Global citizenship and the global citizen/consumer: Perspectives from practitioners in development NGOs in Portugal

Abstract

This paper makes an empirical contribution to the debate about the pluralism of global citizenship. This is considered a crucial aspect for research, not only because charity and social justice standpoints coexist, but also in the light of growing examples of neoliberal understandings about global citizenship education and the global citizen. Informed by critical and postcolonial thinking and with a special focus on Andreotti’s discursive orientations, this paper analyses discourses of practitioners of global citizenship education who work in development NGOs in Portugal. Findings suggest that humanist views are predominant, although intertwined with neoliberal and postcolonial perspectives. They also point to an archetypical vision of the global citizen and a prevalence of the responsible citizen-consumer as an agent of social change.

Keywords

development education development NGOs global citizenship education global education practitioners’ discourses

Introduction

Especially in the last two decades, global citizenship education has entered the educational priorities of international organizations (UNESCO, 2015) and national policies in education and development in Europe (Hartmeyer and Wegimont, 2016). Globalization has prompted many global citizenship movements and fostered the ‘sense of a global imperative in education’ (Pashby, 2011: 428). For decades, non-governmental organizations working in international development (NGDOs) have been key-players in global citizenship education (also called development education) in many European countries (Bourn, 2015).

However, global citizenship education is a contested and ‘highly disorganized body of knowledge’ (Yemini, 2017: 87). On the one hand there is variety of definitions and meanings of global citizenship education and being a global citizen. They can entail at once decolonial and critical perspectives as well as liberal and market-driven ideas (Andreotti, 2016; Schattle, 2008). This has implications in setting global citizenship as a body of knowledge and practice. On the other hand, this ambiguity impacts the ‘type’ of global citizenship put forward (Shultz, 2007). In fact, these different perspectives convey very distinct images of the world and the ‘Other’ (Baillie Smith, 2016). They also offer different explanations of the origins of the problems (e.g. global inequalities) and the actions needed to overcome them. As a result, a common criticism is that despite aiming to further critical and emancipatory approaches to global issues, global citizenship education often endorses less critical, benevolent or stereotypical views and practices (Jefferess, 2012). This is not a new criticism for NGDOs, who struggle to legitimise their work and reinvent ways of communicating it that are more mindful of the complexity of global issues (e.g. poverty) (Darnton and Kirk, 2011). Another concern is raised regarding the extent to which global citizenship education promotes the social transformation it advocates for, since it often focuses on transforming ‘thoughts and actions of individual persons’ (Schattle, 2008: 76). Changing personal consumption is a common goal of global citizenship education, particularly in the work of NGDOs (Brown, 2013, 2018; Kuleta-Hulboj, 2016). Overall, these issues point to some not-so-global aspects of global citizenship education and the global citizen imaginary.

Research focused on understanding the meanings of global citizenship makes a contribution at the theoretical and practical levels. Studies focused on understanding the views of NGDO practitioners and other global educators are necessary yet underexplored (Krause, 2010). Moreover, across Europe there is a transition from a ‘development education discourse’ to a ‘global citizenship education discourse’, including among NGOs (Baillie Smith, 2016), with the latter considered as best describing the aims of this education.¹ In Portugal, global citizenship is a national priority in education and development policies (Council of Ministers, 2018). However, empirical and theoretical evidence about the work of NGDOs is lacking (Coelho, Caramelo and Menezes, 2018). This paper makes an original contribution on this topic by analysing discourses of global citizenship and development education practitioners working in NGDOs in the country.

Many ways of telling a story: Acknowledging diversity in global citizenship imaginary(ies)

Several authors have contributed to a systematic understanding of discourses on global citizenship (e.g. Oxley and Morris, 2013; Schattle, 2008). The work of the postcolonial scholar Andreotti (2011, 2016) of mapping ‘discursive orientations’ is a particularly comprehensive framework, and has been applied in several countries (e.g. South Korea, Cho and Mosselson, 2018; Poland, Kuleta-Hulboj, 2016). The author describes three main ‘discursive orientations’ on global citizenship education: ‘liberal-humanist’, ‘technicist-neoliberal’ and an ‘orientation based on postcolonial theory’ (Andreotti, 2016: 202–203). The liberal-humanist discourse elaborates on the idea of shared humanity and a concern with human rights; it elects sustainable development as a paramount goal for development education, to which active citizens’ actions (global and local) make a difference. The technicist-neoliberalist discourse emphasizes the challenges of living in a globalized era and under the influence of global markets. Hence, education must prepare citizens to navigate it, for instance, by investing in the development of ‘global’ skills. Another important feature is the valorization of ethical consumption options. The last orientation – the yet-to-come postcolonial possibility, as Andreotti names it – considers the need to deconstruct structural causes of inequalities; it values human diversity and ethical, self-aware and solidary engagement towards a profound change in current social relations and structures. Therefore, education under this orientation is especially concerned with issues of power and knowledge production. The three orientations differ from each other but also intersect, which means that views on global citizenship can be at once humanist and critical (see examples of this in Cho and Mosselson, 2018). This hybridity is recognized as being part of the framework (Suša, 2016).

