As the world becomes more and more interconnected, various nationalities come into contact with one another and new identities are born. The question: where are you from, becomes increasingly difficult to answer. What if you are one quarter Chinese, one quarter Irish, half Italian and you grew up in Australia? To answer a seemingly simple question suddenly requires you to tell your entire life story. While my heritage is not difficult at all, I am fully Dutch, the fact that I grew up in Germany has caused some awkward pauses after the question: “where are you from?”. And honestly, it has led to some identity crises as well. While I am Dutch, I only moved to the Netherlands when I was eighteen and there are many nuances of the Dutch culture that I don’t understand. Home is a complicated word that has no clear meaning for me and I know I am not the only one. So, what does that mean for our world and our identities?

            First, we have to talk about citizenship itself. It was only once I started studying that I realized how political this concept is. Apart from migrants wanting citizenship, not all citizenships are equal. There are certain passports that are more ‘powerful’ than others. This means that with some passports, such as the German one, you are able to travel to a long list of countries visa free or with a visa-upon-arrival. However, with a passport from Afghanistan you are merely allowed to travel to 26 countries visa free or with a visa-upon-arrival. Moreover, there is the continuing debate of dual citizenship. Something many politicians want to ban. This results in more questions regarding one’s identity. If you don’t even know where you are when you have dual citizenship, how are you supposed to choose one identity. Moreover, you can feel a sense of belonging  in a country that is not part of your nationality. Perhaps, the entire notion of passports does not fit into a world where borders seem to diminish more every year.

            A concept better fit for our modern world, is derived from, ironically enough, Stoic philosophy. ‘World citizenship’ states that one’s identity transcend beyond borders. Kant has extended this concept as he adds political, economic and cultural dimensions to it. Holding a ‘world citizenship’ might then just answer all my crises, right? Not quite. I think that the concept is a little hollow. While it might seem that I can just name the ‘world’ as my home, that also means that my home is everywhere. However, if it is everywhere, it is simultaneously nowhere. There would be no place to go ‘back’ to and if I would say that I feel at home everywhere in the world, I would simply be lying. Thus, ‘world citizenship’ also is unable to provide a satisfying answer to the question: where are you from? It does not give me an identity, rather, it is a lovely sentiment that we all live on the same planet, but that is where the value of the concept ends.

            So, national citizenship does not fit in our world and neither does ‘world citizenship’. Perhaps, the only answers to the question of an international identity, is one that is not very satisfying. We do not belong anywhere, through travelling, through mixed nationalities, trough moving, our world has become interconnected and globalized. This means that the identity of an international rests on the fact they never truly belonging anywhere in the world. Perhaps, that is what it means to be a global or world citizen. Rather than pretending every place in the world is our home, we should take comfort in not belonging anywhere. This might even lead to the discussion whether citizenships or nationalities provide any elements of identification that are valuable. Maybe, there are many more characteristics that allow us to assess our own identity. And perhaps, these are identities that truly transcend borders and ones we can all share.