Questions of Citizenship and the Nature of "The Public"

This essay is taken from a talk given at a symposium discussing Professor Ken Stahl’s book, Local Citizenship in a Global Age.1 It is not a traditional book review, but rather a series of musings inspired by the ideas in the book. Professor Stahl’s new book, Local Citizenship in a Global Age, addresses a number of important issues, many of which have been the focus of my prior work: the existence of boundaries, borders, and the spaces in between; who we include in those boundaries and who we exclude; public space, private space, and the lines between them; spaces of production versus those of consumption; and questions of place and authenticity. Thus, I was excited to participate in a discussion of the book. This essay focuses specifically on Part III of Stahl’s book, which addresses “Race, Space, Place, and Urban Citizenship.” In addition to the topics I mentioned above, Professor Stahl’s book is about citizenship. Indeed, it is primarily about citizenship. But, as Professor Stahl describes various conceptions of citizenship, it is clear that the reader has to grapple with all of the other issues I noted—boundaries, place, exclusion—in order to fully understand citizenship. This essay provides no broad critiques or sweeping analysis. Rather, it will discuss the concepts that struck me in the book and the ideas it made me think about. Thus, what follows are some thoughts, organized generally in the order in which they came to me as I was reading Part III of the book.