Cultural studies and citizenship

This issue of European Journal of Cultural Studies makes a bold statement. It presents six widely differing articles as indicative of how we might (re)think citizenship in terms of cultural studies. The articles use various traditions as their points of departure, including political philosophy, sociology of news, gender studies and theories of the public sphere as well as qualitative inquiry into the everyday meanings of politics and our relationships with others. While new perspectives on citizenship are emerging which challenge the traditional, received ones, the articles here do not aim for any final definitions. Rather, taken together, they provide a sense of the range of alternative approaches as well as the issues that are at stake. These debates have become increasingly urgent over the past decade or so, as changing sociocultural realities underscore the limitations of strictly legal‐formal notions of citizenship; not least, for example, in the face of the social problematics in post-colonial multicultural societies. Democratic rhetoric contrasts more sharply against perceived inequality in everyday life. Older ideological contracts are losing legitimacy, while ultra right-wing populist parties give an ugly face to unrest and disenchantment among broad groups. In the past, such political questions have not been key issues for cultural studies at large. The early edited collection Policing the Crisis: Mugging, the State and Law and Order (Hall et al., 1978) stands as something of an exception. Although a strong interdisciplinary academic practice which is invested deeply in empirical research in everyday meaning-formation, cultural studies has not been a close neighbour to political science, political communication or political theory. Politics and power relations are, and always have been, important to cultural studies but via the route of the everyday and especially popular culture. In terms of the practices and meaning-making of citizens, civic horizons have not been prominent in