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Being human or being a citizen?Rethinking human rights andcit izenship educat ion in the light ofAgamben and Merleau-PontyRuyu Hung a

aDepart ment of Educat ion, Nat ional Chiayi Universit y, Chiayi,

Taiwan

Available onl ine: 21 Feb 2012

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cit izenship educat ion in t he l ight of Agamb en and Merl eau-Pont y, Cambrid ge Journal of Educat ion,

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Being human or being a citizen? Rethinking human rights andcitizenship education in the light of Agamben and Merleau-Ponty

Ruyu Hung*

Department of Education, National Chiayi University, Chiayi, Taiwan

(Received 21 February 2011; final version received 8 December 2011)

This paper argues against a trend of human rights education, where humanrights are taught in the form of citizenship education. In my view, citizenshipeducation and human rights education cannot be taken as replaceable for eachother. Underpinning the idea of citizenship is a distinction between politicallyqualified and politically unqualified persons. This distinction implies a viola-tion of human rights in the name of social solidarity and security. This paperwill argue that citizenship education could imply discrimination/exclusionalthough it claims to promote solidarity and human rights. Furthermore, thequalification of having rights is not dependent on citizenship but simply inhuman life itself. Three educational implications are discussed. Firstly, humanrights and citizenship education cannot be seen as equivalents. Secondly, educa-tors should be alert to the dangers of possible exclusion implied in citizenshipeducation. Finally, this paper proposes different suggestions for human rightsand citizenship education separately.

Keywords: Agamben; bare life; body-subject; citizenship; human rights; Mer-leau-Ponty

Introduction

In recent decades, human rights have been widely recognised as an important theme

for education. Among various ways of promoting human rights education, citizen-

ship education is taken as an effective means and as a substitute. This paper will

argue that the place of human rights education cannot be taken by citizenship

education since the underpinning ideas of citizenship education and human rights

education are different.

The most important goal of human rights education is to promote and protect

human rights through imparting of knowledge and skills and the moulding of atti-

tudes (United Nations, 1997, p. 5). The most prominent idea of human rights is

recognised in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) that All human

beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights (Article 1). It is unconditional

for any human being to have rights according to the UDHR: Everyone is entitled

to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of

any kind (Article 2). As the cogent definition given by Jack Donnelly (2003)

states, being human gives one rights. Therefore human rights education is

supported by the following idea: a human being has rights merely because he/she is

*Email: [email protected], [email protected]

Cambridge Journal of Education

Vol. 42, No. 1, March 2012, 3751

ISSN 0305-764X print/ISSN 1469-3577 online

2012 University of Cambridge, Faculty of Education

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human; human rights education is aimed to protect and promote the rights of every

human being.

In the real world, education for human rights is often translated into or depends

heavily on education for citizenship. Citizenship education is taken as a parallel or

substitute subject for human rights education (Banks, 2005; Kiwan, 2005; Lynch,

1992; Osler, 2000; Osler & Starkey, 1996). A human being is defined in terms of a

citizen; therefore, ones rights are protected and promoted owing to his/her status of

being a citizen. This view might result from the most influential exposition of the

postwar conception of citizenship which is defined in T.H. Marshalls terms of the

possession of rights (Kymlicka & Norman, 1994, 2000) and will be discussed later.

The UDHR proclaimed in 1948 is interpreted as composing the three categories of

rights. And as such, human rights are equal to citizenship and thus human rights

education can be replaced by citizenship education. This is questioned by this paper.

Nonetheless, I do not mean that the concepts of citizenship and human rights are in

conflict or citizenship education is incompatible with human rights education.

Rather, neither these two concepts nor these two learning subjects can be simplyseen as equivalent to each other.

Dina Kiwan (2005) has argued that there is a divergence between citizenship

education and human rights discourses since the former is located within a particu-

lar frame of reference while the latter within a universal one. I agree with her viewin part. Furthermore, I aim to expose a more deeply hidden difference underpinning

this divergence, which is the difference between being human and being a citi-

zen. This difference makes it a mistake to conflate these two educational subjects

even when the citizen is located within a very broad, or in Kiwans term, univer-

sal context the so-called global world.

The confusion of citizen and human being is quite common and may potentiallylead to a neglect of the private, idiosyncratic and individualised lived experience of

individuals. This may enhance indifference and exclusion of the people who are

taken as unqualified citizens. These people can be seen as the other. On some con-

ditions, they may be taken as citizens. The unconditional (or fully qualified) citi-

zens are often taken equivalent to perfectly complete or full human beings and the

conditional citizens and non-citizens as imperfect, deficient and unqualified human

beings. Agambens and Merleau-Pontys philosophies illuminate the belittlement of

humanity and violation of human rights implied in this construction, which will be

discussed. Their thoughts help us to criticise the prevailing understanding of human

beings as citizens and to reconceive a dialectical meaning of human beings as fleshbody-subjects who are human beings with no condition.

