The Sir Keith Wilson Oration, given at the Australian Association of Gerontology on 26th November 2014. Dr Simon Duffy explores the ideas that shape our public services and our attitude of respect towards people with disabilities and our elders. He advocates a fuller and more inclusive notion of citizenship and challenges professionals to see themselves as citizens, working on behalf of community and citizen action. He suggests that ideas like Consumer Directed Care are deeply problematic and need to be reframed around citizenship and community.

1. Sir Keith Wilson Oration
What’s Citizenship
Got To Do With It?
Talk by Dr Simon Duffy for the Australian Association of
Gerontology, Adelaide, 26 November 2014

2. • Why citizenship should be central
• How to achieve citizenship
• How to organise for citizenship
• How professionals can be citizens

3. For thousands of years people have
struggled to achieve citizenship - to be seen
as an equal and for the rights and duties
that go with citizenship. But, today we’ve
forgotten the true meaning of citizenship.
The welfare state, which should support
citizenship, instead treats us as tax payers,
service users, consumers or patients. This is
not just wrong, it is unsustainable.
It is time to see citizenship as the purpose of
the welfare state and to ensure our society
supports citizenship for all.

4. Citizenship is not the
whole of life. But it is
critical to the life we lead
together - in community.
If we ignore it we will find
ourselves in big trouble.

5. 3 negative questions
• If we are not enabling citizenship for others then
what are we trying to do instead?
• If we are not organised to promote citizenship then
what are we organised to promote?
• If we are not acting as citizens in our work then
what role are we playing?

6. Who are the citizens?

7. Citizenship seems
so distant
• Politics used to mean
‘community life’
• Citizens were just ‘people of the
city’ or community (although
admittedly not all people were
allowed to be citizens)
• Now politics happens
‘elsewhere’

8. Our current understanding of
citizenship is unsustainable
• Voting - an activity that takes a few seconds every
few years.
• Passport - the ability to leave the community (and
then come back)
• Equal rights - being able to get help and protection
from others.
Citizenship can’t just be about getting
it must be about giving if it is going work.

9. Sustainable citizenship
• The ideal of citizenship must have value within the
community.
• The work of citizenship must be to practically
welcome people into citizenship.
• The conditions for citizenship must be available
to all - we must organise for it.

10. We regard wealth as being something to be
properly used, rather than as something to boast
about… Here each individual is interested not only
in their own affairs but also the affairs of the
community… We do not say that one who takes no
interest in community life is minding their own
business; we say they have no business here at
all....
... each single one of our citizens, in all the manifold
aspects of life, is able to show themselves the
rightful lord and owner of their own person, and do
this, moreover, with exceptional grace and
exceptional versatility. [Pericles]

11. Is this dignity?

12. • Dignity and respect are linked.
• Dignity means worth. We each have equal worth,
but sometimes our situation causes others to treat
us without worth, without respect, in an undignified
way.
• Respect means seeing someone in the right way.
• Citizenship is a way of living together as equals -
with mutual respect.

13. Mark Haydon-Laurelut and Karl Nunkoosing explored
what underpins abusive or positive relationships in
‘care settings’. They argue that:
• We tend to treat the challenges of dignity and
respect as merely a matter of acceptance or
affection - being nice.
• But it is possible to be nice to someone and yet fail
to respect them.

15. • Acceptance must be combined with a positive view
of someone’s potential for contribution and the
community’s willingness to accept that gift.
• You can like them - yet protect them from life.
• You can also be positive without wanting to be with
them - controlling from a distance.

16. Alternatives to citizenship
Their analysis aligns well with philosophical thinking
about community and citizenship. Broadly the
alternatives to citizenship are:
• Individualism - protecting me or mine
• Collectivism - controlling them (workers,
consumers, service users etc.) for their own good

17. A philosopher from Mars
would hear a people
talking like rugged
individualists and
pretending they didn’t
need other people
(neoliberals).
But he would see
government taking
increasing control over
people’s lives in the
interests of their well-being
(utilitarianism).

18. The problem with
utilitarianism
• It flourishes despite deep philosophical flaws
• It dominates social science and social policy
• It seems democratic, but implies elitist control
• It’s linked to euthanasia: killing people to reduce
pain
• And eugenics: killing or breeding people to
improve happiness, race or IQ (pick your poison)

19. The citizenship alternative
• Citizen is both an independent individual and an equal
member of a community to which he or she is bound by
duties - responsibilities
• Thus citizenship opens up the door to reconciling our
fundamental need to be respected by others - as an equal
- in all our diversity.
• The dual nature of this ideal reflects the two modes of its
corruptions: liberalism (individualism) or collectivism
(statism)
• Citizenship remains a real possibility.

21. We make citizenship real by
1. Finding our sense of purpose
2. Having the freedom to pursue it
3. Having enough money to be free
4. Having a home where we belong
5. Getting help from other people
6. Making life in community
7. Finding love

22. This protects our dignity
1. Our life is seen to have meaning
2. We are not on someone else’s control
3. We can pay our way - we’re not unduly dependent
4. We have a stake in the community
5. We give others the chance to give
6. We contribute to the community
7. We are building the relationships that sustain community

23. Is this realistic?

24. Yes. But only if we are
prepared to do the work.

27. Why is it so hard to
‘do’ citizenship?

36. Is Consumer Directed
Care the answer?

37. Origin of “Consumer” early 15c., "one who
squanders or wastes," agent noun from
consume. In economic sense, "one who
uses up goods or articles" (opposite of
producer) from 1745.

38. Origin of “Care” Old English caru (noun),
carian (verb), of Germanic origin; related to
Old High German chara 'grief, lament',
charon 'grieve', and Old Norse kǫr
'sickbed'.

39. Is the answer
Consumer-led Markets?

40. This is not a market

41. This is not a consumer-led market

42. what we really need is an ‘agora’
Origin of agora "assembly place," 1590s,
from Greek agora "open space" (typically a
marketplace), from ageirein "to assemble,"
from PIE root *ger- "to gather" (see
gregarious ).

43. The need for a different kind of
relationship between citizens and
the citizens we call professionals

44. A citizen who takes on a paid role on
behalf of the community is bound by
honour to act on behalf of that community.
It is a role of extra responsibility and
honour.

45. The Professional Citizen
• Citizens don’t compete (much)
• Citizens don’t rebel (often)
• Citizens do cooperate
• Citizens do construct

46. “Honour can exist
anywhere, love can exist
anywhere, but justice can
exist only among people
who found their
relationships upon it.”
Ursula Le Guin

47. Let’s choose justice
Let’s choose citizenship
© Simon Duffy. www.centreforwelfarereform.org