Navigating Identity: Citizenship and the Reality of the Second Generation of Albanian Origin in Greece

Abstract

This article focuses on one critical factor among the many influencing identity formation in the second generation of Albanian origin in Greece: the acquisition of citizenship. Citizenship is more than a legal status; it serves as a fundamental marker of belonging, shaping access to rights, social mobility, and political participation. Despite the 2015 Greek citizenship law aiming to facilitate naturalization, many second-generation Albanians still face bureaucratic obstacles, and prolonged legal uncertainty. These barriers create a sense of social exclusion by limiting opportunities in education and employment and depriving them the right of political participation. Navigating these challenges forces individuals to negotiate their identity in complex ways. Some emphasize Greek identity, others adopt a hybrid identity, yet others reinforce Albanian self-identification. Broader societal attitudes, including stereotypes and discrimination, further shape these identity strategies. These strategies are furthermore influenced by the individuals’ life trajectories, which can either reinforce a sense of otherness or counteract it. Through in-depth interviews, this qualitative study argues that citizenship constitutes a crucial determinant of cultural and/or national belonging for some people, as it produces practical and symbolic conditions of inclusion or exclusion. Ultimately, Greek citizenship functions not just as an institutional gatekeeper but as a broader social force that shapes an individuals’ identity and sense of belonging within Greek society.

1. Introduction: Citizenship and Self-Identification

What does it take to be recognised as part of a national “we” and what difference does that recognition make? Belonging is a personal feeling, yet it is also administered on paper. More concretely, citizenship translates the boundaries of nationhood into procedures and documents, crafting a people (laos, λαός) by specifying who may enter the national body. When these procedures shift, they signal and actively reshape the boundaries of “us” and the distribution of rights and opportunities. Thus, the citizenship regime acts both practically and symbolically as a means of inclusion or exclusion, especially in the case of migrants, who are newcomers to an already established political and national community. It affects both their integration into the host society, their feeling of belonging and their self-identification.

Up until the 2010 reform, the predominance of a ius sanguinis model, combined with the absence of any legal provision for the acquisition of citizenship by children born and/or raised in Greece, resulted in a system based almost exclusively on descent, with no pathway available to the second generation. The 2010 reform (Law 3838/2010) partially corrected this by introducing conditional ius soli through birth/and-or schooling criteria for those born or raised in Greece; the Council of State’s 2013 annulment of key provisions was then superseded by Law 4332/2015, which re-established clearer “by declaration” routes for the second generation. Christopoulos reads this sequence as an “unexpected reform in the maelstrom of the crisis”; a shift from ethnic descent toward residence and socialisation as legitimate bases for membership, and a recognition—at last—of the second generation as rightful addressees of Greek nationality (Christopoulos 2017).

In recent decades, the children of immigrants, the so-called “second generation”, have become central to debates on migration, integration, and identity across Europe. These young people, born or raised in their parents’ country of residence, grow up immersed in its educational system, language, and cultural institutions. Their public presence and their demographic weight have made them increasingly visible in public and political life, often symbolizing the broader challenges of multicultural societies. Within this context, citizenship emerges as both an institutional anchor and a symbolic marker. Legally, it grants rights, protections, and access to political participation. Symbolically, it represents the state’s recognition that an individual belongs to the national community (Heater 1999; Howard 2009). For immigrants and their children, moving from the status of “foreigner” to that of “citizen” is therefore more than a bureaucratic change—it can reshape how they are seen by the state and the host society and how they perceive themselves. Recent research even suggests that access to citizenship can help mitigate some of the disadvantages faced by immigrant-origin youth, offering both concrete opportunities and a stronger sense of inclusion (Felfe et al. 2020).

As Brubaker (1992) argued, debates over citizenship are rarely about protecting territorial borders: they are about guarding the symbolic boundaries of the nation. Who is allowed in, under what conditions, and at what cost speaks volumes about a country’s self-image. Citizenship regimes, therefore, mirror competing national self-understandings: some leaning toward openness and inclusion, others toward exclusivity and homogeneity (Goodman 2014). In this sense, citizenship is at once an institutional framework and a symbolic economy—marking out who belongs fully and who remains a perpetual outsider (Wimmer 2013).

