The nature of globalisation and its impact on the relationship between nation states and their citizens is one of the key issues confronting contemporary societies and polities. New global forces challenge traditional ideas of citizenship and democracy that are primarily based on rights and institutions within the nation state. These tendencies call for more complex understandings of how individuals, political groups and corporations interact with, and claim membership of, social, economic, political and cultural organisations within and beyond the nation.
As traditional forms of social, political and cultural infrastructure are eroded and superseded, innovative ways of thinking about belonging, participation and accountability are urgently called for. Such thinking needs to accommodate new configurations of global, regional and local forces and allow for the impact of new technologies of communication. These ideas and practices call for distinctive concepts, methodologies and different research paradigms that cut across disciplinary as well as national boundaries.
The Centre for Citizenship and Globalisation (CCG) responds to these imperatives and investigates the above issues, in contemporary and historical contexts, from a multi-disciplinary, cross-cultural, international perspective while giving attention to issues of gender, ethnicity and religion.
