Forum Activity for @gord-cunningham

Gord Cunningham
@gord-cunningham
10/06/20 03:10:28PM
1 posts

The word "Citizen"


Training

I use the term "citizen" frequently in our ABCD courses and writings. As Paul points out - it really depends on the audience. In the international development field there is such a rich body of work on "active citizenship" that we build on. You really have to unpack the term though. I have found it very helpful in places like South Africa where there is a national conversation on the "rights and responsibilities of citizenship" in the new South Africa. But you have to really define what you mean by the term and especially what you do not mean. For example, we mean people actively engaged in civic life and acting out of a sense of civic duty - not a person holding the right of citizenship to a particular country and where people not holding that right are considered "non-citizens".  I have stopped using the term citizens in Indigenous communities in Canada - just too confusing. I have found the term "citizen-led" more useful than community-led because it gets at who is doing the leading and gets into the whole area of "agency". Depends on the audience but I'd be careful of never using the term.