A central question is whether legal membership automatically translates into substantial belonging. The answer is complex. Belonging is a lived and deeply personal experience, grounded in recognition, acceptance, and emotional attachment to a community (Kannabiran et al. 2006; Skey 2011). While citizenship often enhances these feelings, it does not guarantee them. As Goodman and Wright (2015) note, most scholarship has focused on the rules and requirements of naturalization, but we still know far less about how citizenship affects long-term social and cultural integration. This gap is particularly significant in contexts where the symbolism of citizenship weighs heavily on identity formation.

Across Europe, children of immigrants, whether born in the country of settlement or arriving at a very young age, have become central figures in debates about identity. Despite variation across national settings, one pattern is consistent: the “second generation” frequently faces disadvantages compared to peers with native-born parents. This is visible in education, where outcomes are shaped not only by parental resources but also by systemic inequalities, discriminatory expectations, and unequal opportunities (Heath et al. 2008; Dustmann et al. 2012). These barriers extend into employment, where stable and qualified positions are often harder to secure. Such patterns reveal that integration is not only about mobility or socioeconomic status, but also about being seen and treated as full members of the national community. Against this backdrop, citizenship emerges as both a shield and a bridge. Acquiring citizenship can open doors to opportunities while also serving as a symbolic affirmation of acceptance (Wimmer 2013). Even so, naturalization cannot erase experiences of racism or marginalization, which may continue to undermine one’s sense of belonging. Citizenship, therefore, should be seen as a central, but not exclusive, element within the larger, ongoing negotiation of identity.

The work of Simonsen (2017) offers an important contribution here. Analyzing data from 14 Western democracies, she shows that the link between citizenship and belonging is conditional on how citizenship is valued by the host population. Where the majority population views citizenship as essential to national membership, naturalized immigrants report a stronger sense of belonging compared to non-citizens. But in countries where citizenship is not considered central to national identity, acquiring it does not significantly increase feelings of attachment. Strikingly, Simonsen also finds that the restrictiveness or openness of citizenship policies themselves do not alter this relationship. What matters is not the legal framework but the symbolic weight citizenship carries in the public imagination. In other words, citizenship enhances belonging only when it is socially understood as the gateway to being part of “us”.

This dynamic is particularly salient in the Greek context. Among second-generation Albanians, the largest immigrant-origin group in the country, the struggle over citizenship has been deeply politicized.1 Their experiences illuminate how institutional decisions, social perceptions, and personal identities intersect. In many ways, their trajectory encapsulates the broader tensions of contemporary Greece: between exclusion and inclusion, national homogeneity and multicultural reality, legal boundaries and lived belonging. The broadening of the citizenship regime, with the introduction of ius solis and ius domicili elements, reflects and in turn affects the broadening of Greekness itself and facilitates the establishment of hybrid identities that were once conceived as mutually exclusive. This dynamic can be understood through Bhabha’s ([1994] 2004) concept of the third space—a site of cultural hybridity and negotiation, where encounters between the majority population and migrant communities do not necessarily result in assimilation but in the emergence of new, in-between forms of identity. This interstitial space challenges fixed boundaries between “us” and “them,” enabling alternative articulations of belonging that transcend national and ethnic binaries.

This article examines the relationship between citizenship and self-identification. Focusing on Greece, it traces how legal and public policy draw the boundaries of belonging and asks whether and how Greek citizenship affects second-generation Albanians. Empirically, we use in-depth qualitative interviews with second-generation Albanians to examine the mechanisms through which citizenship may (or may not) matter: as legal status (rights, security, mobility) and as symbolic recognition (state and societal validation).

