Identity, Citizenship and Kin Majorities: Crimea and Moldova from the Bottom-Up

Ellie Knott (London School of Economics)

Bush House (SE) 1.01, 15:00-17:00 

Why are so many Moldovans acquiring Romanian citizenship? How did people in Crimea identify with and engage with Russia before annexation in 2014? This talk brings together these two topics and cases to explore the intersections of identity and citizenship across borders. This talk is situated within the field of kin-state politics and analyses how individuals who are claimed as co-ethnic, such as Russians in Crimea and Romanians/Moldovans in Moldova, understand their identification and engage via citizenship and quasi-citizenship with their respective kin-states, Russia and Romania. In particular, in this talk I examine the empirics of the cases of Crimea and Moldova within a theoretical and methodological discussion to show how and why I study the intersections of the meanings of identification and practices of citizenship. I argue that it is important to move beyond state-centred and institutional understandings of citizenship and towards studying how individuals and communities on the ground engage with kin-states across borders.

Ellie Knott is Assistant Professor in Qualitative Methods at the London School of Economics.  Her current research focuses on ethnic politics, citizenship, and kin-state relations in post-Soviet space.  Her interests lie in everyday nationalism and the meaning and practice of citizenship from the bottom-up, and she is currently working on a book manuscript comparing Crimea and Moldova.