The thesis of this paper is: a human being is a human being without any

condition. Moreover, the conception of human being embraces all possibilities of

a person while the conception of citizen does not and can not. This conception

of human being can be understood in terms of Merleau-Pontys idea of body-

subject and Agambens bare life. Merleau-Pontys body-subject has been

acknowledged by many authors as helpful for conceiving a pedagogy highlighting

lived experience (OLoughlin, 1994, 1996; Van Manen, 2007). The concept of

body-subject and the implied lived experience are difficult to be fully embraced

in the idea of citizen. Moreover, Agambens categorisation of forms of life,

which includes the political life (or the politically qualified human beings) andthe bare life or homo sacer (or the unqualified human beings), helps us to exam-

ine exclusions implied in the process of normalisation or socialisation. Some may

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claim that education for global citizenship can achieve global inclusion. Agam-

bens view may reveal that global citizenship education is indeed an exclusion of

the unqualified citizens who are seen as bare life in the name of creating global

citizenship. To establish global citizenship in some sense embraces the planetaryview of world-state and the common entitlement of citizens. Hence, education for

global citizenship still enforces exclusion as education for national citizenship

does, but is different in scope.

In the following parts I aim to explore the idea of citizenship and the differences

between being a citizen and being human from the perspectives of Agamben

and Merleau-Ponty. The exploration will show that the meaning of citizenship is

limited within a definite boundary. Some authors attempt to broaden the boundary

of citizenship by locating this concept within a global context since a global con-

text might provide the widest territory. This attempt, however, might be futile

because the boundary correspondingly shifts (but does not disappear) with the emer-

gence of the newly contextualised concept of citizen. Moreover, in my view, the

concept of citizen can never denote the meaning of an on-going, indeterminate,open-ended process of life the meaning of human being. This point will be

argued in the later sections. Thus human rights education cannot be replaced by

citizenship education.

Based on the above, the following section will discuss the meaning of the con-cept of citizen and the implying problems. The problems include the ignorance of

the other who are conditionally qualified citizens and non-citizens and the indiffer-

ence of violation of their rights. Therefore, human rights education cannot be

replaced by citizenship education because they have different underpinning ideas:

the human being who is a living person without any condition whereas the citizen

who is a person under particular conditions. The meaning of the living human beingwill be explored in depth by means of Merleau-Pontys body-subject and thereby a

more desirable version of human rights education based on the above can be

contrived.

Rights on behalf of human beings or citizens?

The meaning of citizen or citizenship has been under intense discussions during the

past decades (Kymlicka & Norman, 1994; Osler, 2000). As Kymlicka and Norman

(1994) pointed out, in the 1970s and 1980s, citizenship is intimately linked to ideas

of individual entitlement and of attachment to a particular community. As men-tioned, the most influential exposition of the postwar conception of citizenship is

defined in T.H. Marshalls terms of the possession of rights. Marshall divides citi-

zenship rights into three categories: civil rights, political rights and social rights. If

the state can secure peoples civil, political and social rights, they can feel like full

members of the society, otherwise they will be marginalised and would not be able

to be part of the social life. Kymlicka and Norman (1994, p. 355) describe Mar-

shalls view as passive or private citizenship because of its emphasis on passive

entitlement and the absence of any obligation to participate in public life. Accord-

ing to Kymlicka and Norman (1994), the concept of citizenship can be understood

as composing two aspects: citizenship-as-legal-status and citizenship-as-desirable-

activity. Marshalls citizenship focuses mostly on the aspect of legal status, in short,as full membership in a particular community (Kymlicka & Norman, 1994). In

consonance, Audrey Osler (2005) has defined citizenship as status, feeling and

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practice. She admits that citizenship-as-legal-status is exclusive since there is a

clear-cut distinction between those who have this status and those who do not

(Osler, 2005, p. 12). Yet citizenship is much more than status, it also involves feel-

ing and citizen participation and engagement, what can be termed the practiceof citizenship (Osler, 2005, p. 12). Oslers practice can be understood as what

Kymlicka and Norman term the citizenship-as-desirable-activity, which is paid more

attention by many authors in the post-Marshall time. The concept of citizenship-as-

desirable-activity is related to the civic virtues and responsibility the characteris-

tics of a good citizen. Citizenship education is thus understood as aiming for shap-

ing pupils into good citizens who are willing to take part in public life, to support

the shared identity and to care for and be responsible for public affairs. According

to James Lynch, a good citizen can be characterised by a propensity for consider-

ing opinions different from ones own, a tendency to espouse democratic rights for

all members of society, an awareness of societal problems and a concern to improve

them, a certain degree of skill in critical thinking, and a positive self-image

(1992, p. 37).The above exposition demonstrates a greatly popular view of citizenship that is

interpreted as comprising a thick conception of citizenship as activity or practice

and a thin one of citizenship as status. However, whether citizenship is defined by

status or by activity, this concept assumes a principle that citizens are members ofcommunities. As a passive status, citizenship characterises citizens for their entitle-

ments to civil, political and social rights in communities. As an active practice, citi-

zenship emphasises citizens obligations to participate in public life. What is

implicitly assumed is that one must be a member of a particular political commu-

nity in order to qualify as a citizen. Based on this, if one is willing to be a good cit-

izen, hoping to build the community, of which he or she is a part, into a better ormore desirable community, he or she will commit himself or herself to more

engagement and participation of the public life.

