Study On Cultural Citizenship And National Identity

Notably, knowledge and information have become the main powers which play decisive roles in the development of modern society. Culture has gradually become the crucial factor which influences the economic and political spheres, and not only the consumer discourse but also the political representation in contemporary society began to show more obvious symbolic characteristics. Nation-states have paid more attention to the non-systematic factors of cultural field and the influence they gave on the politics and power, as a result of the development of cultural politics which characterize by politicization of culture and culturalization of politics. It’s an important topic, which need perspective and reflection from an internal cultural inheritance and development perspective and include the intercultural exchange and clash in the course of globalization, that concerns the security and development of national culture. Especially because of the globalization has gradually spread from economic field to political field and cultural field. Cultural identity construct of members is necessary to the nation-state, whether to inherit cultural tradition, enhance cultural identity, promote cultural innovation, or expand cultural influence. Building up a cultural identity with conscientious and confident subjectivity in members is the key to perform the reconstruct of national identity for nation-state in the trend of cultural globalization. Taking all these realistic factors into consideration, consequently, the author begins the study on cultural citizenship and national identity.The first part of this study is introduction, which mainly introduces the composition backgrounds, research status, research means and research ideas. Next part is the main part of this study which includes five chapters. Chapter one is about the theory of cultural citizenship, analyzes the theoretical background of cultural citizenship and the concept and content elements of the cultural citizenship. First, combining the theory of cultural politics, especially cultural Marxism, citizenship, identity theory and cultural studies theory, the paper discusses the theoretical background of cultural citizenship, including cultural citizenship theory steering and the formation of civil identity research. Secondly, through the analysis of the different understanding of major theoretical schools on culture and the changing process of cultural values, the paper puts forward the culture concept from the perspective of cultural citizenship, viewing that cultural sense of belonging to the country is no longer confined within the political and legal framework and participation of national culture, however, within and between the variety of different levels of liquidity, is a multicultural, dynamic field of constructive and struggle against domination. And then, the author defines the culture citizenship as processes of cultural-consciousness of cultural perceivers, who form a democratic and public culture and then produce sense of identities and belonging on it in a multicultural environment, by cultural practical activities based on some certain universality or particularity cultural rights and cultural responsibilities which include cultural inheritance, cultural exchange and cultural innovation. And thirdly, the article presents four elements as the connotation elements of cultural citizenship:subjects, rights, responsibilities and identities, and then details the contents of them. Finally, the article talks about four dimensions of cultural citizenship, such as cultural-consciousness of cultural perceivers in the context of globalization, cultural rights in association with the fulfilled-citizenship in democratization of culture, cultural responsibilities and public sphere of culture in cultural development, the identity demands of marginal groups and reestablish of cultural community. In all, the study on cultural citizenship and national identity aims at present a scheme of strengthen national identity to nation-states which facing crisis of cultural identity in Global Age.The second chapter is about the contemporary dilemma of national identity, and the contradictions and dilemmas are analyzed from both theoretical and practical sides, and the cultural citizenship significance for national identity reconstruction is pointed out. First, the paper suggests the dual structure of the nation-state and the two logic of the national identity from the point of view of political theory, that is national patriotism based national identity and constitutional patriotism based on citizenship. The study points out the contradiction of the construction of national identity, including nationality conflicts of identity and citizenship, national identity and national identity conflicts, cultural identity and political identity conflicts. Second, combined with the main trend of contemporary social development such as globalization, informationization and post modernism, the paper analysis the identity dilemma that the nation state is facing, including state authority weakening, mixed culture pluralism and community cultural meta narrative.The third chapter analyses the significance of cultural citizenship for the reconstruction of national identity from two aspects, on one hand, it contribute to the harmonization of the intrinsic contradiction,on the other hand, it present some solutions of contemporary dilemma. Firstly, arouse the cultural-consciousness, build up the cultural self-confidence and consolidate the power of the national culture by strengthening the subjectivity status of cultural citizenship identity at country level. Secondly, set up a scaffold of public discourse by the tie of cultural citizenship, and improve multi-cultural communication based on the discourse theory of Habermas and the overlapping consensus theory of Rawls. Finally, advance citizen’s democratic participation of culture construction of the country by emphasizing the responsibility of cultural citizenship, help to rebranding the common culture of nation-state.The fourth chapter is about how to rebuild national identity based on cultural citizenship. The paper answered this question from two ways:expanding the social basic and improving the education mode of national identity. On one hand, the paper analyses four useful factors for expanding the social basic of national identity based on the four elements of cultural citizenship which including subjects, rights, responsibilities and identities, such as multiple subjectivity, structural diversity of rights, self-consciousness of cultural responsibility and reality condition of identity bonds. On the other hand, the paper analyses three dimensions of improving the education mode of national identity based on the basic dimensions of cultural citizenship which including cultural-consciousness, cultural diversity and cultural development, such as core values and the integration of multi-value, cultural diversity and expansion of the content, as well as the approaches of civic participation and its diversification.The fifth chapter discussed an urgent, complicated and practical problem that how to promote the construction of Chinese national identity by cultural citizenship principles. The author attempt to find practical ways of cultural citizenship in the construction of Chinese national identity. Firstly, bring the role of cultural citizenship as a mediator of social consensus into play, strengthen the identity of core Socialist values, set up a value guidance in national identity construction. Secondly, bring the role of cultural-consciousness perceivers into play, inspect the contemporary value of traditional culture and sublimate it by cultural innovation practice of folk culture clubs, fortify the cultural foundations of national identity. Finally, bring the role of cultural citizenship as an actor of national culture life into play, building the social identity by emotion communication and internet culture in public sphere of culture, meanwhile, promoting self-identification construction by finding the symbolic meaning and self-identity confirmation in culture consumers behavior and enriching the pathways of civic cultural participation.