LESSON 2
Lesson 2
Intercultural Citizenship
Table of Contents
Citizenship
In today’s diverse societies, citizenship is how we incorporate cultural differences in our communities and public spaces and how we live diversity in a positive way. It is also how we interact with each other on a daily basis to work, learn and have fun. Most importantly, citizenship is how we actively change or maintain our communities by taking into account our different points of view. There are elements of rights, duties and behaviours that we as human beings and citizens owe to each other.
The concept of citizenship emphasises that we are all equal before the law, with rights to claim and duties to fulfil as members of a society and a state. In this way, it allows us to recognise in the “other” a citizen who is in the same condition and with whom there is something in common (the public) that unites us. It therefore implies mutual consideration and treatment of respect and equal consideration. The recognition that “I am a citizen” commits me to ensure the existence of something in common that binds me to others through the construction of agreements, the creation of networks, spaces and behaviours of collective solidarity, and the shaping of public spheres. This concept is framed in legal, social and human equality, but also citizenship is actively belonging to legal, social and human equality, i.e. where the population is linked to interdependence, responsibility, solidarity and loyalty. In this way, “I am part of” to the extent that I feel and behave as a fundamental part of society, deserving respect and generating responsibilities.
The work of building citizenship, due to its multi-ethnic and multicultural nature, is essential for the consolidation of a regime of personal freedom and social justice, based on the respect and full exercise of individual and collective rights, freedoms and guarantees recognised in the Magna Carta and the Statute of Autonomy. Citizenship is directly linked to the nature of democracy. It is often thought that citizenship manifests itself exclusively through the exercise of individual rights, of legal citizenship, but collective rights are neglected. Models of democracy that are alien to their own can sideline traditional indigenous institutions of representation and organisation based on cultural, ethnic and social ties. Today, the meaning of citizenship must be broadened to include reflection on intercultural citizenship, where the differences present in a given society are recognised. Citizenship should not only be understood as a legal status, defined by a set of rights and responsibilities. Citizenship is identity, belonging to a community or people.
Intercultural Citizenship
One of the principles that regulates intercultural citizenship is respect for diversity, which is achieved when we listen to others, when we allow them to participate not only in dialogues, discussions, socialisations, but also in the decisions that are taken.
In a democratic and intercultural society we need to listen to the diverse voices that emanate from all social strata, those voices that ask, demand, applaud, criticise; to understand the reasons for their opinions, to study the context in which they emerge, the reasons they have for their expressions; it is to put the intellect at the service of others, but not only the cognitive part but also the axiological part, where affection, emotion and values are confused with knowledge to understand and seek the best solutions.
Separating the affective from the cognitive and praxeological makes us incoherent; we feel one way, we express something different and in practice we do the opposite. This is why the speeches sound nice, pleasant, they speak to us of an unknown reality, the bad thing is that some, thanks to their communicative ability, manage to convince, but when we look, when we breathe the day to day we know that very little of what is spoken about exists.
If we take a look at the evolution of the concept of citizenship, we observe that it has been changing due to the political, social, economic and cultural problems that are being generated on the planet; from the liberal currents, individual rights begin to take precedence over collective rights, making citizenship more and more complex; but at the same time we observe that this concept has been related to politics.
An intercultural citizenship seeks an equitable relationship between individual and collective rights; that the one does not affect the other. How to achieve this? To seek the point of balance, where the status achieved with individual rights is not undermined, but at the same time the diverse communities, ancestral peoples and minority groups are not harmed or excluded from the benefits of the goods that states possess.
To recognise diversity in order to build intercultural community spaces where dialogue between cultures helps to overcome the problems arising from cultural, racial, ethnic, gender, sexual preference and different abilities discrimination, and to achieve a citizen awareness with a sense of belonging and defence of their cultural identity, of the environment that surrounds them, and from praxis we build the concept of intercultural citizenship.
Autonomy and Social Participation
Each indigenous people and ethnic community and each individual adopts, within their own domain, the concept of autonomy that best fits their aspirations and real and concrete possibilities. In this concept of autonomy, social and individual visions are articulated to produce the image of what is desirable. Reflection on the scope of regional autonomy is not the patrimony of a particular group; it transcends these limits and is integrated into the national state.
Regional autonomy integrates as its aim and purpose: the well-being of individuals, families, communities and, in general, of society as a whole. Therefore, social participation refers to the processes through which community groups, organisations, institutions, and in general all social actors at all levels within a given geographical area intervene in the identification of their problems and join in partnership to design, test and implement solutions, social participation is by nature systematic, referring to the interaction of many actors within the social system.
In this sense, the process of autonomous participation aims to make people become historical subjects who build their own future. Through it, citizens’ participation in defining their priorities in the search for options and in decision making is claimed in the political dimension, and their participation is balanced with democracy, of which it is both a condition and a result. The power relations established between the state and civil society, between institutions and the population, between service providers and service users must be considered, since promoting participation implies, among other things, stimulating the development of the decision-making capacity of social groups, particularly those that have historically been left in the background.
