To expand on the title slightly: all of the groups to which an item belongs directly or indirectly? That seems to make "parent groups," my first choice, ill-fitting.
The key concept here is membership, but that term generally refers to the items in the group, not the groups themselves.
A bit more explanation:
An item's relationship to a group may be direct or indirect because groups are hierarchical. The term would describe all of the relevant groups in the hierarchy.
Fuji is an apple. Apples are fruit. Fuji belongs to apples and fruit.
The phrase I need to construct is along the lines of: Fuji and "the groups to which it belongs."
As Barrie pointed out, my example involves categorical relationship, but that won't necessarily be the type of membership I'm referring to. The membership is arbitrary and changeable.
My example caused more confusion than good. The best metaphor for what I'd like to express is: a child has parents and grandparents, who are collectively his ancestors. I want to say: a user has groups and (super?) groups, which are collectively _?_.