2. The Greek–Albanian Context

Post–Cold War Albanian migration to Greece has now entered its fourth decade, proving to be a long-term and structural phenomenon rather than a temporary movement. Since the early 1990s, Albanians have constituted by far the largest migrant group in Greece, shaping both the country’s labor market and its social landscape. According to the 2021 Census, Albanian citizens number ~374,926 (≈49%) of all foreign citizens, far ahead of the next groups—Bulgarian and Pakistani citizens (ELSTAT 2023). (The census measures citizenship, not ethnicity.) This pattern is consistent with earlier research showing Albanians as the dominant migrant group shaping Greece’s labour market, notably in construction, agriculture, and services (Lyberaki and Maroukis 2005). What began as a mass inflow during the post-communist transition has gradually evolved into a settled community, entering its third generation. In this sense, Albanian-origin migrants are increasingly part of the “old migration,” contrasting with newer post-2010 flows from Africa and Asia. At the same time, Albanians occupy a particular legal and political position in Greece. Unlike migrants from EU member states, Albanians do not enjoy automatic rights of mobility, residence, or work across the European Union, since Albania is not yet an EU member. Although accession negotiations with the EU were formally opened in 2020 and the country is officially recognized as a candidate state, its path to full membership remains uncertain and potentially long.2 Greece has traditionally advocated EU enlargement to the Western Balkans3.

One of the most enduring and politically charged issues has been the inclusion of the second generation, particularly in relation to citizenship and national belonging. For decades, the debate was framed in terms of intercultural conflict, where Greek and Albanian identities were cast as mutually exclusive. Public narratives left little to no space for hybrid or overlapping identifications, often forcing young people into univocal categories of being either “Greek” or “Albanian.”

The politics of citizenship has been at the core of this debate. The granting or denial of Greek citizenship became the lens through which questions of belonging were interpreted, turning it into a symbolic battleground of inclusion and exclusion. For Albanian-origin youth, access to citizenship was more than a legal procedure; it represents an affirmation—or rejection—of their place in Greek society. This dynamic was mirrored in hostile slogans, the most infamous being “Δεν θα γίνεις Έλληνας ποτέ” (“You will never become Greek”), a phrase widely used in far-right discourse as a marker of resistance to their inclusion (Golfinopoulos 2007).

3. Citizenship Regime in Greece: Law and Politics

Questions of belonging for the second generation in Greece are inseparable from the legal architecture that governs access to citizenship. Beyond administrative status, citizenship in Greece functions as a constitutional technology for delineating the πολιτικόν κοινόν—the people in whose name sovereignty is exercised. As Christopoulos (2019) has argued, the question “who is a Greek citizen?” is not merely legal but constitutive of the national collective: citizenship is the state’s primary tool for defining membership in the nation and allocating equal political voice. A first attempt to recalibrate this architecture was Law 3838/2010 (“Ragousis Law”), which introduced routes for children of immigrants to acquire citizenship by declaration (not by naturalisation) either through birth in Greece combined with parental lawful residence, or through schooling.4 In 2013, however, the Council of State (Decision 460/2013, Plenary) annulled key provisions, holding that simple birth or schooling could not, by themselves, constitute sufficient proof of belonging to the Greek nation as required by the Constitution.5 The contestation of Law 3838/2010 unfolded amid the sovereign-debt crisis, austerity, and heightened politicization of migration. Parties and actors on the right framed the reform as a break with “national continuity,” while far-right mobilizations mainstreamed the idea that jus soli mechanisms would “dilute” the nation. In this polarized environment—marked by recession, rapid party system realignment, and moral panics around irregular migration—the Council of State’s 460/2013 decision echoed a restrictive conception of the demos: it held that mere birth or schooling could not, by themselves, evidence the requisite organic bond with the Greek nation, thereby invalidating core provisions of the Ragousis Law and channeling reform efforts toward the recalibrated, more demanding declaration routes later enacted in Law 4332/2015.

The legislature responded with Law 4332/2015, amending the Citizenship Code to re-open access while aligning with the court’s reasoning.6 Two distinct declaration routes were established:

Article 1A (birth-based route): a minor born in Greece who is enrolled in the 1st grade of primary school may acquire citizenship by declaration, provided strict conditions on the parents’ lawful and prior residence in Greece are met (continuous lawful stay for a defined period prior to the child’s birth; continued lawful stay at the time of declaration).

