Cultural Citizenship. An Integrative Agenda for a Transdisciplinary Debate

Cultural citizenship is a new term to highlight that participating in society is not just a legal or political issue but has a cultural dimension as well. For example, citizens need stories, performances and role models to express who they are. In this Research Master Thesis, political philosopher Frederik Boven brings together authors from philosophy, sociology, anthropology, cultural studies and cultural policy. The authors include Paul Ricoeur, Will Kymlicka, Jeffrey Alexander, and Renato Rosaldo. Combining methods from transdisciplinary studies and cognitive linguistis, an agenda for is developed for a wide-ranging debate on cultural citizenship. This Research Master Thesis focuses on the Netherlands, where the relationship between culture and citizenship has become particularly contested in the beginning of the 21th century. Immigrants, especially Muslims, have seen their citizenship called in question. Dutch artists have faced severe budget cuts. As everywhere, gays and women struggle for respect and visibility in the public domain. Three recommendation are made to deal with these issues: (1) make culture equally accessible to all citizens; (2) protect the richness and viability of culture; (3) balance unity and diversity.


Frederik Boven graduated with distinction from the Research Master Philosophy at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands. His bachelor was in philosophy of the social sciences, especially psychology. In 2014 he published a collection of poems.