The point here is that the passive legal status and active practice are necessary

but not sufficient conditions for one to be a citizen in a particular community. For

example, residents of one place do not necessarily enjoy the same rights, e.g. the

right to vote in local or national elections or the right to work. Those who are law-

ful permanent residents and nationals can deservedly enjoy the right to vote while

those who are temporary immigrants do not. As for lawful immigrants, their right

to work may depend on their individual situation or the position of work. Some

civil service work may not be granted for all lawful immigrants in many countries.Apparently, it is not just because one is an individual human being, one is a citizen.

One cannot be entitled to citizenship rights (or full citizenship rights) unless he or

she is a citizen already. As Dina Kiwan (2005, p. 47) points out, citizenship is

always defined in terms of membership within a political community. Also based

on this, Kiwan argues that human rights and citizenship are conceptually different.

There are many different political communities states, countries and regional

nations like the European Union (EU); it is obvious that there are many different

kinds of citizen and citizenship.

Some authors suggest that citizenship can be contextualised in a broad commu-

nity to reconceptualise the most tolerant and inclusive citizenship. Here, the global

world is seen as the broadest context and the global or cosmopolitan citizenship theagenda for education. For example, James Lynch (1992) claims that global citizen-

ship has emerged due to multiple social, economic, political, and cultural changes

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since World War II. Communication has shrunk our world to a global village. The

conception of citizenship needs to be construed within the context of globalisation.

As mentioned, a citizen is a member of a particular community. A universal com-

munity can include everyone as a member as well as a citizen. Some authors thusclaim that the global citizen can be understood as the universal human being and

thereby global citizenship can include universal human rights.

However, it is questionable whether the global village can provide such a uni-

versal context to include everyone without discrimination. There are two problems

that may arise from this concept of global citizenship or cosmopolitan citizenship.

Firstly is the neglect of the other who are non-citizens and secondly, the indiffer-

ence of the violation of their rights. These problems can be understood from the

respect of groups and individuals.

Firstly, the so-called global community that includes all human beings and their

differences only exist on the theoretical level. The formation of the global commu-

nity so far remains within the international and regional contexts. The inclusion of

some people as members is indeed an exclusion of others. For example, the estab-lishment of the EU distinguishes European citizens from non-European citizens.

Paradoxically, not all non-European citizens are non-Europeans since the EU does

not include all European countries as member states. According to Etinne Balibar

(2001), the birth of the EU with the appearance of the concept of Civis Europeanusresults in the uneven access to citizenship and nationality through three very subtle

metamorphoses: turning foreigners into aliens; turning protection to discrimination;

and turning cultural difference to racial stigmatisation. He thus describes the phe-

nomenon amongst the European people as European Apartheid. The establishment

of an international community distinguishes members from non-members. Even the

biggest international organisation the United Nations (UN) does not include allstates in the world. The application of Taiwan as a UN member has been declined

on many occasions since its legal status has not been recognised. But recognised

by whom? That the recognition of Taiwans status is not determined by the Tai-

wanese themselves shows the illusion of universal equity in the global world.

Moreover, there is a hierarchy in the UN organisation privileging certain members.

For example, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), one of the principal

organs of the UN, consists of five permanent members and 10 non-permanent

members. Besides, the other states that are members of the UN, but not of the

Security Council, may join the discussions but have no power to vote affirmatively

or negatively on any substantive matter. The purposes of this international globalcommunity are

to maintain international peace and security to develop friendly relations amongnations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of

peoples to achieve international co-operation in solving international problems ofan economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting andencouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all withoutdistinction as to race, sex, language, or religion. (Article 1, Charter of the United

Nations)

These purposes are targeted at a global community within which indiscriminative

equity and respect for human rights can be widely realised. Yet in reality the UNfunctions on the basis of distinction, exclusion and hierarchism. This can also be

said of the other regional political communities and their organisations.


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Secondly, in respect of the individual, Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben has

highlighted the mechanism of homogenisation and exclusion implied in the process

of politicalisation. This view helps us to problematise the evaluation of the concepts

of citizen and human being as equals and to expose the implied exclusion.Agamben (1998) takes up Foucaults (1978) idea of biopower and Arendts

(1958) distinction between zoe (natural life) and bios (political life). The relation-

ship between these ideas may be articulated as follows: biopower turns zoe or

natural life, into bios or political life, through defining a realm of bare life. Bare

life denotes at the most basic level a living human being. Foucault views a

human being as the product of a series of procedures conducted on life as a site of

regulation. Resonating Foucaults idea, Agamben points out that the human is pro-

duced by the exclusion of the inhuman. The human denotes a politically qualified

form of life, i.e. bios or citizen, and the inhuman the zoe and the bare life. The dis-

tinction between the human and the inhuman is drawn by means of the politicalisa-

tion of natural life. Politicalisation is a process of distinction between those who

can be included and those who cannot.

