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It is unarguable that citizenship has been built on a series of exclusions.  Indeed, for there to be citizens there must be non-citizens, and some variable or variables must be chosen as the bases for the distinction.  Often it is gender, or race, or ethnicity, or sexuality that serve as the markers to designate acceptable inclusion within the body politic, yet citizenship is still framed as an abstract concept that eschews reference to these categorical exclusions.

In an attempt to redress this problematic formulation of the “abstract and universal citizen,” new citizenship studies have recently emerged that  increasingly provide a compelling analytic window into the varieties of interaction between nation-states, localities and group identities, particularly around questions of civic rights and social inclusion. Studies of citizenship and sexuality necessarily call for an interdisciplinary approach, because the formation of “the citizen” traverses legal, political, discursive, philosophical and historical analytic frames.

Our goal is to bring together an interdisciplinary audience to examine the intersections of sexuality, civic engagement, and global contexts in coming to terms with current debates and understandings of citizenship—from public belonging to privacy rights and their international implications in a post-September 11th world. The global “war on terror” has fueled renewed anxiety concerning the nation-state’s capacity to define and defend its citizenry.   Arguably, one response to this apprehension has been the increased regulation of sites of sexual and gender citizenship: gay marriage, immigration and adoption laws, reproductive rights, and the circulation of representations of sexuality and gender in a global media market.

Speakers will address the theoretical, empirical, and strategic issues raised by this simultaneity of equal opportunity and unequal practice for marginalized groups as well as question the relation between political equality and social justice. The importance of mapping these complexities cannot be overstated in a newly antagonistic global context. The expansive rubric of “citizenship” engages scholars from diverse disciplines who are wrestling with complex issues centered on the possibilities for inclusive citizenship in a world both newly “bordered” and increasingly globalized.

The goal of this two-day working conference is to draw on the expertise and insight of multiple disciplines to investigate these and other questions:

• What is the relationship between homeland security and the crafting of “good” citizens through immigration, adoption, and reproductive rights discourse?

• How do contested sites of sexual and gender citizenship engage race, class, and national subjectivities?

• What is actually entailed in legal and political citizenship? 

• In what ways do questions of belonging and marginality percolate through local, state, and national, and international debates on “hot button” issues such as gay marriage?

• While some American gays and lesbians are struggling for marital rights and recognition in the United States, what is happening elsewhere in the world regarding social and political movements of citizenship for marginalized communities?

• What forms of discipline and punishment are being wielded against sexual and gender transgressors?

• How are people resisting second-class citizenship and other more serious forms of social and political exclusion?  How are the rights of individuals and collectivities defined constitutionally in different democratic regimes?

• What would it mean to have a political system actually based on individual rather than collective representation?  

 This conference, then, is concerned with the linkages between citizenship and “globalization” in exploring the intersections between national(ities), gender and sexuality in citizenship discourses.

Gender Studies Indiana University Memorial Hall East 130 1021 East Third Street Bloomington, IN 47405 (812) 855-0101 (812) 855-4869(fax)

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Last modified: 01/18/2008

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