Subaltern Geopolitics of Closed Borders: Russophone Minorities in Estonia and Finland.

The article discusses how geopolitical discourses and related performative practices of bordersensitive groups in countries neighbouring Russia are transformed by the war in Ukraine. Based mainly on the mixture of ethnographic methods (semi-structured interviews and unprovoked talk), the article is built around the study of vernacular geopolitics of Russian speakers living in the city of Narva, Estonia, and Finland. It suggests that the geopolitical narrative of these ethnolinguistic groups is changing from subaltern, neither dominant nor resistant geopolitical imagination, to oppositional geopolitics. This transformation takes place through public expression in the form of creative performances (Estonia) or online and offline protests (Finland). In this way, Russian speakers seek to acquire a political agency, local (in the case of Estonia) or national (in the case of Finland). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]