Paper short abstract:

This paper argues that understanding the politics of claiming and exercising citizenship rights among young people requires a process-oriented, dynamic and relational approach to citizenship.

Paper long abstract:

This paper argues that understanding the politics of claiming and exercising citizenship rights among young people requires a process-oriented, dynamic and relational approach to citizenship. Key components of this approach are citizenship rights, spaces of citizenship and strategies of citizenship. The paper adopts this approach to examine how young people in Addis Ababa pursue and contest their citizenship rights. By focusing on three case studies, the paper puts forward the following three inter-related arguments/findings. First, the processes of citizenship are significantly shaped by the politics of development that affect how resources are owned, produced, controlled and distributed. Second, the dynamic nature of claiming and exercising citizenship can be explained by the movement of young citizens between spaces and within spaces. These movements inform the vital role of a relational approach to citizenship. Third, in addition to the two broad categories of 'invited' and 'created' spaces found in the literature, the paper introduces the notion of 'captured created spaces'. 'Captured created spaces' are identified as one of the key manifestations of a process-oriented, dynamic and relational approach towards understanding the politics of claiming and exercising citizenship rights.