Creating other options: negotiating the meanings of citizenships

Abstract

In this article, I explore the ways in which citizenship is reinvented and reinterpreted through local understandings and experiences. I show how Israeli citizens who had applied for another citizenship create a distinction between their Israeli citizenship, which they conceptualize in terms of identity and belonging, and their ‘European passport’, which they depict as a technical non-obliging document, thus neutralizing the challenge it poses on questions of national loyalty. However, the other sought after citizenship, which represents a legally binding attachment to a nation-state, paradoxically becomes a powerful symbol of freedom, embodying other life possibilities and allowing for an active negotiation of belonging.

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