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Abstract
This paper provides a critical geographical analysis of the emerging ideals associated with sustainable citizenship. We argue that the principles behind sustainable citizenship force us to think through the full range of geographical factors which frame citizenship and yet which are routinely overlooked in both geographical and non-geographical work on the citizen. We take the sustainable citizen to be both an epistemological challenge to existing paradigms of citizenship and a contemporary national and international policy goal. As an epistemological category we claim that the very notion of a sustainable citizen destabilizes the spatial, temporal and material parameters upon which modern forms of citizenship are based. At the same time, however, we also consider the limitations associated with contemporary national and international attempts to create a more sustainable citizenry, arguing that such initiatives often belie the radical potential of thinking about citizenship in sustainable terms. We take as our empirical focus the recently implemented curriculum for global citizenship and sustainable development being enacted in Welsh schools. Drawing on interviews carried out with education officials, teachers and students, we explore what sustainable citizenship means and the opportunities and challenges it faces as a political project.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the support of the Economic and Social Research Council whose funding enabled the research which is relayed in this paper to be completed (ESRC Grant No. PTA-030-2002-01630). They would also like to thank Luke Desforges, Rhys Jones and Michael Woods for their guidance in helping with the production of the final version of this paper.
Notes
1 This document was produced by the ACCAC on behalf of the Welsh Assembly Government Panel on Education and Sustainable Development and the Welsh Assembly Government Working Group on Global Citizenship.
2 The Education for Sustainable Development Panel in Wales has been one of the key partners involved in developing the sustainable development and global citizenship curriculum.
3 The programme of citizenship study which currently runs through the English National Curriculum is non-statutory at Key Stages 1 and 2 (pupils aged 4–11), but is now a statutory requirement at Key Stages 3 and 4 (pupils aged 12–19).
4 In this context it is interesting to note that the Welsh Assembly Government sent a delegation to the World Summit on Sustainable Development, which was held in Johannesburg in 2002. This delegation went to the World Summit despite a British state delegation also being present.
5 For an interesting and timely review of contemporary work and thinking on ecological and environmental citizenship, see the special issue of Environmental Politics, Vol. 14, No. 2, 2005.
6 This research is based upon interviews with representatives of the Welsh Assembly Government Panel on Education for Sustainable Development; the Welsh Assembly Government Working Group on Global Citizenship; ACCAC; OXFAM Cymru; and school teachers. We also held a focus group for students participating in the sustainable citizenship education programme and attended conferences which were organized by the Council for Education and World Citizenship and the Welsh Youth Forum for Sustainable Development.