The realm of bare life which is originally situated at the margins of the politicalrealm, and order gradually begins to coincide with the political realm. And exclusionand inclusion, outside and inside, bios and zoe, right and fact, enter into a zone ofirreducible indistinction. (Agamben, 1998, p. 9)

This process of politicalisation is executed through abandonment of natural life to

an unconditional power of death, that is, the power of sovereignty (Mills, 2006, p.

5). Moreover, [i]t is in this abandonment of natural life to sovereign violence and Agamben sees the relation of abandonment that obtains between life and law as

originary that bare life makes its appearance (Mills, 2006, p. 5). The mecha-

nism of abandonment of natural life is executed by authoritys demarcating a realm

of bare life as well as a state of exception within which individuals are bare life,

who no longer live inside or outside of the political realm, neither alive nor dead,

but survive in suspension. Concentration camps, refugee camps and prisons, for

example, are such zones of exception. People who are living in these places are

bare life. They are entitled neither to citizenship nor to human rights. This zone is a

realm of indeterminancy, within which are lives whose legal status is undecided.

[T]he state of exception is neither external nor internal to the juridical order, and

the problem of definite it concerns precisely a threshold, or a zone of indifference,

where inside and outside do not exclude each other but rather blur with each other(Agamben, 2003, p. 23).

Agambens ideas of bare life and the state of exception shed light on our under-

standing of human being and citizen, the qualified and the unqualified or the

right one and the unright one. According to Agamben (2003), the state of excep-tion is a paradigm of government whose sovereignty can be shown in its authority

to decide the scope of legislation and jurisdiction. In other words, the sovereign

demarcates the legislative and juridical sphere and also decides who are and who

are not within this sphere. People within a particular community are the objects to

which laws and rules are to be applied. They have the membership of a certain

group. This can be understood as citizenship. Lynch (1992, p. 10) describes citizen-ship in its simplest sense as having to be equated with nationality and membership

of the nation state. However, the definition of the scope of group changes with

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time. Lynch (1992) gives a brief introduction as follows. In ancient times, the mem-

bership indicated residency in a city or city-state or empire as in the case of civis

romanus. In medieval Europe citizenship was belonging to local city-republic or

petty princedom (Lynch, 1992, p. 10). As the age of nationalism developed, so didpeople believe that membership of a nation-state justifies citizenship and their rights

to be defended against other nation-states. In this sense, nationality is the basis for

one to be entitled to citizenship and rights under the protection of a nation-state. In

a similar tone, Balibar (2001, p. 18) states, We discovered that political rights, the

actual granting and conditions of equal citizenship, were the true basis for a recog-

nition and definition of human rights. In light of Arendt, Balibar points out that

citizenship and nationhood are shaped as closely associated through the process of

institutionalisation of nation-state. However, the distinction between nations and

states are undeniable, which marks the difference between citizens of different

countries. After World War II, the boundary of the community justifying citizenship

was challenged by multifarious factors and so was relocated within a context wider

than the framework of nationality. There also appears the concept of global citizen-ship, which is located within an international or a cosmopolitan context. This con-

cept of citizen and citizenship seems for many to be more open and inclusive to

accept more people as members of a community. If the whole world is taken as one

global community, everyone can be included as an equal member. In that case,everyone in this world has as equal membership and citizenship as any other and

thereby has equal entitlement to human rights.

This view to me is too optimistic to be true. There are two points that I intend

to propose to object to the view of global community. First of all, a global commu-

nity which includes everyone and everything is a collectivist and totalitarian utopia

within which the multifarious differences among people could be underestimatedand reduced. Secondly, the inclusion and tolerance of the other that can be allowed

only exists within the boundary of this group, which seem to indicate minimal toler-

ance and inclusion of the other that does not belong to our group.In respect of the first point, we may find that, as the biggest international and

global community, the UN does not include and treat all countries with equal

respect and thereby people do not enjoy equal rights. Although the UDHR claims:

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights (Article 1), the

practices of the UN seem to translate the Declaration of Human Rights into a Dec-

laration of Citizens Rights since one must be a citizen, a member of a community

(e.g. a country or a nation-state) that is recognised by the UN, in order that his orher rights can be recognised and protected. People who are not members of such

states or whose countries are not recognised, in Agambens terms, are living in a

state of exception. The Taiwanese, in this sense, are people in a state of exception.

Their nationality and the validity of their passport are questioned by people in dif-

ferent countries and, sometimes, by themselves. They are human beings but not citi-

zens since Taiwanese citizenship is put into question when Taiwanese nationality is

still in limbo. Besides the Taiwanese, prisoners, refugees, migrant workers, home-

less or asylum seekers are the people in the state of exception (Agamben, 1998).

The stateless, homeless, migrant workers, asylum seekers, prisoners and refugees

are those who are taken as non-citizens and not entitled to rights. In Balibars

(2001, p. 25) resounding words, these people are taken as garbage humans, to bethrown away, out of the global city. They are the people to be seen as fixed in

their homelands, i.e., their mere existence, their quantity, their movements


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because they look the same (Balibar, 2001, p. 26). Implied in this taken-for-

granted practice is a neglect of individual difference and idiosyncrasy people are

recognised by their membership of a particular group, especially nationality, not by

their own personal characteristics. The establishment of a global communityincludes everyone at the risk of reducing individual difference.

In respect of the second point, the intention of establishing a completely global

community for global citizenship could imply maximal inclusion, on the one hand,

and, on the other, the greatest exclusion. As Iris Marion Young (1989, p. 252) has

pointed out, The ideal of public realm of citizenship as expressing a general will, a

point of view and interest that citizens have in common which transcends their dif-

ferences, has operated in fact as a demand for homogeneity among citizens. This

suggests that a person who neither can be homogenised nor belongs to this commu-

nity will be expelled (and labelled as not qualified). One must be a member of the

community or he/she cannot be recognised as a qualified person a citizen. Theo-

retically, no one should be excluded. Practically, those who cannot or will not be

assimilated in the group that most people belong to are expelled into the state ofexception. According to Agamben (1998), the means which is often used to distin-

guish qualified people from the unqualified ones is the juridico-political system exe-

cuted by the sovereign authority. The measures of homogenisation, in my view, can

be addressed in Balibars (2003) terms of security practices which are designed todifferentiate civilised peopled from barbarians, humans from subhumans, legal resi-

dents from illegal transients. Although Balibars (1991, 2001, 2003) main concern

is on the framing of citizenship in Europe, his discussion on the construction of the

European identity and the resulting violence and discriminating imposition of bor-

ders between Europe and non-Europe can be extended to the wider context and ech-

oes my understanding of Agamben.The sovereign authority decides who can or cannot be members of a commu-

nity, who can or cannot be politically qualified citizens under the control of the

juridico-political system. The function of the sovereign exception is continually to

delineate a threshold between inside and outside that makes law possible (Spinks,

2001, p. 27). People who are classified as outsiders, e.g. aliens, prisoners, and refu-

gees, cannot enjoy all the privileges under domestic and normal rules and laws.

They are not one of us. They are not entitled to citizenship. These people could

be put into the zone of exception such as state of exile, detention or emergency.

They are subject to criminal laws.

Agamben (1998) points out that people who are taken as bare life can be killedwithout trial for the crime of homicide. What is more important here is that bare

life does not have the right to the recognition everywhere as the person before the

law as claimed by the UDHR (Article 6). The UDHR is allegedly to be applied to

all members of the human family, and accordingly no one can be subjected to

arbitrary arrest, detention or exile (Article 9). Thus people who are in the state of

exception, e.g. war, camps, or emergency, are not taken as members of our human

family. Agamben reveals that some people are judged as bare life and as such

deemed not fully human being and without rights.

Agambens view illuminates the mechanism of distinction among people and

reveals the implied intolerance. Yet his terms might be confusing. In my view, as

long as one is a member of the species Home sapiens, he or she is a human beingand a full human being. No one shall be seen as a half or partial or improper

human being. Agambens terms of bare life and political life can be articulated

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as politically unqualified human being and politically qualified human being.

Therefore, human rights are acknowledged as the rights that one has simply

because one is a human being They are inalienable rights: one cannot stop being

human, no matter how badly one behaves nor how barbarically one is treated. Andthey are universal rights, in the sense that today we consider all members of the

species Homo sapiens human beings, and thus holders of human rights (Donnel-

ly, 2003, p. 10). Following this, everyone must be entitled to human rights but not

necessarily to citizenship. The sovereign authority overturns the relationship

between being human and human rights.

The condition being a member of the species Homo sapiens should be suffi-

cient for a person to be entitled to human rights, but is misused de facto as a neces-

sary condition. Furthermore, the membership of a particular group, such as

nationality, is taken as the second necessary condition for a human being to have

rights. The idea a human being is entitled to human rights including citizenship is

reversely modified as a citizen is entitled to citizenship including human rights.

Hence as Donnelly (2003, p. 16) points out:

Human rights constitute individuals as a particular kind of political subject: free andequal rights-bearing citizens. And by establishing the requirements and limits of legiti-mate government, human rights advocates seek to constitute states of a particularkind.