The growth of neoliberal discourses on global citizenship education is a point of concern for the field and other related areas (e.g. international education, Engel and Siczek, 2018). Why is this problematic? Neoliberal global citizenship tends to be ‘limited to individual actions, jobs and relationships that potentially downplay the role of the collective and systemic’ (Hartung, 2017: 25) action. It tends to be used as a tool for market-driven purposes, that matches individual responsibility with economicist aspirations (Choi and Kim, 2018). This leads to an excessive focus on personal behaviours in addressing issues that are of a social and political nature. Double standards regarding other cultures are perpetuated, since they serve the purposes of competing (national) economies (Choi and Kim, 2018). It also implies that not all of us are ‘global citizens’.

Who then is a global citizen? Global and not-so-global entanglements

The global citizen is often described as someone with ‘a complex and pluralistic identity’ (Pashby, 2011: 437), who is aligned with the well-disseminated profile of the global citizen devised by OXFAM (2006): (i) an agentic, active person, with an awareness about global issues and the increased global connectivity between countries and people; (ii) that respects and values diversity; (iii) whose global awareness is associated with a sense of belonging to a global community that overcomes the country of birth or living; (iv) and who fosters responsibility and commitment towards local and global realities, and a critical understanding of the personal role in the global arena; (v) and thus converts these principles in their daily life options, for example, through responsible and ethical consumption (OXFAM, 2006; UNESCO, 2015). As Dower (2003: 93) concedes, the growth of ethical consumption relates to the fact that

many global citizens become acutely conscious of the damaging effects of lifestyles and the background practices (. . .) needed to sustain those lifestyles. The recognition of the indirect causing of harm provides a powerful reason for concerned individuals to change the way they live and to argue for widespread social and political change.

The self-critical ‘responsible’ global citizen appears, therefore, as one of the strongest discourses in this area (Pasbhy, 2011). This imaginary is not without hazard, and in fact conveys exclusions. First, most of the literature addresses and is aimed at citizens of the Global North (Bryan, 2013), who are directly or indirectly held accountable for the remaining world. As a consequence, the ‘responsible for whom’ question emerges (Baillie Smith, 2016). This is problematic because it ends by endorsing ‘white saviour’, ‘salvationist’ and ‘paternalist’ ideals, where a (Global South) Other is left at a dependent and subaltern stance, and pictured as an ‘object of benevolence’ (Andreotti, 2011; Jefferess, 2012: 27). Therefore, colonial or charity-assistive modes of thinking may be perpetuated instead of opposed and the agency of the poor omitted (Baillie Smith, 2016). Some scholars also strongly disagree with the idea of an agentic autonomous citizen, as the notion of agency often subsumes the weight of power structures (Koyama, 2016). A second point of critique relates to normative understandings of citizenship. In fact, bearing in mind the definition of citizenship around territory and nationality alone (Heater, 1999), in a world with millions of stateless persons² and the systematic ‘decitizenization of particular people’ (Shultz, 2018: 253), not everyone is considered a (global) citizen. This inevitably reinforces citizenship as a category of exclusion (Oxley and Morris, 2013), thus separating, at its very roots, those belonging to and those excluded from a given citizenship – colliding with, for example, a human rights discourse (Benhabib, 2004). In this regard, the possibility of really being a global citizen and having global citizenship is questioned, because while

for some it implies universality and a deep commitment to a broader moral purpose (. . .) for others it cannot feasibly be a valid concept due to the perceived absence of a ruling authority (e.g. a world government) on which to base such an idea of citizenship. (Oxley and Morris, 2013: 303)

This (presupposed) universalism often attributed to global citizenship aims and values is also of concern. In fact, an apparently all-inclusive or neutral position regarding global citizenship is a misconception, as national histories and territories influence citizenship (Baillie Smith, 2016), and global citizenship does not exist in a ‘void’. A critical perspective of global citizenship requires citizens to gain awareness of what is implied in (global) ‘belonging’, and account for (post)colonial relations (Shultz, 2018).

Moreover, research has evidenced a normative view of the profile of the global citizen (Marshall, 2005). According to Pashby (2011: 430), this tends to be Western-based (often European) and liberalism-influenced and whose citizenship is oriented ‘on a global scale by “expanding” or “extending” or “adding” their sense of responsibility (. . .) through the local to national to global community’. Additionally, it has been framed against the idea of good citizenship (Marshall, 2005), and connected to highly mobile socioeconomic elites (Shultz, 2018). By often favouring ‘the agency of the “giver” and their capacity to effect change’ (Baillie Smith, 2016: 105), NGDOs have been struggling with many of these critiques (Krause, 2016), as research with practitioners suggests.

