Editorial, Citizenship

domestic? Surely we should be working to avoid these kinds Editorial of limits on where and what women can speak about? Having rights as a “citizen” of a country is central to any Putting together this volume of n.paradoxa, I was struck conception of democracy or democratic politics and central to by how difficult those I spoke to found it to put the two terms these is the right to vote. Conditions of voting rights have limited “citizen” together with feminism(s) and “art”. Feminism has this right to a certain age, a place of birth, where a person lives, certainly been evacuated, minimised or rendered entirely nationality (and sometimes ethnicity) or whether they pay taxation absent from many of the boy’s club-type discussions exploring in different parts of the world. However, wasn’t the fight to abolish radical alternatives to democracy in art exhibitions and political gender as a condition of this right to vote where women’s forums, and this is in spite of the voices of Chantal Mouffe, emancipation began? And then when this right was won, taking Nancy Fraser, Rosi Braidotti, Joan Wallach Scott, Seyla part in law-making, in civil society, in education, in professions, in Benhabib or the numerous citations of Hannah Arendt’s work, political and social change then became possible as women (and and occasional mentions of Simone de Beauvoir or Olympe sometimes for and on behalf of women) as women citizens became de Gouge. The focus of attention in rethinking democracy a “represented” or “identifiable” group with interests in the has been on those who have no rights but now live in electorate. The question of this extension of social and civil democracies and on prioritising art works which have democratic rights was central to second wave feminism in their examined or explored the lives of immigrants, migrant actions to avoid their status as “second-class citizens”: whether workers, trafficking in human labour and the sex trade or on this was a liberal, a socialist or more radical alternative perspectives those working in the most marginalised sectors of the capitalist on participation in social democracy. The resulting campaigns economy. Women have clearly been subject(ed) to all these were diverse and various from childcare to nuclear disarmament, processes in contemporary life, but it is as subjects – as the but what united them was women’s active participation together embodiment of precarious labour – that they appear far more as a group to make social and political changes in their own and frequently than as the creative producers making work at the other women’s lives.The relative privilege of women in most forefront of these debates. n.paradoxa has published many democratic states related to the possession of the right to vote has articles to date which look at artworks by women artists who not stopped their long campaigns for women’s civil and social have explored these subjects and will continue to do so. The rights to and in education, around housing, in the job market, in specifics of women artists looking at women’s lives, their health care and social services. Activism is the name of many working or living conditions, the gendered and asymmetric citizen’s campaigns for social change and the popularity of this relationships with other people around them nevertheless term “activism” within feminism has not diminished. Democracy continue to be marginalised in mainstream discourses about is more than putting your “x” on a ballot paper every few years, it citizenship. requires active citizenship – participation! Given that 15 million In the most arrogant terms, artists like to think of people in the world are regarded as being stateless, can women themselves as “citizens of the world”. This particular male afford to be complacent about what it means to “be a citizen”; arrogance about intellectual freedom seems to have returned consider the limits of “citizenship”, in terms of their political or with a vengeance. But what does this mean for women as social’ rights – including the right to protest. This is not just a artists when they explore their artistic freedom of expression. question for “Others” or of the asymmetry between privileged Against this universal idea of the artist as a “free” spirit, women “first-world women” working on problems in “developing may recognise themselves as strongly identified with a home, countries”. It affects us all. Questions of social justice and a location or a geographical region even when they critique representation are closely tied to political protest and when this the dominant values around them or the discourse about takes the form of “Art” how effective can Art be as an instrument, “citizenship” there. Too often this appears as a typical not reducible to propaganda, in these expressions of protest and replaying of the old male as Universal and Woman as particular resistance? Women continue to experiment with how to manifest bind again – where men speak from the position of free their protests, to make clear their identity both as women and as unfettered privilege about the demos, the state, economy or artists. This volume carries just a few examples of women artists’ politics and women are seen as only having a limited voice creative attempts internationally to protest from Russia, Hungary, on particular issues about the body politic, sexuality or the Austria, Argentina, Georgia, China, Australia, UK and USA. 4 n.paradoxa Vol.32