The Critical Statelessness Studies Blog serves as a space for short reflective pieces by individuals working on statelessness from a critical perspective.
PhD students and early career academics are particularly encouraged to consider the Blog as a venue to showcase elements of their work in an accessible and digestible format.
To submit a blog proposal please contact Aashish Yadav
NB: Finalised blog entries should be ideally between 1,000 and 2,000 words. Please note that blog entries represent the views of the authors and not those of the Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness.
About the Critical Statelessness Studies Blog:
This blog series has its origins in the Critical Statelessness Studies (CSS) Project, which aimed to interrogate dominant narratives and approaches in the contemporary study of statelessness and promoting critical engagement around questions of how to approach the theme of statelessness in our work.
This series aims to provide a platform for the publication and dissemination of resources promoting a plurality of counter-hegemonic narratives around the nature and experiences of statelessness covering a wide variety of disciplines, theories and methodologies.
Blog Posts
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The Conundrum of Ethnic Recognition and the Limits of Group-Based Citizenship Campaigning in Kenya
In this blog, Samantha Balaton-Chrimes (Associate Professor in Politics at Deakin University and Honorary Fellow at the Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness) argues that group-based citizenship campaigns, while genuinely effective for some stateless communities in Kenya, rest on and reinforce a culture of ethnicised belonging that carries significant risks — and that the digitisation of identity systems is making those risks harder to manage.
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Sanctuary Cities and City Citizenship for the Stateless
In this blog, Jade Roberts (Lecturer at Melbourne Law School and Research Fellow at the Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness) argues that the Trump administration’s immigration policies are galvanizing the sanctuary city movement, and that sanctuary cities have a significant role to play in addressing statelessness.
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Taking Responsibility for those who belong to Australia including women and children from Syrian camps
In this blog, Felicity Gerry KC and Sue Milne draw on historical sources and the UK precedent in the Shamima Begum litigation to argue that Australia’s failure to extend protection to nationals who remain stranded in Al-Roj camp in Syria exposes the frailties of the whole concept of legal ‘belonging’ and the rule of law.
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We Need to Start Talking About Artificial Intelligence and Statelessness
In this blog, Dr Jason Tucker, Researcher at the Institute for Futures Studies and Adjunct Associate Professor at the AI Policy Lab, Umeå University, Sweden, argues that statelessness studies has largely been silent on the impacts of AI on stateless persons – leading to a blind spot that needs to be addressed.
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Nationality and Statelessness During Armed Conflict
In this blog, Andrea Marilyn Pragashini Immanuel, PhD Candidate and Law Academic Associate at the Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness, reflects on the importance of undertaking a holistic analysis of international law to address the instrumentalization of nationality during armed conflict.
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Statelessness in a Legal System Without States: A Tikanga Māori Perspective
In this blog, Sophie Coomber (Ngāti Maniapoto, Waikato-Tainui), Lecturer at Auckland University of Technology Law School, argues that Indigenous bodies of law like tikanga Māori contain rich resources for re-examining how we approach statelessness and belonging.
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Unpacking the intersection between Islamophobia and Statelessness
In this blog entry, Kowthar Yussuf examines the situation in Myanmar and India, demonstrating how Islamophobia, along with associated rhetoric, perceptions, and hate speech embedded in government policies, contributes to statelessness, denationalisation, and the marginalisation of Muslim communities.
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Living Statelessness in the Legal ‘in-between’ : Migrants from Thailand in Japan
In this blog entry, Bongkot Napaumporn argues the legal definition of statelessness cannot be applied easily in practice, particularly in a migratory context. In real life, some migrants are confined to a legal vacuum, being outside the boundary of national identity and also external to the internationally accepted statelessness identity.
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From Statistics to Solidarity: Applying Arendt's Political Responsibility and Statelessness
In this blog entry, Rebekah Prystupa, Honours student at the University of Melbourne in the Politics and International Studies faculty considers the limitations of statistical measurement in the context of statelessness in Australia.
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Personal Reflections on the ‘Being Stateless' Podcast: Listening to Lives Lived with Statelessness
This blog is drawn from a speech by André Dao, recipient of the 2024 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for his book “Anam”, at the launch event for the Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness’ new oral history podcast, Being Stateless.
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Age, life stages and legality: insights from long-term ethnographic research in northern Thailand
In this blog post, Janepicha Cheva-Isarakul, considers how age intersects with legal status to shape life experiences for stateless people. Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork with 1.5 and 2nd generation Shan youth in Thailand, she highlights the particular challenges that occur around their transitions between childhood, youth and adulthood.
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Amplifying Voices: Crafting Authentic Storytelling Guidelines
In this blog post, Sirazul Islam, Community Engagement Coordinator at the European Network on Statelessness (ENS) reflects on the co-creative process of developing guidelines for empowering stateless storytelling. NB: This blog was originally published on the ENS website, and has been reproduced with permission.
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Confronting Kafkaesque Bureaucracy: Stateless-Led Initiatives to Address Ignorance and Foster Inclusion
In this blog post, Jessica Schmieder, Project Manager of Apatride Network, sheds light on the 'Kafkaesque' challenges that bureaucratic practices pose for those affected by statelessness, often leading to their marginalisation and exclusion from essential services.