Development NGOs and global citizenship: Understanding practitioners’ views

Studies about the view of NGDO practitioners and educators on development and global citizenship education are scarce, despite their relevance in Europe (Hartmeyer and Wegimont, 2016). The importance of addressing this gap is manifold. First, as international development agents, NGOs face the same criticisms of the ‘development industry’ (Krause, 2016), such as perpetuating coloniality and paternalism regarding countries of the Global South. NGDOs have made important progress in moving away from charity-assistive perspectives (e.g. fund raising) towards a social justice orientation that also includes the critique of development (Davies, 2006). However, that is an ongoing effort for NGOs (Darnton and Kirk, 2011). Second, as neither-public-nor-private actors, NGDOs’ action is under growing scrutiny, due to ambivalences around finances, ideologies and practices (Noh, 2018). One particular feature of NGOs, Ismail and Kamat (2018: 569) find, is that they are, on the one hand, ‘a “favoured institutional form” (. . .) of the neoliberal state and, on the other, capable of building alliances against neoliberalism’. As consequence, NGOs are confronted with legitimacy issues and with a growing attention to their ‘daily life’, for instance, through demands of greater clarity regarding practitioners’ work in global citizenship (Noh, 2018; Skinner and Baillie Smith, 2015).

Studies with global citizenship education practitioners in NGOs reflect many of the ambivalences mentioned. Ambivalence exists regarding terminology, values and beliefs, as well as criticism of the limitations and moral tone of global citizenship and the global citizen (e.g. Marshall, 2005, in the UK). Choices are influenced by contextual factors, and the nature and duration of global citizenship activities, with short-term activities falling into more charity-oriented modes, limiting social justice approaches and conflicting with practitioners’ beliefs (e.g. Brown, 2013, 2018, in Spain and Britain). Research based on Andreotti’s framework also suggests ambivalent discourses, where humanism is prevalent yet coexists with critical and neoliberal views (e.g. Kuleta-Hulboj, 2016 in Poland), or even ‘heavily neoliberal’ views (Cho and Mosselson, 2018: 875, in South Korea). On the whole, authors call attention to the ambivalence experienced by practitioners and to the fact that charity or neoliberalism reproduce inequalities and prevent global citizenship education from being transformative. Several studies also suggest that practitioners have an agentic view of the global citizen, with great focus on individual attributes and behaviours, often related to consumption or personal skills (e.g. Brown, 2013; Kuleta-Hulboj, 2016). An elitist imaginary around the global citizen (e.g. ‘global celebrities’, ‘global leaders’ or people from a higher socioeconomic background) coexists with more social visions (e.g. global belonging and social change) (Cho and Mosselson, 2018: 868).

Global citizenship education in Portugal: An overview³

In Portugal, non-governmental organizations working in the field of international development (NGDOs) are considered the precursors and still the main promoters of global citizenship or development education. As in other European countries (e.g. Spain), development education emerged as a branch of international development under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA). Informally, development education started before the end of dictatorship (1974). Civil society groups, then clandestine, advanced the anti-colonial struggle and informed on severe human rights violations happening in the former colonies (GENE (Global Education Network Europe), 2014). With the end of colonization, informal groups were reconfigured into NGOs dedicated to supporting international development, training of staff overseas and raising public awareness of the need for aid investment (e.g. poverty). Around the time of Portugal’s entrance into the European Union in the mid-1980s, NGDOs became stronger through collective organization in a national platform (PPONGD) and their connection to European peers, policies and funding. Development education became a formal field of intervention for NGDOs (1998) and of the international development policies by the MFA (2001). Since 2005, there has been a grant scheme for development education promoted by NGDOs, still the main source of funding for this education and for NGDOs.

Global citizenship education expanded beyond development and to formal education in the last decade. Since 2010, the MFA and the Ministry of Education have issued a National Strategy for Development Education, currently in its second cycle (2018–2022) (Council of Ministers, 2018). The strategy targets civil society organizations (other than NGDOs), as well as higher education institutions (especially those training future educators and teachers), schools and local authorities, and aims to promote global citizenship education in formal and non-formal education. The Ministry of Education includes development education in citizenship education policies and in the school subject ‘citizenship and development’ (2018).

