Re-Imagining Intimate Citizenship in Changing Times
Ken Plummer

Abstract

The idea of Intimate Citizenship is now over a quarter of a century old. Examining the ‘rights‘, ‘duties’ and ‘choices’ we confront around changing intimacies, the idea highlights the contradictions and dialogues between the personal and the political. Here, I will return to some of these ‘old’ debates, reviewing the key questions that were then posed and tracing some of the ways it has been developed.

But a quarter of a century ago is a long time ago, indeed a generation ago. Things have moved on. Surveying briefly some of the many major world changes that have been happening, I will suggest that new crises bring new challenges. The body of my talk will look at the ways we should rethink ideas of Intimate Citizenship for new times. Drawing on Critical Humanism and ideas of Cosmopolitan Sexualities, Generational Sexualities, Narrative Hope and Social Imaginaries, I will raise new possibilities for thinking about social justice, human flourishing and the layers of our belonging and caring for each other in troubled global times.