ABSTRACT
Since the 1980s, rising Asia has opened up our understanding of liberal citizenship to the forces of a globalizing world economy. Previously, scholars have treated citizenship as an ideal type – a construct of politico-legal and spiritual elements – determined by the nation-state. My approach situates the unstable character of citizenship within the vicissitudes of global capitalism and competitive nations. By investigating citizenship not as a fixed construct, but as a contingent category subject to transnational forces, I emphasize the interaction of newcomers and nation-states in shaping the mutations of citizenship.
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Aihwa Ong
Aihwa Ong is professor emerita of anthropology at UC Berkeley. Her approach investigates how assemblages of capital, science, and technology crystallize new contexts of politics, capitalism, citizenship, culture, and identity. Her writings — flexible citizenship, neoliberalism as exception, global assemblages —are read across fields and translated into Western and Asian languages.