Urbanities,
Vol. 3
·
No 2
·
November 2013
© 2013
Urbanities
63
Was it just a wish or a necessity?
‘No, there was no necessity. Only a wish. I intend to live in Norway, so I saw no need
to have a Lithuanian passport. I live here’ (Female, 20).
Migrants who grew up in Lithuania feel much more emotionally attached, not to
citizenship as such but to their origin and nationality or other ‘innate’ elements. More precisely,
they feel attached to something which, unlike citizenship, is irreplaceable. As a 29-years-old male
informant said, ‘Born Lithuanian, you will never be a Brazilian. For example, I first came here
when I was 25, and by the time I turned 25 I had surely become who I am. What I’m saying is
that nobody is forsaking or abandoning anything – that’s not the point. The point is that life is
stable and quiet here and therefore I live here. But this is not to say that you’re going to become a
Norwegian’.
Only a very small proportion of immigrants with whom I talked have changed or plan to
change their citizenship to Norwegian, even though most have the opportunity to do so (for
example, they meet the formal criteria). This is probably explained by the fact that Lithuanians
feel economically and socially secure in Norway and are satisfied with the rights they are granted
there, which are close to the rights of citizens. At the same time, Lithuanian citizenship is
perceived as an emotional bond linking migrants to Lithuania and they do not hasten to sever it,
despite it being easily changeable. This is also confirmed by Norway’s official statistics: only 1
per cent of Lithuanian immigrants have Norwegian citizenship. According to
Statistics Norway
,
this is the lowest figure among European states.
12
Participation in (Trans)national Politics
As I we have seen, most Lithuanian immigrants in Norway have Lithuanian citizenship. This
means that they have a right to participate in Lithuania’s elections; for example, by voting in the
Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania in Oslo. Lithuanians who legally work and live in Norway
also have a right to participate in Norway’s municipal elections, the only restriction being that
immigrants without Norwegian citizenship cannot vote in the national elections.
Field research indicates that Lithuanian immigrants are to some extent involved in
transnational politics, participating in both Lithuanian and Norwegian elections. The following
excerpt is indicative:
Do you vote?
‘Yes, I do’.
12
Compare with
6.3 per cent for Polish, 8.3 per cent for Swedish and 12 per cent for German immigrants.
(
Statistics Norway
:
; accessed: 15.10.2012).
