Operationalizing cultural citizenship: towards a concept of culture regime^*

* A preliminary version of this paper was presented on 1 June 2017 at the Canadian Sociological Association annual conference, held at Ryerson University, as part of the panel on Theorizing Culture and Collective Representations.

Abstract

This paper contributes to the study of cultural citizenship by laying the foundations for a concept of culture regime. Depicting culture as a malleable concept that encompasses both particularistic and universalistic elements, the paper emphasizes the potential of the concept of culture regime to bridge those of citizenship, language and ethnicity regime. While presenting narrow conceptions of culture as ethnic identity as a defensible compromise in the context of comparative empirical research, the paper discusses how the study of culture regimes could integrate broader approaches to culture by incorporating other forms of cultural claims and identities that go beyond ethnic traits. In doing so, the paper aims to promote an inter-disciplinary dialogue on cultural citizenship, arguing that some of the differences in cross-disciplinary approaches to culture owe to methodological rather than ontological considerations.

Keywords:

• Culture
• ethnicity
• identity
• language
• multiculturalism
• recognition

Notes

* A preliminary version of this paper was presented on 1 June 2017 at the Canadian Sociological Association annual conference, held at Ryerson University, as part of the panel on Theorizing Culture and Collective Representations.