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 decentring 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.

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This article analyzes different ways Russian speakers residing in Petropavlovsk, a city in northern Kazakhstan close to the border with Russia, make sense of the place they inhabit and form a sense of belonging to it. Politically and geographically speaking, Petropavlovsk serves as a contested area divided between Russian and Kazakhstani nation-building projects. While keeping in mind the antagonistic politics of both states, this research rather focuses on the everyday practices and personal narratives of Russian speakers living in this area. With the help of empirical material collected during the interviews and dwelling alongside the participants, this article demonstrates how through symbolic practices and everyday life experiences Russian speakers differently construct their understanding of Petropavlovsk as a Russian, Kazakh, and global space simultaneously.

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The information, practices and views in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG).