Making Identities: Citizenship, Race & Nation

This course aims to examine the processes that have shaped key facets of identity in contemporary societies. It does this by exploring modern sociological approaches to the analysis of three key identities, namely those based on citizenship, race and nation. It seeks to situate the origins and development of the study of these phenomena in the context of debates about the formation of social identities in modern states and societies. By taking notions such as citizenship, race and nation and examining their inter-relationship the Module aims to provide a critical analysis of key sociological debates about the making of social and political identities. An important concern of the course throughout is to explore the changing understandings of 'citizenship', 'race' and 'nation'. This allows you to explore important theoretical questions and debates and encourages you to think critically about their utility for the analysis of specific historical processes and contemporary situations. The module will encourage you to think across the different boundaries of race and nation, gender and sexuality, as well as locality or environment in order to understand the different interrelationships between these forms of identity formation and citizenship in the modern world.