La cittadinanza tra comunitarismo e cosmopolitismo

The aim of this paper is to highlight and criticize two rival interpretation of citizenship. First, the concept of citizenship as “security system”: in this case, citizenship functions as an inclusion/exclusion mechanism, in order to protect nationals from the contact of aliens. The result of this political discrimination is a paradoxical form of spatial segregation of migrants, included in the territory of a State, but excluded from the recognition, reserved only for nationals. Second interpretation is the cosmopolitan conception of citizenship, which is intended as a solution to the “exclusive-inclusion” effect, generated by the first interpretation. The cosmopolitan thesis is simple: there is no segregation because every person on this planet, as human being, is entitled to be a citizen of the world. Actually the effect, in this case, is not the expected realm of equal respect: at the global level, only highly-skilled migrants enjoy the title of citizen. The others, classified as non-‘marketable’ entities, are excluded again. In the conclusive section, the paper tries to sketch a concept of citizenship from the brazilian experience of slums: what is at stake here, especially in Paraisópolis, is the possibility to build a concept of citizenship from the bottom of civil society to the top of the institutions. This means rethinking citizenship as a result of the practice of participation, always embedded in a urban space and conceived as a fundamental right of defence against segregation. Since, from the point of view of this “right to the city”, every person, national or migrant, has the political opportunity to say in common the meaning of being a citizen in a plural society.