Rethinking citizenship through cities

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• Rethinking citizenship through cities
• Jonathan Darling
• School of Environment and Development
• University of Manchester

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• a right to a political space, a right to
  deliberate with others and participate in
  determining the fate of the polity to which one
  belongs
• (Isin 1999267)

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• Informality
• Insurgency
• Inhabitance

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• Informality
• The anonymity of the city
• Piecemeal survival strategies
• Non-cooperation ordinances and urban refugees

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• Insurgency
• Acts of citizenship (Isin 2008)
• Visible and disruptive displays of dissent
• Directed at urban authorities and at urban
  citizens

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• Inhabitance
• The right to the city (Lefebvre 1996)
• Grounded citizenship (Varsanyi 2006)
• A focus on presence and collaboration as making
  cities

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• San Francisco Sanctuary City
• 1989 City of Refuge ordinance
• Immigration-status blind provision of services
• Refusing cooperation with federal immigration
  policing
• Since 2009 the SF City ID card available to all
  residents

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• The interstitial city
• The city and the state
• The politics of critique

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• Cities have always had a social and a political
  identity separate from, though linked to, that of
  national identity and national government.
  Increasingly, cities have their own governments
  which build their own relationships, have their
  own networks and have a political presence both
  nationally and internationally. Cities have
  power. This provides opportunities for
  organisations that want to ensure that those who
  are displaced can live in security
• (Tibaijuka, 2010, p.4)

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• Thanks
• jonathan.darling_at_Manchester.ac.uk
• www.producingurbanasylum.com