Citizenship in Contested Territories: a Multiplicity of Citizenships

Abstract

Speaker: Ramesh Ganohariti, Dublin City University The contested nature of the de facto state results in an unclear and contested legal (citizenship) status for people residing in these polities. Krasniqi (2019) argues that this ambiguous legal status of de facto states can result in their citizens not having full rights as those afforded to citizens from recognised states, and thereby possess liminal citizenship. In other words, de facto state citizens are neither nationals nor stateless (Bryant, 2014; Krasniqi, 2019), but concurrently can be seen as both, and “more often than not ... are ‘invisible’ when it comes to international law” (Krasniqi, 2019, p. 5). My work argues that multiplicity is a more encompassing concept vis-à-vis liminality when discussing citizenship in de facto states. This research argues that liminality paints a partial picture of citizenship. Multiplicity acknowledges the intersectionality and entanglement of multiple citizenship regimes, each with different degrees of recognition, and with each citizenship comprising of three core dimensions: legal status, rights and duties, and belonging/identity based (Bloemraad et al., 2008; Delanty, 2000; Joppke, 2010; Kochenov, 2019). Thus, my presentation will discuss the explanatory power of the concept of “multiplicity” when researching citizenship in contested territories.