From Borders to Seams: The Role of Citizenship

In this chapter Manlio Cinalli and David Jacobson deal with the multidimensional conceptualisation of citizenship. Their main argument is that the traditional “politics of borders” has been an essential mechanism for determining membership in the civil polity, of who is inside and who is alien or foreign. But the role of borders for politics, and for citizenship in, is even more profound than questions of membership. Accordingly, Cinalli and Jacobson put forward an argument how borders are changing into what they call “seams,” which demarcate both local, national and transnational distinctions.