Citizens of the World: Pluralism, Migration, and Practices of Citizenship by Robert Danisch (review)

At least since Aristotle declared that the citizen—or zon politikon—is a zon logon echon—a speaking being, the rhetorical tradition has been intimately concerned with questions of citizenship. Yet even though the question of citizenship has remained enduring, the cultural and historical contingencies that define the contours of citizenship have changed considerably. As Robert Danisch explains in his preface to Citizens of the World: Pluralism, Migration, and Practices of Citizenship, “The very idea of what it means to be a ‘citizen’ in our global, cosmopolitan world is no longer as clear as it may have been for an Athenian democrat of the fifth century BC, a Roman Republican of the first century BC, a British coloniser of the eighteenth century, or an American patriot of the nineteenth century” (vii). Citizenship in the 21st century is increasingly marked by both international migration and intranational pluralism, challenging traditional notions of citizenship based on stable borders and stable identities. Contributors to this edited collection take up that challenge, addressing the problematic that pluralism poses for the political and ethical practices of citizenship today.

What makes this volume exceptional is that the contributors do not only address the challenge of pluralism—they perform it. The anthology emerged from a 2009 interdisciplinary and international symposium on “Pluralism, Inclusion, and Citizenship” held in Salzberg, Austria. Participants in the project hailed from Canada, Portugal, Italy, South Africa, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, Serbia, and the United Kingdom. Representing many nations, contributors to the volume also represented many academic disciplines, including sociology, anthropology, social work, law, political theory, international relations, literary studies, and media studies. Readers of Rhetoric & Public Affairs will likely recognize the volume’s editor, Robert Danisch, from our own field of rhetorical studies. The book’s contributors represent a diverse group indeed.

However, as many of these scholars argue, the mere representation of diversity—whether multicultural, multinational, or multidisciplinary—should not be too hastily equated with plurality. In the collection’s opening chapter, “The Postmodern Liberal Concept of Citizenship,” Sanja Ivic explains that an uncritical celebration of difference can itself reify the binary distinctions that underwrite homogenous and essentialist identity categories. Furthermore, as Donald Reid argues in “Multiculturalism in the Service of Capital,” the idealization of multicultural difference as a symbol of inclusion often covers over systemic political and economic inequalities. So not only is the valorization of multicultural diversity not enough to achieve ethico-political plurality, it may actually impede its achievement. At best, multicultural identity politics is a red herring; at worst, it is a stumbling block.

If plurality cannot simply be reduced to multicultural representations of diverse identities, then what is it? As Paulina Tambakaki powerfully argues, plurality is the collective constitution of political identifications through agonistic contestation. In her contribution, “Citizenship and Agonism,” Tambakaki draws from the work of Chantal Mouffe to theorize a discursively enacted form of citizenship that is “neither fixed nor unitary” (30) but nevertheless provides the conditions for constructing contingent political solidarities. So to say that the authors of this volume perform plurality is not really to say that they represent a diverse range of fixed disciplinary and national identities, but rather to highlight the agonistic mode of engagement that characterizes their joint intellectual project.

Interrogating the dynamic and mobile relations between citizens and nation-states, the essays in this volume bear the marks of extended scholarly deliberation and contestation among the authors. For example, Julian Chapple’s study, “Exclusive Inclusion: Japan’s Desire for, and Difficulty With, Diversity,” builds upon Donald Reid’s critique of the political economy of New Zealand public broadcasting. Like the New Zealand government’s promotion of multiculturalism, Chapple argues, slogans of cultural inclusion sanctioned by the Japanese state ultimately reinforce hegemonic values and privilege cultural homogeneity. In turn, Devrimsel Deniz Nergiz responds to Chapple’s work in her essay, “German Politicians with Turkey Origin: Diversity in the Parliaments of Germany.” She cautions that citizenship...