Concepts of citizenship, social and system integration among young people in post-Soviet Moldova

The paper looks at changing concepts of citizenship among young people in Moldova in a context of social and system disintegration. Due to the protracted economic and political crisis there, young people were disengaged from political, economic and social citizenship but are socially integrated at the level of family and friendship networks, which gives them a sense of belonging in Moldovan society. This led to a particular view of citizenship in the sense of loyalty to the nation but alienation from the formal system and the state more generally. The result was that only a small number saw a future for themselves in Moldova, another group were prepared to try to find ways to survive there and a third, large group preferred to seek their fortunes abroad by migrating either to Russia or to the European Union. Both of these latter two options entailed serious risks and resulted in their further legal and economic marginalisation. The reconstruction of the life course into a fragmented, individualised, risky and highly uncertain trajectory was characterised, like that of the country in general, as an unending transition.