Gendered Citizenship: The Politics of Representation

Abstract

This chapter introduces the topic of the book and discusses why representation is a relevant prism for understanding and exploring new avenues to gendered citizenship globally. We trace some of the roots of the concept of representation, focusing on the duality between representation as “standing in for” and as “re-presenting”. This duality, oscillating between the dilemmas of representational democracy and various conceptions of politics in the spheres of media, arts and culture, provides the context for the more specific investigations of representation and gendered citizenship that are to follow. We also introduce the different chapters of the book, highlighting their approaches and contributions to this problematic.