The most recent survey on the non-governmental sector (Franco, 2015), states 174 development NGOs in Portugal, the majority claiming to work in international development and development education. During the data collection for this research, the national platform of NGDOs included 65 of these, 46 of which claimed to work on development education (PPONGD (Portuguese NGDOs Platform), 2014). From 2005 until 2018, about 7.2 million euros of MFA funding was granted to 182 development education projects and 23 NGDOs (only about half of which have projects sponsored on regular basis in this period). NGDOs acting in development education are small scale, and most of them prioritize their work in Portuguese-speaking countries. These organizations face obstacles common to NGOs, struggling for ‘financial sustainability, the dependence on external income and the difficulties in obtaining funding’ (Author et al., 2019: 122; Lewis and Kanji, 2009). To date, few studies have targeted global citizenship education in NGDOs and their practitioners more systematically (e.g. AAVV, 2014; Keller et al., 2014). Therefore, knowledge about development education remains largely within institutions and their staff, explaining the need to ‘clarify narratives in global citizenship education’ (Marques, 2015: 4). In this paper we explore how global citizenship educators working in NGDOs in Portugal view global citizenship and the global citizen, in a context where political priorities in development education coexist with a colonial past and a persistent everyday ‘coloniality of power’ (Quijano, 2000).

Methodology

We conducted a qualitative study in NGDOs, based on semi-structured, in-depth interviews with global citizenship educators in 2017. We invited eight organizations, seven of whom agreed to collaborate. Organizations were selected considering the existence of a nuanced NGDO scenario (GENE (Global Education Network Europe), 2014) and with the aim of including diversified views on the research topic (Rapley, 2007). The sample was intentionally selected considering the group of 46 working on development education (PPONGD (Portuguese NGDOs Platform), 2014) mentioned above. The sample of eight resulted from the full combination of the following criteria: (i) diversified length of existence (organizations up to 10 years; between 11 and 20 years; and over 20 years); (ii) faith-based vs secular organizations; (iii) existence of paid, full-time human resources allocated to development education; and (iv) existence of sponsored projects. Although this is a small sample, most of these organizations have gathered the highest portion of the MFA’s grants to development education throughout the years. Each organization identified a professional to be interviewed.

We adopted a constructivist epistemological stance regarding the interviews and the act of interviewing, valuing practitioners’ ‘retrospective (and prospective) accounts or versions of their past (or future) actions, experiences, feelings and thoughts’ (Rapley, 2007: 16, italics in original). Also, despite seeking the perspectives of practitioners, we acknowledged that they belonged to an organization (and sometimes more than one), on behalf of which they also speak (Gubrium and Holstein, 2002). Bearing this in mind, while conducting interviews, interviewees were encouraged to express both personal and institutional views. The script was composed by: (i) personal and professional trajectories; (ii) current and future situation of development education in the context of NGDOs; and (iii) views on development, global citizenship education and the global citizen. For the purpose of this work, we focus on two questions: the views on global citizenship (education) and the definition of a global citizen.

Interviews were conducted in person, in the facilities of each organization. The content was audio-recorded, fully transcribed and returned to participants for validation and to confirm informed consent. The group of interviewees comprised five women and two men, between approximately 30 and 50 years of age, who worked as project managers in development education, five of them with a coordination role and two also being board members in their organizations. The majority had extensive professional experience in this education (10–18 years), mostly in the current organization. Their background was mostly in social sciences and humanities, with further training in development and global issues (Table 1).

Table 1.

Participants in the in-depth interviews.

P	Sex	Age	Current position	Years of work in DE/GCE		Training profile
P	Sex	Age	Current position	Total	Current NGDO	Academic background
1	M	47	Member of board DE/DC staff	18	18	1st	Psychology*
1	M	47	Member of board DE/DC staff	18	18	2nd	Management of development and humanitarian action
2	F	43	Coordinator of GCE GCE staff	18	18	1st	International relations
2	F	43	Coordinator of GCE GCE staff	18	18	2nd	African studies
3	M	40	Coordinator of GCE GCE staff	10	10	1st	Business management
3	M	40	Coordinator of GCE GCE staff	10	10	2nd	African studies*
4	F	27	Coordinator of GCE GCE staff	3	3	1st	Sociology
4	F	27	Coordinator of GCE GCE staff	3	3	2nd	International relations Development studies Human rights
5	F	44	Member of board GCE staff	12	12	1st	Teacher/Portuguese language and culture
5	F	44	Member of board GCE staff	12	12	2nd	Lusophone studies Portuguese as a foreign language Development cooperation Globalization studies*
6	F	39	Coordinator of GCE GCE staff	9	9	1st	Sociology
6	F	39	Coordinator of GCE GCE staff	9	9	2nd	Social work
7	F	35	Coordinator of GCE GCE staff	12	3	1st	Leisure and social pedagogy
7	F	35	Coordinator of GCE GCE staff	12	3	2nd	International relations – peace studies*

P: participant; F: female; M: male; DE/GCE: development education/global citizenship education; DC: development cooperation; * attending. DE/GCE are adopted in accordance to preferences expressed by interviewees and in the scope of their organizations.

