Valentina Moro Chair

Irene Dal Poz Discussant

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Agonism and Discourse: Citizenship in Classical Athens

This paper will call into question accepted interpretations of the fifth century BCE-Athenian democratic citizenship in contemporary philosophy and political theory.
In the first part, I will discuss the idea that the citizen-identity was constructed through public speech within the polis. Nicole Loraux argues that the Athenian civic values were defined through an exclusion/inclusion procedure, particularly after the introduction of new juridical requirements in 451/450 BCE with Pericles Citizenship Law, which naturalised a particular ethnic identity according to the idea of an alleged autochthony of the Athenians. I will claim that subjects who are portrayed as “excluded” from the political community (such as women, foreigners, slaves, criminals) according to a traditional interpretation were in fact entirely defined within its legal system and their juridical status was precisely determined. I will discuss Hannah Arendt’s account of bios politikos (“political life”, a notion she took from Aristotle as opposed to zoē, “bare life”), and Giorgio Agamben’s account of “naked life” as opposed to sovereign power (namely the authority over life and death).
In the second part, I will claim that, in classical Athens, public speech (namely, theatrical plays, political rhetorical speeches, judiciary and funerary orations, lamentations) staged citizenship as agonistic. I will provide a specific account of the notion of “agonism” as related to the representation of citizen-identity in Antiquity, implying the idea of an antagonism or an open conflict within a dimension of publicness and spectacle. It is necessary to re-think citizenship in classical Antiquity in an agonistic way (in terms of becoming-citizens).

Valentina Moro

University of Padova

 

Citizenship after Sovereignty

This paper investigates modern citizenship in light of its relationship with the juridical paradigm and the subject of rights. The analysis of the interplay between citizenship and the juridical model will be developed along two axes. The first one reconstructs from a conceptual-historical perspective the emergence of modern citizenship within the theory of the social contract. The second axis problematizes the reduction of the citizens to a juridical persona in the contemporary governmental dispositif.
The first section of this paper demonstrates a) how the modern notion of citizenship is inherently linked to the concepts of subject of rights and sovereignty; and b) that at the very heart of the so-called Ius Publicum Europaeum lies a systemic form of exclusion. Influenced by the works of Mbembe, Fanon or Said, it questions the universalistic myth that underpins the discourse of the subject of rights.
The second section, then, focuses on the limits of a formal and juridical conception of citizenship. By combining Arendt’s account of the Human Condition with Foucault’s understanding of governmentality as action upon actions, I suggest a re-definition of citizenship in terms of agency. A conception of citizenship as agency should thus reflect on the convergence between the governmental mechanisms, disciplinary techniques and juridical discourse. In other words, it should call into question the citizen not only as a subject of rights but also, with Foucault, as governmental and disciplined subject.

Irene Dal Poz

Monash University & University of Warwick

 

Strategic uses of the term ‘women’s rights’ during modernization: Demarcations of women’s citizenship

“Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the ‘founder father’ of modern Republic of Turkey, gave women their rights in 1930s.” This has been a very common argument before the feminist intervention to the state-narrative on citizenship and rights; however, the feminist researchers that have conducted the first research on Ottoman women’s movements and pointed to Ottoman women who were already politically active in the right’s movements before the Republic of Turkey. My research focuses on one of the magazines of the women’s movements at the time: Kadinlar Dunyasi (Women’s World).
Women’s World was a women’s-only Turkish magazine published by Muslim women in Istanbul. The opening article in the first issue, circulated in 1913, says: “Women from Europe […] are producing books on women’s conditions and making very important speeches about women’s rights (emphasis mine).” That continues with the declaration to fight for women’s rights as Ottoman women through the magazine.
In the conference ‘Sovereignties in Contention’, I intend to analyse the usages of the notion ‘Europe’ as a ‘strategy’ for Ottoman activist women in order to expand the discourse of women’s right. I define this process as production of Occidentalism inspired by and critical of Said’s concept of Orientalism and Chatterjee’s concepts of material and spiritual domains. This will be linked with changing meanings of the term ‘nation’ used by the women of the magazine: Muslimness, Turkishness, Ottomanness, being Western or being non-Western. My main aim to show the articulations of gender and the discourses of rights in the early twenty century of Turkey.

Demet Gülçiçek

University of Warwick

 

Which Sovereignty Matters?

The debate surrounding multiculturalism and feminism is an essential questioning of our contemporary society. Claims justified by culture may oppose the individual rights established within States adhering to a liberal political model; this opposition becomes especially evident where circumstances concern women and children.
Issues related to gender and culture may be examined from both a philosophical and political point of view: such an approach would be appropriate when considering the extent to which the weakest members of a minority have agency - defined as the ability to act free of external constraints.
Recent feminist theorists have focused on the importance that should be given to women as active and intersectional agents, rather than as passive victims of overwhelming structures – even in the context of oppressive or unequal environments. However, it cannot be denied that, in exercising some rights, there is the implication of some sort of duress – of any kind.
This paper aims to identify the problematic nature of agency in circumstances where women and children use their culture to justify actions, within States adhering to a liberal political model based on the recognition of individual rights. I will question the relationship between agency and coercion, examining how this changes in contexts of deep inequality. I will also ask whether public policies of a liberal State should take into account the weight of these pressures.
In a historical context where national and communitarian-identity concepts are increasingly strengthened, the debate on justice about gender and culture in pluralistic societies becomes very complex and requires a multi-faced analysis of our current legislation

Marta Dell’Aquila

Université Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne

 

Making citizens "Imaginary institutors" of European society: The Case of Bollenti Spiriti?

Between 2005 and 2015, the Regional Government of Puglia (southern Italy) promoted Bollenti Spiriti (BS), a youth-policy programme financed by the European Social Fund. The programme was based on a radical shift in the understanding of the condition of youth: rather than addressing young unemployed citizens as a problem, it took up the challenge of considering them “the solution”. BS funded over 700 teams of young entrepreneurs whose projects fulfilled the requirement of addressing questions of public interest (social exclusion, environmental issue, civic participation) through innovative ideas. In 2012 BS won the European Enterprise Promotion Award for the section Promoting the Entrepreneurial Spirit.
This paper looks at this good administrative practice and its insightful theoretical implications. Central to my argument is the idea that similar citizen-entrusting / citizen-empowering policies may play a role in the bottom-up identification and promotion of a European civic sovereignty. Sovereign citizens, I argue, are willing to accept public challenges and able to turn the obstacles generated by the global crises into opportunities to shape a better society. They feel the unmediated responsibility to author the meaning of their social and political lives, and courageously think themselves as 'imaginative institutors' of the future European society.
BS is a local model of ‘institutional complicity’ aimed at supporting in citizens this courage. I suggest that - transposed in the design of specific top-down European policies- the BS model could impact importantly on the reinforcement of the anti-fascist identity of the Union.

Clementina Fusillo

University of Warwick