About CCIG

The Centre for Citizenship, Identity and Governance (CCIG) is a social science research centre using creative methods to develop new ideas and evidence for tackling some of contemporary society’s most urgent social, political and ethical issues. Society is made and unmade not just by governments and institutions but also by people coming together to challenge practices of injustice, discrimination, intolerance, and violence and finding new ways of collaborating in an atmosphere of mutual respect and support. We, both conceptually and methodologically, adopt innovative approaches to engaging with these new publics and working with them to draw out new possibilities for social justice and positive social change.

We are an interdisciplinary centre that builds upon and extends the Faculty's reputation for socially and politically conscious research. In particular, we develop new concepts and methodologies in the social sciences that bring out the innovative and creative qualities of social practice.  

Research at the centre focuses on reworking the relation between new ideas and old concepts and on underlining the multiple practices, sites and moments where lines of intolerance, discrimination and violence are contested and redrawn.

Building on the idea of exploring lines, their construction, continuity and disruption, we interrogate our social and political worlds from three perspectives:

The line as divider

In dividing, lines can also be creative.  We explore how governing lines enable inclusions, solidarities and harmonies as well as how they create exclusions, divisions and intolerance. 

The line as site

Lines are not simply dividers, organizing interaction between entities on either side of the line, they are also sites of struggle and reinvention where new possibilities for citizenship, identities and governance are competed over and mediated.  We examine how these transformative processes work by challenging established divisions, tolerations and discriminations.

Being on the line

Citizenship, identities and governance are living practices that are always in flux and reformation – they are on the line.   We focus particularly on the moments and sites that disrupt instituted conceptions of these and explore how they play a critical role in new formations of empowerment, positive change and justice.

Our aim is to draw attention to the heterogeneity, tensions and contradictions that make up social and political relations. Such a conceptual and methodological approach requires research that breaks down the boundaries between social science disciplines to create collaborative research programmes.

Each research programme investigates one or more specific area of enquiry. Our approach is not prescriptive and we are defined by the diversity of our members and externally funded research projects. 

CCIG embodies the public mission of the Open University by engaging with people and publics interactively rather than simply as audiences. Working as a node in communication networks, we draw out new possibilities for justice and positive social change that can help renew our understanding and experience of citizenship, identity and governance in the contemporary world.

Becoming a member

If you are interested in becoming a member of CCIG, please refer to the attached documents, membership criteria and application form.

Please contact us if you have further enquiries