Article 1B (schooling-based route): a minor or young adult who has successfully completed either (i) nine grades of primary/secondary education, or (ii) six grades of secondary education in a Greek school may acquire citizenship by declaration. A further sub-route covers holders of a Greek Lyceum diploma plus a degree from a Greek AEI/TEI, with a three-year exclusive deadline to submit the declaration-application after university graduation. Kindergarten attendance does not count toward the schooling thresholds.

These routes are acquired by declaration under the Code, distinct from naturalisation (politographisi) of adult foreigners. In practice, the declaration is lodged with the competent Citizenship authority together with proof of schooling and parents’ lawful residence; the procedure is documentary and administrative rather than discretionary in the way naturalisation is.

Law 4735/2020 reorganised the administration: two Regional Citizenship Directorates, Attica and Central Macedonia, were created with exclusive competence over Articles 1A/1B (new and pending cases). Taken together, these legal and administrative shifts show that second-generation citizenship in Greece is not a neutral registration exercise but a politicised field. Law 3838/2010, the 2013 annulment, the 2015 redesign of Articles 1A/1B, and the 2020 administrative reform track a longer struggle over where the line between descent and lived experiences should be drawn. For young people of Albanian origin, the largest immigrant-origin group, formal recognition has depended not only on individual integration through birth and schooling, but also on constitutional doctrine, legislative recalibration, and administrative capacity.

4. Demographic Evidence: The Albanian Majority

From 2015 to 2024, the route of citizenship acquisition through birth or schooling in Greece has consistently been the largest single channel of naturalisation. According to the official data, in 2024 it represented 54% of all citizenship acquisitions, far exceeding both naturalisations of aliens of non-Greek descent (24%) and aliens of Greek descent (10%).

This trend is not incidental but structural. It shows that Greek citizenship today is obtained predominantly not through descent (jus sanguinis), as was historically the case, but through the integration of the second generation—children born and/or educated in Greece. In other words, the institutional weight of the second generation has shifted the center of gravity of citizenship policy: more than half of new citizens are children of immigrants who are already socially embedded in Greek schools and communities. The citizenship-by-birth-or-schooling framework marks a turning point in the composition of the Greek demos. This reflects a slow but profound transformation: the recognition that belonging can be grounded in participation and education, rather than ancestry alone. In practice, this route has overwhelmingly concerned young people of Albanian origin, confirming that the integration of this community is not just a social fact but also an institutional reality inscribed in the very mechanisms of citizenship acquisition (see

Table 1. Annual citizenship acquisitions in Greece (2019–2024), including those obtained through the birth/schooling route introduced by Law 4332/2015 and the proportion of people of Albanian origin.

Year	Total Number of Citizenship Acquisitions	Citizenship by Birth/Schooling (Law 4332/15)	Albanian Origin	Percentage of Albanians (%)7
2019	16.834	12,868	11,755	91.35
2020	13.873	9099	8160	89.68
2021	10.604	5154	4624	89.72
2022	13.259	6867	5979	87.07
2023	13.875	7054	6082	86.22
2024	14.896	8113	6896	85

Source: Ministry of Interior.

).

Throughout this six-year period, Albanians consistently account for the vast majority (85–91%) of all citizenships acquired through birth or schooling (see Table 1). Their demographic weight confirms their status as the largest immigrant-origin group in Greece and the core of the second-generation experience. These figures highlight a turning point: more than half of new citizens in Greece now enter via the birth/schooling route, and within that group, the second generation of Albanian origin is by far the driving force. This represents a profound shift in the composition of the Greek demos, where belonging is being reshaped not only by ancestry but by education, socialisation, and everyday life in Greece.

Second-generation individuals of Albanian origin acquire Greek citizenship primarily through the declaration procedure (δήλωση) established by Law 4332/2015, which amended the Greek Citizenship Code (Law 3284/2004). As both Greece and Albania permit dual citizenship, beneficiaries of this provision may retain their Albanian nationality upon acquiring Greek citizenship. Although members of the second generation are also legally entitled to apply for citizenship through naturalization (πολιτογράφηση), this procedure remains significantly more complex and demanding, requiring proof of economic and social integration, language proficiency, and successful completion of a written examination.

