Paper short abstract:

This paper focuses on the attitudes towards children’s (dual) citizenship among bi-national couples. The stories of Estonian mothers and Portuguese fathers reveal how the concept of (dual) citizenship helps to negotiate the (multiple) identities of their children.

Paper long abstract:

In contrast to far-reaching Europeanization in a wide range of policy fields that have favoured the emerging of European intra-marriages as a social phenomenon (Gaspar 2008), the state policies concerning (dual) citizenship of children from binational parents vary within EU (Vink, de Groot 2010). As just few of the studies conducted from the sociological approach of the citizenship show, parents create their own meanings of citizenship depending on a social context (but see de Hart 2010 for notable exception), and can be mediated with particular individuals, such as spouses, partners children and parents. Thus the concept of relational citizenship in case of mixed marriages requires a more complex analyzes (Knop 2010, 94).

Estonian mothers and Portuguese fathers (living in Estonia, Portugal or in the "third" country) were interviewed in order to understand the transmission of citizenship and dynamics of meanings behind it. The stories of these parents demonstrate how the dual citizenship helps to negotiate (multiple) identities of their children. At the same time the transmission of the national citizenship has a symbolic importance as an identity status: it becomes a way to stress the national identity of these kids. Although social practices and sentiments of these parents are transnational characteristic to those from new generation of Europeans (Spanò, Musella, Perone 2012), their attitudes towards European citizenship follow the same path only to an extent.