The membership of a particular political community is the prerequisite of the enti-

tlement to rights. In other words, ones submission to the control of political mecha-

nism is necessary. That is why Agamben (2003, p. 86) argues that the juridico-political system not only examines people but even transforms itself into a killing

machine. The sovereign distinguishes the politically unqualified people from the

qualified ones by expelling them into the state of exception. Unqualified human

beings are thus renamed the inhuman (the enemy, the pariah, the untouchable, or

in Balibars term, garbage human) who are not entitled to full human rights, for

whom inhuman treatment is allowed.

In this view, formal citizenship education is one of the means for institutionalis-

ing the mechanism and its distinction. As Henry Giroux (2001, p. 170) states, Citi-

zenship education became entwined in a cultural positivism, one that displayed

little interest in the ways in which schools acted as agents of social or cultural

reproduction in a society marked by significant inequities in wealth, power and

privilege.The above discussion reveals a prevalent confusion where human being is mis-

takenly seen as synonymous with citizen; and so is seen the related confusion of

human rights education and citizenship education and the implied political distinc-

tion, discrimination and exclusion. If the purpose of human rights education is tocultivate the idea that all human beings are born equal and free in dignity and rights

and therefore every human beings rights need to be protected and improved, a

basic understanding of human rights education should be human beings are human

without condition. All human beings should have rights merely because they are

born members of Homo sapiens, rather than being justified by any form of member-

ship. In this respect, every human being is entitled to his/her rights regardless ofhis/her membership of a group, community or a country. That every human

being is equal to each other is based on a simple fact: everyone is a living body.


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The living body or in Agambens term, bare life, describes this simple fact of living

common to all living beings. This commonality is the minimal and thinnest descrip-

tion of all human beings rather than a substantial and thick definition of human nat-

ure. The concept of bare life or living body denotes a minimal commonality of allhuman beings regardless of their individual differences or in Agambens term, vari-

ous forms of life. Based on this, human rights can be universal since all human

beings are equal and yet different in every possible way. All human beings are enti-

tled to human rights simply because they are members of the species Homo sapiens

rather than members of any particular community based on race, colour, sex, lan-

guage, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth

or other status (Perry, 1998, p. 59).

Overall, the concept of bare life assumes a thinnest commonality among human

beings regardless of their membership. This point implies a very wide tolerance of

individual difference. Nonetheless, it seems to imply an individualistic and solipsist

view of the human being since the social or collective connection is unnecessary

for legitimising the status of a human being. Yet I attempt to argue that the bare lifecan be an ontologically independent individual but should not be mistaken as a

windowless monad which is self-closed and disconnected from each other. In my

view, every human being as a bare life is a living body that has grown with the

other. Yet the process of growing-with or being-with is a process of active livingrather than of the merely passive endurance of politicalisation or institutionalisation

of the society or community. Merleau-Pontys idea of body-subject may be helpful

for us to understand bare life in more vivid and potential terms.

Bare life as a body-subject living with the otherThe above discussions show that the bare life or natural life should be entitled to

human rights merely as a member of the species Homo sapiens rather than a mem-

ber of any particular social or political group. This minimal condition seems to sug-

gest that the process of human living develops individually and thereby is irrelevant

to others. However, this section aims to explain that although every life is a unique

process, it develops and is developed through various interactions with the world.

Life is unique and different from person to person; meanwhile, it shares and inter-

acts with others through the process. Thus the bare life is living interdependently.

In this respect, Merleau-Pontys thought can help us to formulate the meaning of

bare life.One of Merleau-Pontys inspirations is the notion of body-subject. Merleau-Pon-

ty, in his well-known work Phenomenology of Perception (1962), introduces the

body-subject as transcending the opposition of body and spirit, intellectualism and

empiricism, the subjective and the objective. The human body has a dialectical rela-

tionship with the surroundings. The body as the centre of the world perceives and

constructs the meaning of the surroundings. Meanwhile, the body as a part of the

world grows and develops during the process of experiencing the surroundings. The

body and the world are interdependent and continuously interact with each other.

The meaning of the world is constructed and always being constructed through the

living process of the body. This does not mean that the world is arbitrarily invented

by the body since the body is also a part of the world. Every human being is a liv-ing body-subject which is characterised by its interacting with the world during the

process of living. The body and the world are both constructed during the process;

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neither of them is prior to the other intellectually. But this does not mean that the

body-subject is determined and moulded by the world completely; rather, the body-

subject is influenced and constructed through its interaction with and inter-construc-

tion of the world. OLoughlin (1997) perceptively describes the body-subject as the

placed-constructed, immersed in environment, ecological subjectivity for it is

inseparable from the surrounding world without being fully determined by it. As

Merleau-Ponty states:

My body and the world are no longer objects co-ordinated together by the kind offunctional relationships that physics establishes I have the world as an incom-

plete individual, through the agency of my body as the potentiality of the world,and I have the positing of objects through that of my body, or conversely the posit-ing of my body through that of objects, in a real implication, and because my

body is a movement towards the world, and the world my bodys point of support.(1962, p. 350)

Merleau-Ponty describes a body-subject as an incomplete individual, which seemscontradictory to my claim in the former section that no one shall be seen as a half or

partial or improper human being. The point here is that the incompleteness of the

body-subject characterises life by a process full of on-going, dynamic and continu-

ous actions. The individual is incomplete because his/her process of life can neverstop until the moment he/she dies. Yet whatever and however this body-subject acts

during this process, his/her human being cannot be denied or discounted.

