Hypercitizenship in the Age of Globalization

Abstract

This chapter examines and theorizes the concept of citizenship and its evolution into hypercitizenship in an age of globalization. It argues that citizenship narratives are not necessarily placed in the contexts of material lives and nor do they constitute part of networks of direct relations. Instead, citizenship narratives can be reached in mediated ways and can be part of a virtual or a spatially imaginative context of reference. The growing interdependence and contemporary erosion and multiplication of boundaries make it possible to think of oneself as freed from local ties and as being immersed in global flows which interconnect the whole planet mostly through intangible assets portfolio such as digital information and intellectual Property Right Policy. The main focal point of this research shall be based on the conflict existing between citizenship rights and so-called cosmopolitan rights. From a cosmopolitan point of view of global citizenship, this tension might produce positive effects when international regulations succeed in interfering with the legal systems of single countries. Citizenship policies are sketching out a paradigm shift from nation sate based on the level to transnational or supranational levels as testified for example by the hypercitizenship conceptual framework and vision described in this chapter. The old conception of nation state citizenship represents a reductionist vision of what is in practice evolved nowadays into a global flow shaped as a systemic process interconnected on a planetary level (i.e., the about 20 million double passport Brazilias who are also Spanish/ Italian/German/Dutch/Portuguese shaping continuous flow of right between the European Union and the Mercosur). The traditional meaning of citizenship essentially focused on legal validity and political participation. Nowadays, in the complex contexts, legal validity and political participation are still very important. Nevertheless, citizenship is framed also by economical, financial, and biotechnological variables (such as the matter of the rights of animals or of intangible assets and of the outputs of human–machine–animal interaction output (Harris 2007), which also highlights the allocation of legal intellectual capitals in global scenarios.