Interviews were analysed using thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006). This allows identification of patterns (the themes), that can be descriptive (semantic themes) or underlying (latent themes), and be obtained inductively (data-driven) or deductively (theory-driven). Thematic analysis is suitable to explore qualitative data on emergent issues, and for different theories and epistemologies. This article accounts for a small sample of the content generated by the interviews. For the analysis of the entire dataset, once familiarized with the content, we first performed an inductive analysis, searching for semantic themes, followed by a search for latent themes. The elements identified suggested many resemblances to issues found in the literature, and thus we finally performed a deductive analysis, aiming to pattern types of discourse in a more systematic way. This last step was informed by Andreotti’s framework as the main device, in combination with theory on global citizenship and the global citizen.

Findings

The discussion of the findings starts with a broad overview of participants discourses on global citizenship, following Andreotti’s framework. In the second stage, we discuss how participants profile the global citizen. Finally, we reflect on two predominant themes of the global citizen profile (and therefore, also of global citizenship education): the responsible citizen-consumer and the individual change maker.

Overall, practitioners’ definition of global citizenship was expressed many times by portraying their idea of the global citizen (and vice-versa). The change in discourses from development to global citizenship (Coelho, Caramelo and Menezes, 2018), also impacted the way practitioners (P) expressed their views, with practitioners more positive views on global citizenship. Practitioners consider that it is more comprehensive, significant and suitable for the current world when compared to the notion of ‘development education’. Two interviewees were critical of the idea of global citizenship due to its conceptual limitations, and questioned its ‘popularity’ and novelty (P1) and the actual feasibility of a (territory/nationality-defined) citizenship being global (P1; P5).

On discursive orientations: The humanist intertwined

In the light of Andreotti’s framework, there are no clear-cut discourses. Discourses are predominantly aligned with a liberal-humanist vision, combined with some expressive traits from postcolonial and technicist-neoliberal perspectives. This liberal-humanist vision is exemplified by the focus on commonalities, the idea of shared humanity and values, actions oriented towards sustainable development and ‘a better, prosperous and harmonious future for all’ with an underlying notion of people as ‘agents of change’ (Andreotti, 2016: 202–203). There was a common understanding that the role of this education is to tackle global issues by making citizens aware of respective causes and structural imbalances. Discourses also evidence justice orientation towards ‘fundamental structural/societal/relational change’ and ‘critical engagement with debates’, which are important signs of a commitment to a social transformation agenda and consistent with postcolonial concerns (Andreotti, 2016). Nevertheless, the reference to margins or minorities was not predominant, nor were other aspects of the postcolonial orientation, such as the explicit critique of power relations or the importance of ‘unlearning privilege’ (Andreotti, 2016). In the postcolonial reading, these absences express signs of depoliticization, a common problem in the field (Andreotti, 2011).

Yet, perspectives around global citizenship and the global citizen also had a strong emphasis on people as individuals, in keeping with humanist and neoliberal visions. On the one hand, personal lifestyles and consumption, as somehow implied or aimed at by this education, were predominant. On the other hand, frequent references were made to building personal capacity to address challenges that affect us all, to adjust citizens to an interdependent world, and to stimulate positive, co-responsible, committed local and global actions. According to Andreotti’s (2016: 202–203) proposal, both ‘ethical consumerism’ and ‘capacity building’ aimed at the development of the individual’s ‘global skills’ are also expressive traits of a more technicist-neoliberal orientation.

The archetypical global citizen

Overall, findings suggest an ‘archetypical’ (Koyama, 2016) vision of the global citizen, described in similar terms to highly disseminated proposals (e.g. Dower, 2003; OXFAM, 2006) pointed out early on: an agentic, active, aware, responsible and committed person, capable of generating positive change through daily choices. The following extract is particularly illustrative:

(. . .) a person who recognizes the need to have an active role in a world that is no longer so divided between “us” and “them”, “developed” and “developing”. Obviously they recognize inequalities and the need to work towards the promotion of equity and justice (. . .) they recognize that they belong to a global community (. . .). Most of all, is a citizen capable of reflecting critically (. . .) having the will and competences to act in the community (. . .) but acknowledging that in that same way he/she deals with challenges that are not only his/hers and is able to relate to others. (P4, female, 27 years)

The notion of belonging to a global world or community – for some, to a ‘common house’ (P6) – as well as an altruistic concern with the common good (P7) was also recurrent. In practitioners’ voices, global belonging is a positive, powerful idea, with the potential to enrol people in global citizenship and raise their commitment to global problems. The idea of ‘global’ was expressed in diverse ways: as an understanding of interdependences between issues, between global and local actions (P1, P5); as a sense of inclusivity of all individuals (P1); and also ‘geographically’, that is, global citizenship (education) as something that applies to all countries, regardless of their ‘development’ (P2, P5).

