Description
Book SynopsisIn Moldova, the number of dual citizens has risen exponentially in the last decades. Before annexation, many saw Russia as granting citizenship toor passportizinglarge numbers in Crimea. Both are regions with kin majorities: local majorities claimed as co-ethnic by external states offering citizenship, among other benefits. As functioning citizens of the states in which they reside, kin majorities do not need to acquire citizenship from an external state. Yet many do so in high numbers.
Kin Majorities explores why these communities engage with dual citizenship and how this intersects, or not, with identity. Analyzing data collected from ordinary people in Crimea and Moldova in 2012 and 2013, just before Russia's annexation of Crimea, Eleanor Knott provides a crucial window into Russian identification in a time of calm. Perhaps surprisingly, the discourse and practice of Russian citizenship was largely absent in Crimea before annexation. Comparing the situation in Crimea
Trade Review
“In a history of contested borderlands, Kin Majorities is a book about loss and gain. It looks “bottom-up” beyond states and ethnicity to meanings and practices. There is a great explicatory thrust to Knott’s intersectional book in that it should be read for its methodology, the new categories she has created for the identity-citizenship space.” The Russian Review
"Kin Majorities has many insights to offer international lawyers, international relations scholars, and political theorists in addition to experts on Russian politics, Romanian politics, post-Soviet affairs, and comparative ethnic conflict." LSE Review of Books
