The prosthetic citizen: New geographies of citizenship

The relationship between changing geographies and the notion of citizenship is outlined. As well as focussing on the transformation of the nation-state, it is argued, it is necessary to concentrate on other kinds of geographical transformation. These include changing regimes of mobility, the privatisation of public space and the salience of belonging at the local level. The paper insists on the importance of geography (both material and imaginative) to the process of making up the citizen and this is illustrated through considerations of the ‘denizen’ and the ‘shadow citizen’ in relation to their various geographies. In each case issues of place and mobility lie at the heart of the process by which citizens and their other come to be defined and lived. Recognizing the geographical constitution of the citizen means thinking about the citizen not as a self-sufficient individual body but as a ‘prosthetic citizen’ who is a product of the assemblage of the body and the world.