Global Citizenship

What is global citizenship? 

Global citizenship is the idea that one’s identity transcends nationalistic borders. Since one typically self-identifies as a global citizen (or world citizen or cosmopolitan), global citizenship does not carry any legal weight within nationstates. There is no such thing as issuing, obtaining or possessing global citizenship paperwork. 

But what about the World Passport? The World Passport is a false travel document that is given to members and donors of the World Service Authority, a nonprofit founded by Garry Davis. While it has been used to cross borders, due to its realistic look of a real passport, it does not carry any valid border crossing or traveling authorization. 

Since anyone or anything can claim to be a global citizen, it’s been used in advertisements, branding and company names, slogans and missions. While there isn’t inherently anything wrong with the term, it does beg the question of what exactly constitutes global citizenship.

Consider the world we live in today: there are nationstates that are divided and protected by borders. While it’s possible to dream of a future where we can interact and communicate regardless of borders, they still serve a function of control. It’s impossible to separate the two. Subscribing to the term “global citizen” ignores this, centers oneself and purports a false narrative. 

When we think about intercultural communication, the discourse of borders and global citizenship, it’s a matter of going back to basics: interpersonal communication is the communication between two people. It is framed by contexts, the overarching one being CULTURE. When we work on increasing our intercultural communication competencies, we’re working on communicating our needs and fulfilling others’ needs through mutual respect and understanding. To identity as someone who transcends this is ultimately rejecting the notion of intercultural communication. 

If global citizenship is possible, what would be the requirements? What are your thoughts on this?