Abstract

The globalised world of today seems to imply a kind of paradox: on the one hand, due to the slackening of borders and territorial divisions, it should more easily allow the appeal to the universality of rights and to all universal strategies of inclusion; on the other hand, in spite of this or perhaps because of this, it constitutes a dimension in which universality as such seems to be deprived of all meaning, or at least all effectiveness. In this paper, by considering the role which philosophy can still play in this regard, attention is focused on these dynamics of inclusion and exclusion as they operate in the sphere of rights and citizenship, and generate a peculiar form of violence – a violence which is not only the result of practices of exclusion, but can be experienced more surreptitiously under the cover of inclusion and universalisation.