Citizenship regimes in ancient Greece

Tuesday, April 13 16.00

Josine Blok

The explosive growth of studies of citizenship in ancient Greece of the past twenty, thirty years has given us a wealth of new evidence and exciting viewpoints. But the results are also quite bewildering – the variety of civic practices in ancient Greece and of the academic approaches to them makes it difficult to identify the larger patterns. In my contribution to the conference Citizenship imagined, citizenship practiced – citizens and non-citizens in the ancient Greek world I shall try to bring some clarity by applying definitions and analyses current in present day comparative citizenship studies. A major role will fall to the concept of ‘citizenship regimes’: institutionalised systems of formal and informal norms that define access to membership, as well as rights and duties associated with membership, within a polity (Vink 2017). Definitions matter: a fixed concept of citizenship mattered for those who were citizens and those who were not, and they matter for us as scholars, to create a common ground for our debates. Clarity in this respect also allows to identify and conceptualise the conditions of people on or beyond the boundaries of citizenship, diachronic changes and regional differences in ancient Greece.

To sign up, please contact Floris Van den Eijnde (f.vandeneijnde@uu.nl)