Citizenship and scholarship in Emerson, Cavell and Foucault

This article explores the relationship between democracy, citizenship and scholarship through the notion of voice. The conception of voice in current policy operates governmentally, and shores up an identity ordered according to existing classifications and choices rather than destabilising it, and enabling critique. Rather than leading to an empowerment then the notion of voice, found in policy, research and practice, constitutes a depoliticisation of citizenship. The work of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Stanley Cavell and Michel Foucault is drawn upon here to explore an understanding of voice constituted in seeking a different way of accounting for ourselves, a different relation of the self to the self and others than is demanded by the current order. This is explored in relation to thought and scholarship as expressions of one's voice and thus of one's citizenship.