5. Methods

The research project “Becoming Greek-Albanian: Non antagonistic togetherness in inclusive perspectives” explored the complex identity negotiations of young people of Albanian origin who were born and/or raised in Greece. The study focused on how these individuals position themselves across a fluid spectrum of “Greekness” and “Albanianness,” often developing hybrid, non-exclusive self-identifications. The central research questions addressed how “second-generation” and “1.5 generation” migrants experience the shaping of their national and cultural identities, which social and institutional factors facilitate or hinder this process, and how they articulate their own self-identification.

To this end, a qualitative approach was adopted, treating identity not as a fixed essence but as a dynamic process under constant negotiation. Narrative, widely acknowledged as a fundamental discursive form, constitutes a key site for the construction and negotiation of identity (Archakis 2018) As Schiffrin (1996) notes, narrative—both in its thematic content and in the way it is performed—functions as a linguistic and interactional lens through which narrators project their self-representations, viewpoints, and stances, thereby shaping and revealing their identities. As Yuval-Davis (2010) states “narratives are stories that people tell themselves and others about who they are, and who they are not, as well as who and how they would like to/should be”. Identity was traced both in what participants explicitly stated and in the ways they spoke—the hesitations, paraphrases, emotional tones, and contextual shifts that reveal how belonging is experienced and performed. The study drew on a non-representative sample of 50 individuals of Albanian origin, aged 19–40, including 30 of the “1.5 generation” (migrated as children) and 20 of the “second generation” (born in Greece to migrant parents). Gender distribution was diverse: 27 women, 21 men, one gender-fluid trans participant, and one undecided. The aim was not to map statistical trends but to capture the range of identity experiences and the factors shaping them. Importantly, the acquisition and experience of Greek citizenship was explicitly included in the research questionnaires, as it constitutes a critical marker of institutional recognition and a key dimension of belonging.

We used purposive, maximum-variation sampling with community-based recruitment and peer referral (snowballing) as our primary access routes. Peer referral was adopted to widen reach beyond first-order contacts and to engage participants who might be sceptical of research. Eligibility required Albanian origin, arrival in Greece before lower secondary school or birth in Greece. Most interviewees were living in Athens at the time of fieldwork, though many had grown up in provincial or semi-urban areas, and a number had later moved abroad for studies or work. Data were generated through semi-structured, in-depth interviews conducted in Greek. The interview guide followed the life course from birth, school to early adulthood and current time focused on self-identification, family and peer milieus and future aspirations. Interviews were audio-recorded with consent, transcribed verbatim, and anonymized.

We used discourse analysis to see how participants talk about belonging and citizenship and how their words help draw boundaries. We focused on the labels they use (e.g., “Έλληνας,” “Aλβανός,” “πολίτης”) and what qualities they attach to those labels. Alongside our discourse analysis, we systematically annotated four interview attributes that are central to our research questions: (1) citizenship status at the time of interview (citizen/non-citizen/in process), (2) the timing and pathway of acquisition, (3) the subjective experience of the procedure and (4) perceived impact of citizenship on identity and belonging. For the latter, we distinguished between explicit evaluations (participants directly stated whether citizenship influenced them) and implicit evaluations (no direct statement, but inferred from the interview as a whole through recurring narrative cues changes in self-description, reported treatment by institutions/peers, or life-course turning points). These attributes were recorded at case level. Two researchers tried the rules on a small pilot, compared results, and agreed on one way to code. We kept a case–theme chart linking each claim to the quotes that support it. This makes the analysis clear and shows both what people said directly about citizenship and what is implied in their stories.

