The Future Of Citizenship

A Meeting Organised By The NCVO

The NCVO, London, UK
17th January 2008

Speakers:

MICHELLE HARRISON, Henley Centre Headlight Vision

MICHAEL EVANS, Changemakers

Citizenship is one of those areas which we take as a given. In my mind, the question of citizenship hinges around the relationship between a person and the wider community. Much of the conversation at the meeting was according to an agenda dominated by the UK government. One can see why they might be interested in such a conversation. The diminution of the nation state into smaller communities, such as Wales or Scotland, and the aggregation of national sovereignty into supra-national entities, such as the EU, calls into question the relevance of the continued focus on the nation state as the basic building block of government.

On the whole I enjoyed the session. I didn’t agree with a lot of the content and I had questions over the futures methodology, but the material was presented in a clear and logical way. Michelle and Michael were great speakers and they really engaged the audience. I don’t normally come out of my bubble to rub shoulders with people in the real world, but I am very glad that I did so on this occasion.

READ the full report.