Diverse hands reaching across a globe, symbolizing cultural citizenship.

Beyond Borders: Reimagining Citizenship for a Just Society

Nico Varela in Culture & Society August 2025 • 4 min read.

"Exploring cultural citizenship as a pathway to social justice and inclusivity in a rapidly changing world."

Citizenship, traditionally defined by legal status and national boundaries, is being challenged in today's increasingly interconnected world. The conventional models of citizenship often fail to address the experiences of marginalized groups and can perpetuate social inequalities. This article explores an alternative approach known as cultural citizenship, which emphasizes the importance of cultural practices, social identities, and collective action in claiming rights and belonging.

Cultural citizenship offers a framework for understanding how individuals and communities negotiate their place in society, particularly when facing exclusion or discrimination. It recognizes that citizenship is not simply a matter of legal recognition but also a lived experience shaped by historical, social, and economic forces. By examining these forces, we can begin to deconstruct the dominant narratives of citizenship and create space for more inclusive and just alternatives.

This article will delve into the concept of cultural citizenship, tracing its origins, defining its key components, and illustrating its application through real-world examples. We will also explore the implications of cultural citizenship for social psychology, highlighting its potential to inform research and action aimed at promoting social justice.

What is Cultural Citizenship?

Diverse hands reaching across a globe, symbolizing cultural citizenship.

Cultural citizenship is a process through which groups come to identify themselves, forge a community, and claim space, membership, and social rights in society. It moves beyond definitions of citizenship as rights based on and determined by the state and emphasizes the importance of cultural practices and vernacular meanings of citizenship as defined by people. It doesn't require state legitimation to practice it; rather, it is the claiming of space and rights, often done through self-definition, via political action and everyday social and cultural practices.

This approach emphasizes power must be taken and cannot be given. In line with this theory, empirical evidence concludes whites are unlikely to cede power because they are more likely to accept social inequality as justifiable than are those from more subordinated groups (i.e., Blacks and Latinxs). Subordinated groups (in this case, Blacks and Latinxs) wish to maintain their cultural distinctiveness and not assimilate into dominant U.S. ideologies.

Cultural citizenship can be broken down into the following components:

Membership: Creating community for group members, characterized by the struggle for inclusion, enfranchisement, and belonging.
Sense of Belonging: Forging community, involving emotional connections to a social group, as well a sense of community.
Claiming Public Space: Demanding recognition and rights. Examples include public parks, recreation areas, neighborhoods, community centers, and streets.
Claiming Rights: Struggles for rights are associated with broader struggles for social justice, equality and enfranchisement, and more specifically the right to be treated as human

Examples of cultural citizenship include Latinx youth performing skits on their experiences of migration, creating a community of shared experience and history; Asian immigrants creating ethnic enclaves and communities to negotiate racial and cultural boundaries; and multi-racial and multi-ethnic groups organizing strikes to claim social rights such as dignity and respect for women workers.

Why This Matters

Cultural citizenship provides a critical lens for social psychology to examine power dynamics, social action, and the construction of citizenship. By recognizing the cultural practices and lived experiences of marginalized groups, we can develop more effective strategies for promoting social justice and creating a more inclusive society. It's a starting point for action, but it is not sufficient for action; rather, it facilitates collective action through cultural expression and representation that is counter-hegemonic, critical, and relational.

About this Article -

This article was crafted using a human-AI hybrid and collaborative approach. AI assisted our team with initial drafting, research insights, identifying key questions, and image generation. Our human editors guided topic selection, defined the angle, structured the content, ensured factual accuracy and relevance, refined the tone, and conducted thorough editing to deliver helpful, high-quality information.See our About page for more information.

This article is based on research published under:

DOI-LINK: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199938735.013.5, Alternate LINK

Title: Reconsidering Citizenship Models And The Case For Cultural Citizenship: Implications For A Social Psychology Of Social Justice

Journal: Oxford Handbooks Online

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Authors: Regina Langhout, Jesica Fernández

Published: 2016-06-02

Everything You Need To Know

How does cultural citizenship differ from traditional definitions of citizenship?

Cultural citizenship goes beyond the traditional definition of citizenship as solely determined by legal status and national boundaries. Instead, it emphasizes the importance of cultural practices, social identities, and collective action in claiming rights and belonging. It's about how individuals and communities negotiate their place in society, especially when facing exclusion or discrimination, focusing on lived experiences shaped by historical, social, and economic forces. While legal citizenship is conferred by the state, cultural citizenship is enacted through everyday practices and doesn't require state approval to practice it.

What are the main components that constitute cultural citizenship?

Cultural citizenship is composed of several key components. These include the creation of community for group members through the struggle for inclusion, enfranchisement, and belonging, a sense of belonging involving emotional connections to a social group and a sense of community, claiming public space by demanding recognition and rights in areas like parks and neighborhoods, and claiming rights through struggles for social justice, equality, and the right to be treated as human. These components highlight the active role individuals and communities take in shaping their citizenship.

Can you provide some real-world examples of cultural citizenship in action?

Examples of cultural citizenship include Latinx youth performing skits on their experiences of migration to create a community of shared experience and history, Asian immigrants creating ethnic enclaves and communities to negotiate racial and cultural boundaries, and multi-racial and multi-ethnic groups organizing strikes to claim social rights such as dignity and respect for women workers. These examples illustrate how marginalized groups use cultural expression and collective action to assert their rights and belonging.

Why is the concept of cultural citizenship important, particularly in the field of social psychology?

Cultural citizenship matters because it provides a critical lens for social psychology to examine power dynamics, social action, and the construction of citizenship. By recognizing the cultural practices and lived experiences of marginalized groups, more effective strategies can be developed for promoting social justice and creating a more inclusive society. It facilitates collective action through cultural expression and representation that challenges dominant ideologies.

What are the implications of cultural citizenship regarding the assimilation of subordinated groups into dominant U.S. ideologies?

Cultural citizenship suggests that subordinated groups, like Blacks and Latinxs, are more likely to seek to maintain their cultural distinctiveness rather than assimilate into dominant U.S. ideologies. This is because these groups are less likely to accept social inequality as justifiable compared to dominant groups. The theory implies that power must be actively taken rather than passively given, driving marginalized groups to assert their cultural identities and rights through collective action.