Book Review
Belonging: The Paradox of Citizenship by Adrienne Clarkson In 2014, television personality, journalist, best selling author, public servant and Canada’s first visible minority Governor General (Koch, 2010), Adrianne Clarkson delivered the CBC Massey Lectures (Nagy, 2014) in which she shared her thoughts through a collection of essays in which she explored citizenship in Canada and what it means to be a citizen of this country by reflecting on her own journey of immigrating as a child to Canada from Hong Kong. The contents of these lectures can be found in her book, Belonging: The Paradox of Citizenship. This monograph that could be described partly as a memoir, as Clarkson’s ideas and thoughts regarding the concept of belonging …show more content…
She positions these examples in relation to the idea of broadening circles, a notion that stemmed from Canadian Aboriginal Circles, and places significant emphasis on “inclusiveness as a form of expansion” (pg. 3). Clarkson reflects that by being “part of the circle we belong to the same ring of being; we take our place and let others do the same…it allows everyone to see each other, touch each other, and lose fear of each other” (pg. …show more content…
Her discussion places a significant weight on not only a citizen’s rights but also their duties and responsibilities, specifically those that involve acknowledging and accepting the differences and treating others equally. By accepting individuals in our society who come from different cultural, ethnic, and faith backgrounds than their own it allows the citizens of society to engage in the cosmopolitan ethic – a principle that underlines the important of diversity by rejecting
Belonging: The Paradox of Citizenship by Adrienne Clarkson In 2014, television personality, journalist, best selling author, public servant and Canada’s first visible minority Governor General (Koch, 2010), Adrianne Clarkson delivered the CBC Massey Lectures (Nagy, 2014) in which she shared her thoughts through a collection of essays in which she explored citizenship in Canada and what it means to be a citizen of this country by reflecting on her own journey of immigrating as a child to Canada from Hong Kong. The contents of these lectures can be found in her book, Belonging: The Paradox of Citizenship. This monograph that could be described partly as a memoir, as Clarkson’s ideas and thoughts regarding the concept of belonging …show more content…
She positions these examples in relation to the idea of broadening circles, a notion that stemmed from Canadian Aboriginal Circles, and places significant emphasis on “inclusiveness as a form of expansion” (pg. 3). Clarkson reflects that by being “part of the circle we belong to the same ring of being; we take our place and let others do the same…it allows everyone to see each other, touch each other, and lose fear of each other” (pg. …show more content…
Her discussion places a significant weight on not only a citizen’s rights but also their duties and responsibilities, specifically those that involve acknowledging and accepting the differences and treating others equally. By accepting individuals in our society who come from different cultural, ethnic, and faith backgrounds than their own it allows the citizens of society to engage in the cosmopolitan ethic – a principle that underlines the important of diversity by rejecting