Palgrave Handbook on Gender and Citizenship: from Intersectional and Transnational Perspectives

Citizenship is essential for our ideas about equality, social justice, and democracy. This is relevant when we think of local, national, or regional forms of citizenship, as well as when we consider human rights and global citizenship. Gender is important for thinking about citizenship since claims for gender equality and social justice are central aims of democratic processes. Gender and gender identity relate to other categories, such as sexual orientation, ‘race’, class, religion, nationality, and indigeneity. Issues over gender and citizenship have been, are, and will be politically contested by a diversity of actors within civil society and political institutions in societies around the world. These issues have engaged many feminist and critical researchers over the years.

This paper will eventually function as an introduction to the Palgrave Handbook on Gender and Citizenship (Siim and Stoltz, eds., forthc.). It will therefore provide a brief outline of some of the important theoretical, analytical, and normative approaches, topics, and debates in contemporary scholarship about gender and citizenship. The objective is to give an overview of critical, feminist, and transformative citizenship approaches, key concepts, and innovative research with a special focus on intersectional and transnational approaches.