Citizenship and Personal Life

Abstract

In the recent past, the traditional definition of citizenship has been expanded to embrace a variety of interlocking strands that reveal the interconnections between nationality, race, class, gender and sexuality. This is exemplified by the assertion that in Africa, including the Horn of Africa, people operate with two types of citizenship— ethnic community and nation-state—and that, in many instances, ethnic citizenship takes precedence over national citizenship. Plummer’s use of citizenship theory to explore the intimate rights of people provided a context within which to understand how embracing different forms of citizenship by refugee men influenced their experiences of intimate relationships in countries of origin, in countries of asylum and after settlement to Australia.