Several limitations bound our claims. First, recruitment through community and peer networks means the sample is not statistically representative; the aim is analytical insight, not population estimates. Second, the geography of the study tilts toward Athens, even though many participants brought non-metropolitan schooling experiences; purely rural and non-Attica urban trajectories are under-captured. Third, network-based access may under-sample more precarious or disengaged voices. In addition, given that recruitment targeted persons who self-identified as of Albanian descent, we may lack data on individuals who have completely rejected or hidden this background. Finally, interviews provide retrospective accounts of bureaucratic processes and identity change; a longitudinal design would better trace shifts before and after citizenship is obtained. Taken together, these constraints do not weaken the findings; rather, they clarify their scope: we illuminate how 1.5- and second-generation Albanians narrate belonging in Greece and how citizenship acquisition constitutes an important factor on identity formation.

6. Findings

The findings confirm that Greek citizenship emerges as a crucial factor of integration and equal participation in society for the participants. The fact that the overwhelming majority (around 90%) had acquired Greek citizenship underscores both the significance that second-generation youth attribute to it and their active effort to secure institutional and social inclusion. Citizenship was the instrument that converted precarious, short-cycle residence permits (fees, queues, expiring cards, and the constant possibility of administrative delay) into a stable set of rights. And this is what may appear as a “Greek” attribute. At the same time, however, the process itself was often described as painful and protracted, marked by bureaucratic delays and uncertainty.

Across the 50 interviews, most participants reported that acquiring Greek citizenship did not alter their self-identification. Instead, other factors were considered more decisive in shaping identity. Citizenship was framed primarily as an instrumental exit from bureaucratic entanglements and a route to expanded rights—captured in terms such as ‘facilitating factor,’ ‘relief,’ ‘rights,’ ‘security,’ ‘escape from bureaucratic hurdles,’ and ‘voting rights. This confirms the findings of Gogonas and Michail (2014), showing that second generation adolescents aspire to get Greek citizenship mainly due to practical reasons and not as a way of reinforcing their belonging.

Katerina (34)8 said:

“I have Greek citizenship, and that’s what matters to me—to be a citizen of this country, to have the right to vote, to have some facilitation in bureaucratic matters, etc. That’s all. Greek nationality means nothing to me. I don’t feel Greek at all. I don’t want to feel Greek at all.”

Anna (24) said:

“I think that, even back then, I knew that Greek citizenship meant more freedom. I felt a sense of relief—and indeed, an additional freedom—knowing that, you know, I could now travel anywhere in Europe without being checked, as if I were from some completely different continent.”

However, several “no-effect” answers hide the deep link between self-identification and citizenship, as by focusing on the acquisition of it, they diminish the effect that the lack of citizenship has on them. The prolonged absence of a second-generation pathway and the precariousness of residence permits often experienced as systemic racism (re)produced feelings of otherness well before citizenship was available or granted. In these cases, citizenship’s eventual arrival is narrated as too late or too procedural to undo earlier stigmas or hurt.

Only a small number of respondents stated that citizenship was a defining factor on their self-identification either on reaffirming their pre-existing feelings of being Greek and allowing them to identify as such openly, due to them achieving official recognition from the state.

Nikos (35) said:

“After the Greek citizenship, not due to it, not only due to it, but mostly due to it obviously, I am more on the Greek of albanian origin side. Before, I didn’t say I was Greek, in the sense that I wasn’t typically one, so (I used to say) I am from Albania, I was raised in Corfu.”

The symbolic aspect of Greek citizenship, besides its practical usages, in promoting feelings of belonging in the second-generation migrants in Greece was noted also in the work of Vathi (2011).

In two cases, the acquisition of Greek citizenship had the opposite effect: after naturalization, respondents felt they finally had the space to express and/or adopt their Albanian identity, or to reconsider how they define themselves.

Violetta (37) said:

“I kept “Violetta” when I obtained citizenship. It was the first “interventionist” act I made: to reclaim my own name. It feels good, though it’s a shame it took such a long road. All those years I avoided anything Albanian, so it wouldn’t “confuse” me or make me stand out. I never introduced myself as “Violetta” outside the house. In the outside world I was Eleni. My parents, trying to protect me, would always call me Ioanna when we were with Greeks. Even now, although we decided I won’t be “Eleni” anymore, it slips out for them: with Greek friends or a Greek partner, the “backup” name appears. They’ve mapped it as: outside = Eleni, at home = Violetta.

