The project studies the current transformations of citizenship in urban contexts of super-diversity. The research is conducted in the two cities Brussels and Montreal. Three sets of questions are addressed:
Which forms of (urban) citizenship are there? How is citizenship understood, negotiated, and practiced by individual actors in super-diverse urban settings?
How does it relate to multilayered citizenship regimes? How is multilayered citizenship related to “traditional” and urban citizenship?
How can we assess citizenship and social cohesion in a mobile society? Which institutional framing do we need for citizenship and social cohesion at the urban level in order to develop politically efficient and normatively legitimate perimeters of democratic citizenship?
The project is connecting different approaches, that is, anthropological field research on citizenship and political philosophy of multiculturalism and mobility in multilayered governance settings. Our innovative transdisciplinary approach closely links normative and inductive empirical ethnographic analyses.
Increasing migration and mobility erode the congruence of society, politics and territory; they challenge social cohesion, the meaning and perimeters of citizenship. Focusing on nation-states is no longer sufficient to analyze these challenges, as supranational organizations, sub-state nations, federal entities, and urban contexts significantly shape different citizenship regimes.
