How is it possible to belong to a territory when its boundaries are no longer exclusively physical? How can we define the centre, or allegiance to that centre, at the beginning of the third millennium, if that centre cannot hold?

In an age when appeals are made both to sovereignty and "the global village"', when terms such as "subsidiarity" and "the international community" have become common currency, the notion of membership is irrevocably plural. In short the purpose of this volume is to locate or identify the paradoxes and flashpoints created by these shifts from the centre to the margins, from nationhood to membership (and community).