A Case for Special Interest Groups (and Drag Race) in Global Citizenship
Global citizenship inspires us to look beyond borders, past divisions and pretenses, and into communities with one another in which we feel invited to express our individual humanities, not just display our citizenship. The effect is unifying and facilitates connections across people who inhabit vastly different physical spaces who align in certain universal spaces, or interest groups. While some assert that regional identities facilitate the strongest sense of belonging due to identification with a place in the national social order, but I disagree. Global citizenship is inclusive of more personal attributes than broad national ones. While global citizens may not have identities strongly rooted in place, I believe what we do have is stronger than common soil: connections to people with whom we share a common passion.
Ru Paul’s Drag Race connects audiences around the world who fall in special interest groups as fans of alternative, yet universal in their appeal, modes of self-expression which exist beyond the ‘nation-state.’ Drag Race encapsulates many people’s favorite things which may be unavailable in their local bubbles: from those with no access drag bars, to people who fear persecution in their countries for their sexual orientation, to fans of makeup, fashion, and performance art.
The reasons why we like what we do can be hard to explain, likely linked to our emotional life, past experiences, interactions with our surroundings, and innately ingrained identities. Certain things appeal to certain people and have the potential to touch us on a deeper level than can the guise or label of citizenship. For example, I have always loved performing, dressing up, creating characters, and doing impersonations which is what drew me to Drag Race in my early teens. When I was a baby, my mom said that I would always dance to techno beats and run into stores pointing at every pretty bag or pair of shoes, crying if I could not get them, which has persisted into today with my passion for aesthetics, style, clothes, and joy for dancing to funky beats. I cannot explain why I like these things, but I do. When I find others who happen to delight in these same things, I feel strongly connected to them- because what spark elements of my personal humanity do the same for them. When we apply these interests on a global scale, the effect is more powerful and legitimizing and yields a greater sense of belonging in a more diverse community spanning the globe.
While one cannot help what one has an affinity for or dislikes, one does have a say in how one involves oneself in one’s interests. Taste is constantly evolving and can be cultivated with attention. Fan forums, chat rooms, fan pages, YouTube videos, and other communities living over the internet facilitate connections and shared experiences between fans all over the world from different backgrounds with similar taste. For example, fans of certain musicians can relate over this interest. Whether it involve Korean boy bands, or a global network of Electronic dance music lovers united in their enjoyment of rave culture over a platform like SoundCloud connecting universal, yet independent artists, or Facebook groups for fans of obscure bands with devoted cult followings, music has the power to form global communities in which nationality is irrelevant, while opinions, preferences, and experiences are paramount (these often do not factor into the formation of a dominant national identity). While listening to Portuguese EDM on SoundCloud, I noticed comments in all different languages on the same song across every segment, particularly right before the bass dropped. This connected our listening experiences.
As Ru Paul said, “We’re all born naked and the rest is drag”, or in terms of global citizenship, “We’re all born human and the rest are restrictive, impersonal associations that actively distract us from our commonalities.” We do not come out of the womb as national citizens! Yet many still happen to place their national citizenship in higher esteem than their individual humanity. This diminishes individual difference for the sake of the collective identity, and confines people to a group in which they may not feel personally represented.
Interacting principally on a national level can have a harmful effect on an individual’s ability to relate to others across the globe. Therefore, I believe it is important to identify as a global citizen by engaging with universal art forms instead of regional ones which limit one’s capacity for empathy. Celine-Marie Pascale asserts in Social Inequality & the Politics of Representation that “Locating the Other is always paralleled by an assessment of one’s own sociocultural identity and supports the construction of a national identity by showing what does not belong to and is foreign to ‘Us,’ the imagined communities of Europe” (198). Thus, national citizenship puts our thinking in terms of ‘Us’ and ‘them’ as citizens of ‘Our’ country versus ‘theirs.’ Global citizenship actively counteracts this by putting people from all nations into community with each other without depending on national citizenship for grounds to connect.
When an individual identifies with an interest group, they are not claiming to be anything they are not. The identity is specific enough to where the individual can comfortably commit all aspects of themselves. Interest group identities are to be defined (and consistently redefined) by their constituents, while national identities are predetermined by history/ those in power and closed to individual discretion.
National citizenship is largely defined by political systems and ideologies. For example, Americans share the values of equality, liberty, freedom, and independence while the French pride themselves in liberté, fraternité, et égalité. These values are overarching, broad, impersonal, and do not encompass the vast differences among citizens (interests, lifestyles, experiences). To identify strongly as a national citizen, you must overlook all the injustice in the system for the sake of the collective. National citizenship is blind on many fronts because it is impossible to be familiar with all the aspects of the political culture (many of which are disguised by those in power). Participation in special interest groups is voluntary, making it more special than national ones, which are more of a birthright or default. For an identity to be voluntary, one must be conscious of all that it entails and excludes before choosing to align oneself with it.
Being strongly devoted to your nationality can deprive you of opportunities, ways of living and thinking, and art that could potentially hit closer to home for you, or feel better, than your actual home. This is why I choose to believe that our nationalities are merely a form of drag which conceal much of our individual humanity.
Work Cited
Pascale, Celine-Marie, editor. Social Inequality & the Politics of Representation: a Global Landscape. Sage, 2013.