This broad idea contrasts with a predominantly Northern ‘target’ for global citizenship education, including the NGDOs where interviewees work. A language of ‘us and them’ was sometimes adopted, with ambivalence: as a critical binary that development education should help to address and other times underlying practitioners’ views. Therefore, our data highlights not only debates regarding salvationism, but also the exclusions of global citizenship. Once again, it is also related to concerns around universalism, a benevolent idea of global belonging, and the need for critical historical consciousness. Despite the anti-colonial beginning of global citizenship education in Portugal and the country’s (post)colonial heritage, the link between this condition and the ‘whys’ and ‘hows’ of this education did not emerge in practitioners’ discourses as other issues did (e.g. sustainable lifestyle changes). This is also of concern if we consider that many NGDOs undertake their work in Portuguese speaking countries which were once under colonial domination (PPONGD (Portuguese NGDOs Platform), 2014). However, this absence is best understood in the light of reluctant and highly conflicting collective management of the country’s (post)colonial condition (Ribeiro, 2016). Strengthened critical historical and political consciousness is, therefore, a challenge for education in general (Ferreira et al., 2013).

Our findings depict citizenship as belonging and agency. Citizenship entails a sense of co-citizenship and co-responsibility by/towards others in local and global contexts (P1). But (global) citizenship also means citizen action across the various spheres of life (P2) as in the excerpt:

(. . .) citizenship implies the citizen. I see a citizen as a whole: here, relating to you, in my building, in my community, with my school, with my country, with the world. And all this is (. . .) citizenship, from my personal point of view. (. . .) All this is transversal to – how can I say this?. . . to the creation of better human beings, more capable and attentive to the Other. (P5, female, 44 years)

However, findings suggest normative, nation-state-based rationales too (Koyama, 2016; Pashby, 2011). Some described global citizenship and the citizen by reference to and as a natural expansion of local or national citizenship. As one interviewee claimed, ‘the definition of global citizenship is not necessarily different from the definition of citizenship. It raises the scale a little bit’ (P7, female, 35 years). This ‘expansion’ was voiced and these different ‘scales’ (from ‘family to nation to global community’, Pashby, 2011: 437) were acknowledged, but without questioning how these relate, conflict or produce situations of ‘decitizenization’ (Shultz, 2018: 253). This ‘local to global’ rationale is a core feature in discourses with a social justice orientation (Pashby, 2011), and needs further understanding.

The responsible citizen-consumer and the individual change maker

The idea of the global citizen as a responsible individual was the most transversal, with a predominance of a discourse on the citizen’s duties (citizen’s rights were less predominant), with a clear normative flavour. This is visible in ‘having to’ balance ‘enjoyment’ and ‘care’, the rights and the ‘strong set of duties’ regarding the world (P7), or as one interviewee puts it, in the onus of individual responsibility:

(. . .) this [awareness of rights and duties] puts the onus on the person’s action. If we are speaking of education ‘for’, this ‘for’ presupposes another entity: we are allocating the onus of acting or being responsible in an external entity. Not the global citizen: it is the principle of co-responsibility, of co-creation, where we can be. . . where we are agents of change. (P2, female, 43 years)

In practitioners’ discourses, citizens’ awareness and sense of responsibility regarding global issues has to lead to a transformed action, and therefore global civic action emerges as a clear dimension of the global citizen (Dower, 2003). Often, this sense of responsibility is voiced as a commitment towards a global Other and social change, sometimes with a clear focus on social justice, and also with the humanist perspective of ‘care’ (P6, P7). The commitment to social transformation is, for some, what defines a global citizen, as ‘global citizenship has to do with people (. . .) interested and willing or committed to participate in a social transformation, that can happen at the local, national, regional or global level (. . .) aiming to create more just, equitable and sustainable societies’ (P3, male, 40 years). However, the responsibility of citizens was for many practitioners directly and strongly connected to consumption, given the disruption caused to people and the environment by (mostly Northern) patterns of consumption, as in the example:

(. . .) this citizen (. . .) has to be conscious of his/her lifestyles – and this is prominent for ‘developed countries’ so to speak, countries that spend more resources – and that their behaviour and consumption (. . .) has repercussions for people living in other places, for the planet’s resources (. . .). We cannot consume as if all belongs to us because it doesn’t, and we must leave resources for others. (P6, female, 39 years)

Participants are aware of the contribution of consumption to inequalities. To overcome such disruptions, many mentioned the importance of consciously choosing (P5), sustainable (P2) options, such as fair-trade and local products. By frequently emphasizing ‘political consumerism’ as a strategy for social change (Stolle et al., 2013), discourses tended, at least partly, to conflate the citizen with the consumer (Jubas, 2007: 147). In fact, especially when justifying why this education is important and why there is a need to foster global citizenship nowadays, several interviewees discussed the shortage, inadequacy and unsustainability of the current modes of consumption and production, and the need to revise them substantially. As mentioned, the majority of participants defined a global citizen as someone in relation to others (the co-responsibility and recognition of co-citizens) and other circumstances (geographic and contextual). However, references to this education as an opportunity for promoting collective participation, and forms of collective action were less frequent (e.g. lobbying with policy makers [P6], and corporations [P2] towards concrete changes; the promotion of solidarity economy mechanisms [P1]; and collaboration [P3; P4]). Often change was framed from an individual stance, especially through changing personal lifestyles, particularly ‘supermarket politics’ – ‘buycutting’ (reducing) or ‘boycotting’ specific products. A major issue here seems to be the extent to which global citizenship education endorses or is reduced to individual participation instead of generating change collectively. This more individualistic approach and the narrative of individual choices, particularly consumption, is an expressive trait of neoliberal discourses, ‘instructing citizens that they can reinvent themselves continually through the process of consumption (. . .) a signifier and an expression of citizenship’ (Jubas, 2007: 232).

