This book introduces the concept of 'act of citizenship' and in doing so, re-orients the study of what it means to be a citizen. Isin and Nielsen show that an 'act of citizenship' is the event through which subjects constitute themselves as citizens. They claim that such an act involves both responsibility and answerability, but is ultimately irreducible to either.This study of citizenship is truly interdisciplinary, drawing not only on new developments in politics, sociology, geography and anthropology, but also on psychoanalysis, philosophy and history. Ranging from Antigone and Socrates in the ancient world to checkpoints, euthanasia and flash mobs in the modern one, the 'acts' and chapters here build up a dynamic and wide-ranging picture. Acts of Citizenship provides important new insights for all those concerned with the relationship between individuals, groups and polities.

Preface Introduction: Acts of Citizenship - Engin F. Isin & Greg M. Nielsen Part I: Politics, Ethics, Aesthetics 1. Theorizing Acts of Citizenship - Engin F. Isin 2. Can an Act of Citizenship be Creative? - Melanie White 3: What Levinas Can and Cannot Teach Us about Mediating Acts of Citizenship - Bettina Bergo Acts I: Heroic Intrusions and the Body of Law Act 1. Abraham's Sacrifice - Charles Wells Act 2: Antigone's Offering - Charles Wells Act 3: Socrates's Death - Bora Ali Isyar Act 4: Euthanasia - Bora Ali Isyar Act 5: Pat Tillman: soldier-citizen-hero? - Darryl Burgwin Part II: Citizens, Strangers, Aliens, Outcasts 4. Citizenship without Acts? With Tocqueville in America - Brian C. J. Singer 5. Acts of Piety: The Political and the Religious or a Tale of Two Cities - Bryan S. Turner 6. Arendt's Citizenship and Citizen Participation in Disappearing Dublin - Kieran Bonner 7. No One Is Illegal Between City and Nation - Peter Nyers 8. Acts of Demonstration: Mapping the Territory of (Non-) Citizenship - William Walters Acts II: Exclusions without names Act 6. Promising to Become European - Erkan Ercel Act 7: Checkpoint Gazes - Irus Braverman Act 8: The Romani - Ebru Üstündag Act 9: Return to Guatemala - Karine Côté-Boucher Act 10: Unintentional Acts of Citizenship (The Joke) - Ian Morrison Part III: Sites and Scales of Answerability 9. Citizenship, Art and the Voices of the City: Wodiczko's The Homeless Projection - Fred Evans 10. Acts of Chinese Citizenship: The Tank Man and Democracy-to-Come - Yon Hsu 11. Answerability with Cosmopolitan Intent: An Ethics Based Politics for Acts of Urban Citizenship - Greg M. Nielsen Acts III: Rituals and Performance Act 11. Acts of Commemoration - Ian Morrison Act 12. Non-Citizens' Politics - John Saunders Act 13: Flash mobs - John Saunders Act 14: Spike Lee's 25th Hour - Erkan Ercel