(…)

I think it was reactive. I didn’t want to integrate that way, to “prove” I belong by changing my name. The “double” suited me until then—but it confused me.”

There was also a small percentage of respondents that believed the acquisition of Greek citizenship affected them only partially, not redefining their self-identification, but adding to it the dimension of being a Greek citizen. These individuals valued highly not only the practical benefits attached to it, but the political aspect of the citizenship and their feeling at last part of the Greek citizenry, attaining equal voting rights. This decoupling of national identity and citizenship, or as Joppke (2003) has stated the de-ethnicization of citizenship by granting it to people of other ethnicities, is a rather new viewpoint that delves down to the core properties of citizenship itself, that of the state and act of being a citizen, a part of a democratic body out of one’s volition. Individuals may form their own self-understanding of what the acquisition of Greek citizenship means for them and also what it means to become Greek, differentiating between political–national, ethnic and cultural belonging.

Markos (33) said:

“The sense of security, yes. The “Greek citizen” part, yes, the “Greek” part, no. The “citizen,” yes, that I understood. Being a citizen of a country. That, legally speaking, no one can easily mess with me. And before, let’s say, they couldn’t really with words either. But now I also have this backing me up. It’s not a small thing, I realized that…

(…)

Yes, yes, very much so. Because I’ve always liked politics, and I could never vote, you know. I would only vote at university, and I liked that. I was letting out my frustration there.”

Marianna (40) said:

“Exactly, yes. That’s when I felt that by having citizenship, I would finally be able to vote, to participate actively as a citizen, and to contribute to the decision-making—in matters concerning governments, local administrations, local authorities. Yes, of course. You feel that you acquire rights. Having lived so many years in this country, I never could, I wasn’t able to engage politically or exercise any political rights. In Albania, I always used to go and vote.”

The narratives also reveal a distinction in how citizenship is experienced depending on the timing of acquisition. Those who obtained it earlier in life tended to frame it as a smoother pathway to recognition, while those who acquired citizenship later often spoke of it as the culmination of struggle, persistence, and negotiation. Citizenship in this sense was not perceived as automatic validation but rather as something that had to be fought for, reinforcing the idea that belonging in the host society is not a given and should be earned through continual trials.

Also, Greek citizenship is not viewed strictly in a national context, as it simultaneously provides EU citizenship, giving them access to a free-movement regime that opens labour markets, training pathways, and educational opportunities across member states. The meaning of citizenship is therefore prospective and geographic: it expands the radius of feasible plans. Μany narrate onward mobility toward Germany, the United Kingdom. Ireland, and/or elsewhere—to counter local labour market stagnation or accelerate skills acquisition. “Ι want to acquire Greek citizenship not because I want to live in Greece but because I want to leave from Greece”. This is what is mostly implied here. In these accounts, citizenship is a platform: it collapses the paper frictions that otherwise accompany cross-border life (visas, work permits, bank accounts, leases), lowers the transaction costs of moving for a job or degree, and secures equal treatment in host administrations. Long-term residence, by contrast, is perceived as thinner and territorially bounded; it does not travel. The result is a dual register in how citizenship is valued. It is unmistakably strategic—an optimisation in the face of a punitive sub-citizenship bureaucracy—but also civic, because it institutionalises membership in a wider political community that respondents feel they already inhabit through education, language, and everyday participation. In short, naturalisation normalises life in Greece while future-proofing life in Europe.

Even after second-generation achieve the acquisition of Greek citizenship, many note ongoing unease because parents remain non-citizens—still exposed to renewal cycles, processing delays, and travel constraints. This effect sustains a sense of conditional belonging: the child’s secure status coexists with parental precarity, which many respondents experience as both discomfort and practical risk (e.g., family travel, healthcare access, bureaucratic errands). It is a useful reminder that integration is relational: one person’s citizenship does not extinguish the family’s vulnerability.

7. Conclusions

During the interview phase of the research project “Becoming Greek-Albanian: Non antagonistic togetherness in inclusive perspectives” citizenship regime emerged slowly as an important element of self-identification. Theoretically, the citizenship regime is the state’s principal instrument for defining the demos. This study sought to explore how such processes unfold for those not incorporated into the national body by descent, focusing on the second generation of Albanian origin in Greece.