Political consumerism is considered by many scholars as an emergent, non-conventional form of civic and politic participation which is not reduced to, but is often made visible through, lifestyle politics (De Moor, 2017). It can accommodate many different understandings (such as responsible, sustainable, conscious, green) the meanings of which are not necessarily the same. In fact, the word political is a decisive one, as consuming ethically or sustainably is not, in straightforward terms, consuming politically (De Moor, 2017). In short, ‘buying organic food, for example, may or may not have a political meaning, depending on the motivations for and the effects of that act’ (Stolle et al., 2005: 254). Our data suggests that consumption concerns are largely framed in terms of duty to others rather than narrow self-interest and we do not wish to downplay their political significance⁴. However, the extent to which the consumerism implied in global citizenship is political in this sense, and whether this kind of mindset is associated to more instrumental and apolitical forms of intervention among practitioners and even their audiences, is something to be further explored.

As a consequence of the emphasis on individual lifestyles and consumption, there seems to be a more or less assumed correspondence between individual action and social transformation. This link, for critical and postcolonial scholars, is both depoliticized and reductionist, subsuming power relations, indirectly fostering exclusion and overlapping ‘consumption and citizenship and capitalism and democracy, as if consumption offered a resolution to social and political struggles’ (Jubas, 2007: 251–252). Even if scholars recognize that the transference of public issues to the private sphere is a point of criticism in political consumerism (e.g. Stolle et al., 2013), the fact can hardly be escaped that consumption places us at a macrolevel and connects ‘private and public worlds’ (Trentmann, 2007: 155). Consumerism is seen as ‘neoliberalism-friendly’ and ‘primarily a self-regarding, personal risk-management activity involving the purchase of products that mostly benefit consumers themselves’ (Stolle et al., 2013: 205–207). A significant (postcolonial) point is also raised regarding what political consumerism does to the North-South understanding. In fact, it can be seen as ‘a Northern Project with a Northern Agenda’ (Stolle et al., 2013: 209), due to a distorted limited knowledge about, a vertical and disruptive relation with, and a paternalist stereotypical stance towards the South. As such, it fits into a ‘white saviour’ narrative (Jefferess, 2012).

Looking at pedagogical aspects of global citizenship education is also important in understanding the focus on individual acts, notably consumption. Such values are often endorsed in actions and pedagogical materials, usually Western-based (Pashby, 2012). The research of Brown (2018: 89) with practitioners in NGDOs suggests that while narrowing global citizenship education to individual choices left the ‘neoliberal ideology intact’, actions promoted also opened up the need for collective effort and worked as hubs for individuals with similar concerns. Brown (2018: 90–91) suggested that, often, the role of global citizenship education is ‘“planting seeds” in people’s minds, rather than to provide tools for direct social action’. This sort of individual-to-collective continuum, where development education can operate as a platform for like-minded people to congregate, and the extent to which practitioners envision the fostering of collective action as a central goal (now or in the future), should be explored in further research.

Discussion

Our findings confirm the ‘pervasive nature’ of neoliberalism (Harvey, 2005) and suggest evidence on how it blends with social justice and humanist intents. In fact, explicit critical social justice aims coexist with discourses that are neoliberal in essence. They endorse problematic solutions from a postcolonial point of view as well, thereby leading to (apparently not conscious) conflict between purpose and practice. Results also make sense in the light of the justice vs charity debate faced by development education and NGDOs more broadly (Bryan, 2013). A focus on individuals and their (consumption) choices might be considered as a ‘milder’ trait of a neoliberal discourse, when compared to heavy market discourses and an elitist global citizen in other studies (e.g. global leader, in Cho and Mosselson, 2018). However, we risk not only conflating the citizen and the consumer (as raised by Jubas, 2007), but also turning citizenship into citizenshop,⁵ compromising the counter-hegemonic and politicized character of development education. The signs of neoliberalism in global citizenship education should not be regarded as a ‘problem’ of NGDOs. In global education agendas, such as the OECD’s (2018), global competence couples the awareness of global issues with nurturing highly mobile workers, able to thrive in any part of the globe. In higher education, the focus on preparing global graduates/workers precludes active and democratic citizenship (Yemini et al., 2018). In Global South countries, this elitist perspective of global citizenship reinforces Western superiority and translates into teaching students ‘ways of knowing and doing the necessary to live and work/study in the West’, as Howard et al. (2018: 497) note.

