Horizontal citizenship in Estonia: Russian speakers in the borderland city of Narva (original) (raw)

This paper critically interrogates the notion of ‘citizenship’ from the politically-charged perspective of Russian speakers in Estonia. Drawing on a broad range of critical citizenship literatures, and ethnographic examples from the borderland city of Narva, we propose re- and de-centring citizenship away from universalising conceptions, towards a historically and culturally grounded horizontal perspective on citizenship. While cognisant of dominant, state-centric approaches in Estonia, we present citizenship as a process unfolding through individual, everyday practices of belonging. We demonstrate how Russian speakers, excluded from membership in the Estonian community, can still become members in many less-formal ways, through vibrant interaction with local space.