Oecumene and Open Democracy Partnership

Engin Isin recently was the guest Editor of OpenDemocracy (5-9 November, 2012)

This Oecumene/ Open Democracy partnership introduced us to “ideas and practises that will inform new modes of citizenship” at a time when events from the Arab Spring to Occupy are calling for a deeper understanding of the purpose of citizenship.

The week began with a comparison between Edmund Burke's stance on India in the eighteenth century and British multiculturalist discourse today; and the relationship between modern sexual identities and colonial and orientalist ideas of democracy.

Investigations into how the idea of 'truth and reconciliation' played out in the post-Yugoslav scene and what happened when a citizenship of the Arab Middle East was designed during the British administration of Palestine followed on, as well as two articles focusing on subjugated knowledges in India – looking at citizenship practised over decades through acts of devotion, and the writings that have recently helped to mobilize a struggle against the construction of a mega dam.

Further pieces on migrant inventiveness, the hybridity of British-Muslim family law, and riot as a citizenship claim, have been published in the run-up to Oecumene’s second symposium – 'Deorientalising citizenship?' – which took place in London on 12-13 November.

For further details, please visit the OpenDemocracy and Oecumene: Citizenship after Orientalism websites.