From this view, life is always under construction and the human being is always

becoming. The bare life as body-subject is an intelligent, holistic process which

directs, carrying out behaviours in a fluid, integrative fashion (OLoughlin, 1997,

p. 25). This body-subject creates and constructs different representatives in differentsituations. For example, citizen is constructed to represent the particular relation

of subject in a group. The invention of the role citizen depends on the social,

juridical and political systems and thereby the understanding and the definition of

citizen could be changed in different societies in different times. Viewed in this

light, being-citizen is one of many states of existence and cannot be taken as the

fundamental state of being. Any kind of membership or citizenship is only one sec-

tion of the network of relationships and cannot be taken as the equivalent of the

whole process of life.

Overall, the idea of body-subject presupposes the other and the surrounding

world as its primordial ground. To be human is to live through/of ones body, to bea body-subject, and vice versa. In terms of Merleau-Pontys body-subject and

Agambens bare life, the concept of human being can be understood as the primor-

dial and sufficient condition of human rights, on the one hand, and, on the other, it

justifies the individuality and beingness with the other and the surrounding world.

The qualification of having rights does not consist in citizenship or the other mem-

bership of a particular group but simply in human life itself.

Concluding remarks

The concluding section of this essay aims to explore the educational implications of

the above discussions. In the previous section I put into question the mainstreamview of human rights education which takes human rights education as replaced by

citizenship education. Yet the underpinning idea of citizenship education citizen


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is conceived on the basis of the institutional and political measures to categorise

people into different kinds, such as politically qualified ones and unqualified ones,

citizens and non-citizens, the right people and the unqualified ones, the lawful and

unlawful ones. This could direct people to promote human rights values in a verylimited way.

The previous exploration has shown that many social, political or legal measures

aim to establish democratic and free community by means of making distinctions

between people; however, these measures tend to become an instrument of oppres-

sion, and violation of human rights. One important reason is that any kind of politi-

cal discrimination implies exclusion and intolerance (Agamben, 1998, 2003). The

formation of citizenship in a particular state is one of the typical means of politicali-

sation. Many forms of discrimination are recognised by the legal system on differ-

ent scales of context, such as national, regional and international ones.

Underpinning the legal discrimination is a distinction between people who are

regarded as (qualified) human beings and those who are not, between citizens and

non-citizens, between political life (entitled to rights) and bare life (not entitled torights). It is inconsistent for human rights advocates to aim to enhance universal

recognition and respect of human rights, on the one hand, and set criteria to dis-

criminate right people from un-qualified ones, on the other, since every individ-

ual human being is a body-subject that lives its irreplaceable life throughcontinuous and various interactions with the world (Merleau-Ponty, 1962). Human

lives are unique and incomparable; hence human beings cannot be measured and

classified. The uniqueness, irreplaceability as well as the openness and receptivity

to the world and other people can be found in the idea of body-subject. Overall,

ones entitlement to rights is simply because he or she is human, not because who

is a qualified, right or correct one. Also, the uniqueness and interdependenceof individuals are able to create a borderless world abundant of diversity and differ-

ences. The above discussion may help educators to reflect and reconceive the mean-

ing of human rights education and citizenship education.

First of all, human rights education and citizenship education cannot be seen as

equivalents since their underpinning ideas being human and being a citizen

are very different. On the one hand, being human or human being is an open-

ended process and a state of existence that cannot be decided by others. Being

human is to live through ones own body, to embody ones life. On the other hand,

the idea of citizen must be located in the particular historical, cultural and social

context where its membership is approved by the political or legal system. Theexisting citizenship education aims to pass on to younger generations the common

knowledge and attitudes which are required to be qualified citizens in this society

and to distance them from the repudiated knowledge and attitudes. Although the so-

called global village is suggested by some to broaden the scope of group or com-

munity, as is the concept of global citizenship, there is always a state of exceptionexternal to the global village. Some people are never approved to be members of

this group, such as refugees, stateless people or people belonging to a country

whose political status is not recognised by the other countries, like Taiwan. The so-

called global community is not as comprehensive as it is claimed to be. The

understanding and definition of the global community could be inconsistent among

people. It is doubtful whether citizenship education can achieve a common under-standing of global membership, let alone promote universal (understanding of)

human rights.

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Secondly, educators should be alert to the dangers of possible exclusion and dis-

crimination implied in the process of citizenship education. Citizenship education in

general aims to raise amongst pupils the common sense of identity and the feeling

of belonging to the national state, in a word, to build membership and solidarity. Inthe field of education, citizenship is claimed to be compatible with the values of

democracy, freedom and liberty. These values promote citizenship education in turn.

