Lived citizenship as the locus of political agency in participatory policy

Abstract

Participatory policies seeking to foster active citizenship continue to be dominated by a territorial imagination. Yet the world where people identify and perform as citizens is spatially multifarious. This article engages with the tension between territorially grounded perceptions and relational modes of practicing political agency. Studying empirically the Finnish child and youth policies we address jointly the participatory obligations that municipalities strive to fulfill, and the spatial attachments that children and young people establish in their lived worlds. To this end we introduce the concept of lived citizenship as an interface where the territorially-bound public administration and the plurality of spatial attachments characteristic to transnational living may meet. We conclude by proposing a regrounding of lived citizenship in both topological and topographical terms as an improvement in theoretical understanding of mundane political agency and as a step towards more proficient participatory policies.

Performing accountability in health research: A socio-spatial framework

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Trust and Power Dynamics in Children's Lived Citizenship and Participation: The Case of Public Schools and Social Work in Denmark

“…The unfolding of the concept enables researchers to move beyond liberal and communitarian approaches towards what Gerald Delanty has termed ‘radical theories of politics’ which connect the concept of citizenship with theories of radical democracy and inclusion (Delanty, : 46). Unfolding the concept thus involves an analytical approach that critically reveals the power relations that produce discrimination, domination and exclusion, also termed the cultural turn towards lived citizenship (Kallio and others, ; Lister, ; Stevenson, ; Warming and Fahnøe, ). This theoretical development makes it relevant to use a citizenship perspective in studying childhood as well as children of all ages in all circumstances (Moran‐Ellis and Suenker, ; Suenker, ).…”

Rethinking Spatial Socialisation as a Dynamic and Relational Process of Political Becoming

“…The study that I draw from is based at the University of Tampere Bäcklund et al 2014;Kallio 2014;Kallio et al 2015). The approach is hence more or less opposite to that which was employed by the 1960s socialization scholars.…”

“…8 with some other spatial dimensions. This applies to children and youth as well (Binnie et al, 2007;Marshall, 2013;Skelton & Gough, 2013;Kallio et al 2015).…”