The subject as a category for citizenship analysis

Authors

  • Héctor Cárcamo Universidad del Bio-Bío

Abstract

The essay aims to offer some thoughts about the configuration of the subject as a category of analysis for the understanding of citizenship. For this purpose, two key dimensions are outlined: ideal and empirical. The arguments presented allow an understanding of citizenship as a symbolic construct fraught with tension, beyond the legal and administrative dimension; for example, through its links with migration, racism and identity. Finally, it presents what we have called the ideal-empirical subject, as a construct that contributes to the understanding of social reality from the perspective of the subject as irreducible singularity. The central thesis of this essay is that citizenship, as a construct supported in the inclusion exclusion dichotomy, operates as a shaping element of the ideal-empirical subject in modern societies, and more specifically in globalized post-industrial societies.

Keywords:

subject, social practice, subjectification, diversity, citizenship