Am I an Active Citizen? Women’s Narratives of Citizenship Practices in Albania

Abstract This study explores the topic of citizenship as related to the practices of twelve Albanian women. This research utilizes literature on gender and citizenship as a framework for comparing and analysing the narratives of women who exert their political citizenship through civil society and governmental political bodies. First, this study explores the ways the interviewees perceive citizenship while analysing women’s narratives to get at their spoken and unspoken specificities. Secondly, it discusses their conceptualisations of themselves as active citizens and analyses how their expressed perceptions relate to their identification as political actors with regards to their identities as women. Thirdly, it analyses issues of relevance to women’s engagement as active citizens as they appear from women’s individual experiences of citizenship in the narratives. This research focuses on the way interviewed Albanian women perceive themselves in relation to their citizenship and what their experiences as citizens say about their self-identification as agents with a say in the issues that affect their lives.