Although the majority of respondents didn’t acknowledge the acquisition of citizenship as an important factor that affected their identity formation from the totality of the interviews it became evident that identity formation is a multifaceted process, affected by many elements and studied only in the context of one’s life trajectory, even if we isolate specific elements to examine their relationship to it. In our material, most respondents insist that acquiring citizenship did not change their ethnic self-identification. A minority reports that it reinforced a pre-existing sense of being (part) Greek or made it easier to state Greekness publicly. A third strand—analytically important—distinguishes between ethnic identity and political membership. Analytically, this expresses what Joppke terms the de-ethnicization of citizenship: the decoupling of nationality from ethnocultural ancestry as the basis of membership. In their narratives, the act of being a citizen sits alongside Albanian ancestry without displacing it. Those that stated that it affected them partially, put emphasis on citizenship itself and the granting of political rights, not solely on their ability to vote but to exercise the whole set of political rights they have as citizens and feel as equal parts of the society. Several “no-effect” narratives are actually saturated with prior hurt and institutional friction. The prolonged absence of a second-generation pathway and the precariousness of residence permits, often experienced as systemic racism, (re)produced feelings of otherness well before citizenship was available or granted. In these cases, citizenship’s eventual arrival is narrated as too late or too procedural to undo earlier stigmas.

Although the small number of respondents and the limited range that the inquiry on citizenship had on this research does not allow generalisation and the drawing of specific trends on the effect citizenship has on identity formation, it provides an adequate mapping of possible responses in the case of second generation of Albanian origin. More importantly it shows that the lack of citizenship, accompanied by nationalistic and racist public discourse affected the individuals deeply, in a way that it cannot solely be remedied afterwards by the acquisition of it. Also, it re-introduces to the discussion new ways of re-imagining belonging, national identity, political participation and at the end democracy itself in Greece, by decoupling citizenship from ethnicity and allowing new reinterpretations of what it is to be a Greek citizen and of Greekness itself. The research findings show that inclusion is not a single event achieved through the conferral of legal status, but an ongoing process situated at the intersection of law, recognition, and everyday interaction.

As mentioned above, the findings confirm that Greek citizenship emerges as a crucial factor of integration and equal participation in society for the participants. The fact that the overwhelming majority (around 90%) had acquired Greek citizenship underscores both the significance that second-generation youth attribute to it and their active effort to secure institutional and social inclusion. At the same time, however, the process itself was often described as painful and protracted, marked by bureaucratic delays and uncertainty. While the majority of respondents claimed that the acquisition of citizenship did not transform their self-identification, their accounts reveal a deeper process: the long absence of secure status, and the experience of systemic uncertainty, have shaped how belonging is felt and expressed. For some, citizenship functions as an instrument of relief, a guarantee of stability, mobility, and rights. For others, it becomes a symbolic threshold, allowing them to affirm or renegotiate their identity more openly. Ultimately, this case invites a more nuanced reflection on the relationship between citizenship and social inclusion. It shows that inclusion cannot be reduced to legal access or the possession of documents, but must be understood as a multilayered process that combines formal rights with social validation and recognition.

This study does not settle whether citizenship transforms identity: it clarifies when and how it matters. With a small qualitative sample, our conclusions have limited generalizability. Future work should track life-course timing, school and workplace regimes, and local bureaucratic ecologies to test whether early, dignified access reduces the lasting effects our respondents describe. Even with these limits, the pattern holds; citizenship secures voice, equal standing, and in some cases functions symbolically as a means of inclusion or exclusion from the host society even though belonging is worked out across multiple attachments.

The research project “Becoming Greek-Albanian: non antagonistic togetherness in inclusive perspectives” is implemented in the framework of H.F.R.I call “Basic research Financing (Horizontal support of all Sciences)” under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan “Greece 2.0” funded by the European Union—Next-Generation EU (H.F.R.I. Project Number: 16990).