Findings also draw attention to the imaginary and conditions for transformation. The sense that individual change leads to social transformation was explicit and implicit in practitioners’ discourses. In the scope of development education, how is social change defined and implemented? In which mode, if at all, do social and collective changes intersect with processes at the individual level? Can we enhance the yet ‘limited evidence of NGOs providing the tools to drive’ the ‘possibility of transformation’ suggested by Brown (2018: 95, italics in original)? Further research on practices, including networks and projects, as well as educational materials, would complement the findings of this study. The balance between collective/individual also challenges the current conditions of NGDOs in many countries (CONCORD Europe, 2018). As discussed elsewhere (Coelho, Caramelo and Menezes, 2019), the strong dependence of external, competitive funding impacts the way development education is implemented. Constraints limit the possibility of a sustained work, and favour ‘measurable’ individual behaviours (like lifestyle choices), rather than more substantial individual changes (like mind-frames), let alone collective actions. This should definitely challenge decision makers to rethink current policies and financing, for greater compatibility with that established by the National Strategy for Development Education (2018–2022): ‘ethically committed critical thinking; (. . .) deconstruction of stereotypes, and ensure non-discrimination, equality and dignity of all (. . .); participatory, collaborative and horizontal learning processes (. . .) that link different knowledge and levels (local, transnational and global; individual and collective) in a complex, nonlinear way’ (Council of Ministers, 2018: 3197).

A third issue raised by this study is the need for a wider engagement of global citizenship education literature with existent theory on citizenship, civic and political participation, where issues like political consumption have long been debated. We agree with Pashby (2011: 427) on ‘the need for a more complex theory of citizenship education’ for the field, rather than assuming that global citizenship education is always politicized. Citizenship education has been justly criticized for its apolitical tendencies with the support of functionalist and conformist traditions (Ribeiro et al., 2017; Biesta et al., 2009; Hedtke, 2013) that tend to promote a specific profile of ‘active’ citizens, as long as they are active in particular (pre-defined) ways. To reinvent its transformative potential clearly depends on the open recognition of the political character of global citizenship education – and therefore the tensional, conflictive, pluralistic and ongoing discussion of what global citizenship is or how a global citizen should act in our common world.

Concluding remarks

Despite its small reach, this study adds to current debates on the pluralism of global citizenship education. By focusing on discursive orientations, this study also calls for a better understanding of such pluralism among educators, teachers and decision makers. Gaining awareness of where we stand is important because humanist, neoliberal, and critical perspectives contribute differently to a ‘project of equity’ (Shultz, 2018: 253). This is especially important in a time when the 2030 Agenda is expanding global citizenship education significantly, and also considering its recent entrance into school curricula and higher education in many European countries (Hartmeyer and Wegimont, 2016). The study offers insight into NGDOs, key players in global citizenship education, among them, Northern small-scale organizations whose work is little known (Banks and Brockington, 2019). It also brings an understanding of development education and educators that is innovative in Portugal and relevant for formal and non-formal education.

Future studies could target other practitioners and other countries and consider models of global citizenship that go beyond the Western, liberal, nation-based model, and reflect on how the ‘local’, the ‘national’ and the ‘global’ intersect (Bamber et al., 2018).

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

Our thanks to the editors and reviewers for their insightful comments on this work, which resulted in its improvement. An earlier version of this text was included in the PhD thesis of . We are grateful to Dr Eleanor J. Brown for her valuable contribution to an earlier version of the analysis, presented at the EADI NORDIC 2017 Conference, at the University of Bergen, Norway, in August 2017. Our deep gratitude goes to the practitioners participating in this study.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article: Dalila P. Coelho is supported by the FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P. (Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, I.P.), with national funds from the Ministry of Education, under the grant number PD/BD/105706/2014. This work was also funded (in part) by National Funds through the FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., within the strategic funding of CIIE – Centre for Research and Intervention in Education, with the ref. UID/CED/00167/2013 and UID/CED/00167/2019.

ORCID iD

Isabel Menezes

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Global citizenship and the global citizen/consumer: Perspectives from practitioners in development NGOs in Portugal

Abstract

Keywords

Introduction

Many ways of telling a story: Acknowledging diversity in global citizenship imaginary(ies)

Who then is a global citizen? Global and not-so-global entanglements

Development NGOs and global citizenship: Understanding practitioners’ views

Global citizenship education in Portugal: An overview 3

Methodology

Findings

On discursive orientations: The humanist intertwined

The archetypical global citizen

The responsible citizen-consumer and the individual change maker

Discussion

Concluding remarks

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

Declaration of conflicting interests

Funding

ORCID iD

Notes

References

Global citizenship education in Portugal: An overview³