional policy staff . But they are built around access to technologies that remain concentrated in the global North. Research on the cosmopolitan subjectivities of NGO activists in South India has revealed often temporary and partial access to global civic spaces (Baillie Smith and Jenkins 2012 ). But new global civic spaces as well as historic connections are providing opportunities for the expression of multiple global citizenships in ways that are not always defi ned by the centres of the aid industry in the global North. Perhaps the most well known of these initiatives is the World Social Forum, which, at the Mumbai event, explicitly rejected funding sup- port from donors such as the Ford Foundation, European Union, DfID, and MacArthur Foundation (Smith 2004a : 418). Jeferess notes how movements such as the Narmada Bachao Andalan movement in India, the Zapatistas in Mexico, the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, the World Social Forum, and the work of the Penticton Indian Band ‘[h]ave been infl uential in the development of both a transnational politics of identity and solidarity but also in providing the conceptual framework for thinking beyond race and nation; the conception of subjectivity articulated through the southern African concept of Ubuntu , the Zapatista concern with understanding the
interconnections of human beings, or the Narmada struggle’s focus on the relationship of humans to other animals and the environment all provide alternative epistemologies to the European enlightenment thought of Kant, Locke, and Hobbes, to which political philosophers of global citizenship con- fi ne their theoretical framework. Signifi cantly, as well, these movements and projects have been understood not as ‘development’ initiatives but initiatives seeking economic and social justice’ (Jeff eress 2008 : 33).
Th e emergence of new transnational social movements and other forma- tions expressly committed to unsettling the Western dominance of global civil society and foregrounding alternative ways of thinking are shaping new ideas of global citizenships and subjectivities. Th e World Social Forum has sought to provide more inclusive settings in which citizens from South and North have come together to explore alternative social, economic and political mod- els to the dominant neo-liberal one. It has not been without its critics, includ- ing those who claim that it has failed to ‘de-colonize’ suffi ciently, remaining
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‘too much in the hands of persons from the pan-European world, of men, of older persons, and others defi ned as coming from the privileged populations of the world’ (Wallerstein 2013 ). It has been challenged for failing to set a clear strategic direction, and for the ways it is internally structured and organ- ised, including limiting space for deliberation and direction setting, and creat- ing a forum which is daunting for activists who are new to such large events (Smith 2004a : 418). But, ‘despite its limitations, the WSF is undoubtedly the most globally inclusive initiative for fostering transnational civil society’ (Smith 2004a : 420). Th e global citizenship expressed and produced through such events, at least in terms of ambition, is less about status than it is about participation in a process of knowledge production and relationship towards greater equality.
We also need to be sensitive to global citizenships and subjectivities that do not fi t easily with the ways in which subjectivities are performed either through well-known social movements or through international NGO activ- ity. For example, Kothari ( 2008 ) has explored the subjectivities of migrant peddlers in terms of a ‘non elite openness to diff erence’ and ‘strategic’ cos- mopolitanism, whilst Datta ( 2009 ) has addressed the everyday cosmopoli- tanisms of East European construction workers in London. Research on faith-based volunteering showed how young people from the UK volunteer- ing in Latin America would ‘perform’ their subjectivities during interviews in ways that fi tted ideas of activism shaped by popular events such as Make Poverty History, as well as with how their faith identities would normally be expressed (Baillie Smith et al. 2013 ). But in their diaries, they would off er more refl exive and contingent accounts of their citizenship and subjectivity. As well as presenting methodological challenges, this research revealed the importance of faith in shaping forms of cosmopolitan and global citizenship (Gale and O’Toole 2009 ; Levitt 2008 ), which is signifi cant here given the importance of faith organisations in development (Deneulin and Bano 2009 ; Rakodi 2007 ; Clarke 2006 ). Whilst such citizenships may not fi t established understandings of global citizenship, global faith communities provide a con- text in which citizens make connections across national borders, and which off er a transnational community in which there are sets of recognised—if sometimes contested—ideas and values (Baillie Smith et al. 2013 ). As Levitt ( 2008 : 787) comments, ‘Religious global citizenship has an exclusive and an inclusive variety. It inspires some to care only for the members of their own community, while it inspires others to care for people all over the world.’ Religion can provide a framework for global citizenship which goes beyond— but can overlap with—dominant aid and development modalities. Th ere are a variety of spaces, histories and connections that can shape ideas and practices
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of global citizenship beyond the ways it is been popularly used in relation to international development.
5 Conclusion
In 2011, the Development Awareness Raising and Education Forum (one of the working groups of the European Confederation of Relief and Development NGOs—Concord), published a position paper entitled, ‘Development needs citizens’ (DARE Forum 2011 ). Th e paper responds to a perceived lack of citizen engagement in development, arguing that civic engagement is impor- tant because it enhances legitimacy, enables people to make a diff erence in their daily lives, and ‘opens a space for debate on root causes of global pov- erty, thus it allows discussing and implementing systemic changes required to tackle global justice and poverty issues’ (DARE Forum 2011 : 3). Th e paper makes a call for more citizen ownership and scrutiny of aid and develop- ment co- operation. Th e need for such a position paper highlights the fact that despite the resurgence of debates around global citizenship and development, and growing popularity of global citizenship practices, citizen engagement in development remains focused on supporting development as it is.
In the global North, global citizenship is often understood in terms of status and linked to development through the mobilising of particular behaviours centred on ideas of care and responsibility for ‘others’. In this way, it bears little
relationship to new forms of democracy and ideas of justice, reproducing colo- nially rooted ideas of agency and power. On the other hand, ideas and practises of global citizenship can be found outside the confi nes and instrumentality of an increasingly neo-liberalised aid and development industry. Whilst we should not homogenise these citizenships, or see them as hermetically sealed from other citizenships, settings such as the World Social Forum are instruc- tive in thinking about forms of global citizenship that are less instrumental and more concerned with democratic deliberation and ideas of justice. But, to date, participation in these settings has remained limited and exclusive.
For global citizenship to make a signifi cant contribution to development as global justice (Grugel 2013 ) requires attention to both how we conceptualise global citizenship and how its practices articulate with the changing devel- opment landscape. Th e growth of new development actors (Baillie Smith and Laurie 2013 ) and sites of development power presents important new challenges for thinking about global citizenship and development, not least as these destabilise the North–South imaginaries that have shaped much policy and thinking on global citizenship to date. Attention is needed to the global
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citizenships that emerge through new development-aid activity from non- DAC donors (Mawdsley 2012 ), as well as to South–South mobilities and interactions whose long history risks being written out by the new attention to ‘rising powers’. Th e ways these citizenships come into contact with other global citizenships in particular places and more discursively is a critical site for thinking about the future relationships between global citizenship and devel- opment. Th is demands attention and sensitivity to the diff erent ways caring and responsibility not only work across space, but also time (Massey 2004 : 10), linking global citizenship both to what has gone before, but also, par- ticularly in the context of environmental resources and sustainability, respon- sibility for generations to come. More attention will also be needed to the ways the relationship between global citizenship and development is negoti- ated through factors such as class, community, gender, place and faith (Baillie Smith 2013 ). In both scholarly and policy terms, this demands a move away from seeing citizenship as status to recognising that it is temporal, contradic- tory, and fl uid—something that is much harder to align with state, corporate and voluntary organisational strategic objectives, but which presents greater opportunities to articulate ideas of justice that can work across national bor- ders. As long as global citizenship is seen as something to be closely ‘managed’ and ‘audited’, it is unlikely to play a role in transforming development from a project of benevolence, self-interest, and control to one of global justice.
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