Remaking Intimate Citizenship in Multicultural Europe: Experiences Outside the Conventional Family

Abstract

How can we understand the ways in which, and the extent to which, movements for gender and sexual equality and change have contributed to remaking intimate citizenship?¹ The thorny question of the role of women’s movements in transforming citizenship in Europe is at the heart of this book, and this chapter extends this focus to encompass lesbian and gay movements, casting its gaze on a dimension of citizenship that owes its very conceptualization to these movements. In this, we are contributing to two theoretically and normatively significant moves within recent scholarship on citizenship: the feminist extension of the concept beyond its classical roots, its republican revolutionary reworkings and its traditional usage in political theory; and the sociological turn which has seen increasing emphasis on practices, meanings and lived experiences of citizenship.²