WOMEN, CITIZENSHIP AND DIFFERENCE

The article discusses some of the major issues which need to be examin ed in a gendered reading of citizenship. However, its basic claim is t hat a comparative study of citizenship should consider the issue of wo men's citizenship not only by contrast to that of men, but also in rel ation to women's affiliation to dominant or subordinate groups, their ethnicity, origin and urban or rural residence. It should also take in to consideration global and transnational positionings of these citize nships. The article challenges the gender-blind and Westocentric chara cter of many of the most hegemonic theorizations of citizenship, focus ing in particular on the questions of membership in 'the community', g roup rights and social difference and the ways binaries of public/priv ate and active/passive have been constructed to differentiate between different kinds of citizenships. The article argues that in order to b e able to analyse adequately people's citizenship, especially in this era of ethnicization on the one hand and globalization on the other ha nd, and with the rapid pace at which relationships between states and their civil societies are changing, citizenship should best be analyse d as a multi-tiered construct which applies, at the same time to peopl e's membership in sub-, cross-and supra-national collectivities as wel l as in states.