Yet the ideal of pursuing a citizens utopia could become an excuse to discriminate

among people. As John ONeill (1970, pp. 8485) says, the exercise of power suc-

ceeds best as an appeal to freedom rather than as an act of violence which only

reinforces itself through the aggression which it arouses. In Agambens (2000, p.

4) words: The state is a community instituted for the sake of the living and the

well living of men in it. Merleau-Ponty (1969, p. 5) also states: it was precisely in

order to liberate man that he had used violence against some men. The attempt to

establish a utopia could lead to the oppression of difference and violence: human

aggression is not simply a conflict of animal or physical forces, but a polarity

within a dialectics of intersubjective recognition or alienation. Political power neverrests upon naked force but always presumes a ground of opinion and consensus

within a margin of potential conflict and violence that is crossed only when this

common sense is outraged (ONeill, 1970, p. 84). The discriminating measures of

social systems could efface individual differences which are significant for contrib-uting towards being human as a living body-subject. In other words, the categorisa-

tion or classification has the effect of impersonalising a human being, ignoring his/

her flesh-and-blood uniqueness but focusing on a certain historical, physical, or

ideological feature or features that the individual shares with the other members of

a group. When people are classified, some are included and some excluded by the

discriminating measures used to distinguish people into groups of oppositions, suchas the politically qualified ones and unqualified ones, citizens and non-citizens, the

educable and the uneducable, and those who can be sacrificed and those who

cannot.

Finally, I propose different suggestions for human rights education and citizen-

ship education separately. For human rights facilitators, the teaching and learning

should take the diverse and dynamic life process of individuals into consideration.

Educators should bear in mind that being human is an individual, unique and irre-

placeable living process, which needs to be realised in every moment of acting, liv-

ing and learning. Every human being is entitled to human rights, no matter whom

and what he/she is, no matter how he/she acts. I do not mean to provide a monadicor solipsist perspective for the understanding of education for human rights but only

suggest a body-subject-related and intersubjective perspective. This view includes

surroundings and the other as parts of our process of living, as parts of our being

human. Being human as living through/with/of ones body is the minimal, hum-

ble but sufficient condition for one to enjoy human rights. Human rights educators

should teach pupils to respect and improve human rights based on the minimal con-

dition common to all: every human being deserves rights simply because he or she

is a member of the species Homo sapiens.

Regarding citizenship education, educators should be aware of the intolerance,

discrimination and exclusiveness implied in the idea of citizenship. The aim of citi-

zenship education is to build membership and solidarity, which is important in acommunity and cannot be denied. The point is that there are always people who are

outsiders, foreigners, or strangers. Those who cannot be domesticated or


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institutionalised could be non-citizens but should not be taken as half or unqualified

human beings. What is more important is to recognise that the definitions of citizen

and citizenship are results of temporary consensus of the society; they are changing

all the time and people, who are not suited to them, can always be found. Drawingon the Dutch political theorist Herman van Gunsteren, Balibar proposes an insight-

ful understanding of citizenship and the contextualised community: [A]ll political

communities today are communities of fate They are communities already

including difference and conflict, where heterogeneous people and groups have been

thrown by history and economics next to each other (2001, p. 28). Based on

this, citizenship or civility is a concept under construction, in the making, rather

than a fixed legal status and should not be taken as a certain criterion for imposing

discrimination.

All in all, I suggest that educators engage themselves in a form of pedagogy by

acknowledging, even welcoming difference and otherness rooted in living processes

not only of human beings but also of all kinds of living beings. Schools are not

conceived as static sites for the normalisation, standardisation, socialisation andpoliticalisation or citification of young generations, but rather a flexible space

within which individual embodied, dynamic engagement and participation can

freely take place, a site within which individuals are encouraged to challenge and

confront the established bounds, limits and stereotypes imposed on people. The pre-vious exploration points towards an approach to education implying going beyond

tolerance: welcome for a broader range of differences in real situations. This

understanding might lead education for human rights as well as for citizenship

towards a wider, more open and freer future.

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank the editor and the reviewers for their very helpful sug-

gestions for improving this manuscript. This manuscript is funded by the National

Science Council Taiwan, Grant Project NSC 98-2410-H-415-001-MY2.

Notes on contributor

Ruyu Hung is professor in philosophy of education at the Department of Education,National Chiayi University, Taiwan. Her interests are in the fields of phenomenology,ecological thinking, post-structuralism, human rights education and the interrelations

between them. Some of her recent publications are: Learning nature: How the

understanding of nature enriches education and life? published by Common GroundPublishing; Citizenship with/in or without lifeworld? A critical review of contemporaryperspectives of citizenship, Policy Futures in Education, 9(2), 172182; and In search ofaffective citizenship: From the pragmatist-phenomenological perspective, Policy Futures in

Education, 8(5), 488499.

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