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Understanding Statelessness as a "shape shifting monster"
In this blog, Sam March, a stateless Lebanese artist, uses the metaphor of a monster to highlight the shape shifting nature of statelessness as a concept and in its effect on individuals.
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Centring the Lived Experience of Stateless People in Legal Education
In this blog, Katie Robertson, Director of the Stateless Legal Clinic at the University of Melbourne, discusses the development of a relatively new Australian legal service for stateless people, the Stateless Legal Clinic.
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Understanding the Zone of Statelessness in Assam
In this blog entry, using the citizenship crisis in Assam, Angshuman Choudhury argues that the concept of “zone of statelessness” is more useful in understanding the spectral, rather than monolithic, nature of citizenship deprivation in certain contexts.
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Between statelessness and citizenship - legal identity under insurgencies and unrecognised states
In this blog post, co-editors Marika Sosnowski and Bart Klem, with master reviewer Marnie Lloydd, reflect on the outcomes of a recently published Citizenship Studies special issue on legal identity under insurgencies and unrecognised states.
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Statelessness through the lens of time
In this post, Ahmad Jaber Benswait, prospective PhD candidate at the University College London, Culture, Communication and Media department, explores the political dimensions of time and temporality with respect to his lived experiences of statelessness and displacement.
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Stocktake of Critical Statelessness Studies to date (2020 - 2023): Renewing the Call for Innovative Contributions to the Field
In this blog, Sumedha Choudhury and Thomas McGee reflect on the trajectory of CSS and consider the directions we would like to see the project take going forward.
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The Two Faces of Nationality: Reflections from The Dark Knight's Harvey Dent
In this blog, Andrea Marilyn Pragashini Immanuel, PhD Candidate and Research Fellow at the Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness, reflects on the duality of nationality by reading nationality through the fictional, ‘Two-Faced’ Harvey Dent in the popular culture film, The Dark Knight. She argues that much like Dent, nationality is often portrayed in international law as the White Knight, disregarding nationality’s destructive tendencies.
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Ensuing Statelessness as (Post) Colonial Effect: Dynamics of Formal Identification Denial among the Fulani in Ghana
In this blog, Isaac Owusu Nsiah critically discusses the dynamics of the Ghanaian state's recognition of the Fulani community as migrants and thus non-Ghanaians.
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Risks of Stigmatising Stateless People through Association and Conflation: Noxious Nexuses with Gender Based Violence and Terrorism
This blog post by Peter McMullin Centre Graduate Researchers Deirdre Brennan and Thomas McGee highlights the risks of stigmatising stateless people through association and conflation.
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How not to react when somebody tells you they are stateless
In this blog entry, @Thex, Statefree community author reflects on how allies can best engage with the experiences of stateless people, arguing that it is important to develop sensitive reactions to hearing about somebody’s statelessness.
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Statelessness, expert activists and the ‘practitioner-scholar dilemma’
In this blog entry, Judith Beyer, Professor of Social and Political Anthropology at the University of Konstanz, describes and analyses a central characteristic of many ‘expert activists’ working in the field of statelessness: they struggle with what Beyer calls a ‘practitioner-scholar dilemma’.
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Understanding how Patriarchy and Xenophobia work together to undermine the Struggle for Citizenship: the Case of Nepal
In this blog, Pranaya SJB Rana delves into the recent political crisis around Nepal’s Citizenship Amendment Bill, analysing how the intersection of patriarchy and xenophobia works to perpetuate the exclusion of a significant section of the population from their rights to citizenship.
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When the Subaltern Speaks Online: Stateless Advocacy through the Post-Pandemic Digital Space
In this blog entry, Joe Poladoghly, stateless writer and master’s student in Human Rights and Democratisation from Lebanon, considers the potential opportunities of the internet for stateless mobilisers.
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Asserting Statelessness: Using Archival History to Challenge State Discourse
In this blog, Jordana Silverstein, Senior Research Fellow at the Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness, explores the ways we can read the testimonies of stateless people in the Australian archives to think about relationships between stateless people and the states they migrate to.
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“Who is Stateless in Myanmar?” – Revolutionary Film Provokes Unexpected Debate
In this blog, Nyi Nyi Kyaw, discusses the new short film ‘Stateless - နိုင်ငံပျောက်သူ Naing-Ngan Pyauk-Thu’ and the debate that quickly followed its release, which raises questions around the value, contradictions and confusion of the term ‘stateless’, particularly in light of the real life experiences of the actors and director concerned.
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Telling Stateless Stories Differently: on queer feminist oral history methods & stateless epistemologies
In this blog entry, Nour Almazidi argues the importance of oral history methodologies for telling stateless stories differently.
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Reflection on the Emergence of Critical Statelessness Studies
In this blog entry, Thomas McGee reflects on the emerging body of critical statelessness scholarship, and considers its relation to the more established field of Critical Citizenship Studies.
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Exclusion in the 1954 Convention’s Drafting Process: Insights from the Travaux Préparatoires
In this blog, Betsy Fisher examines the previously unpublished travaux of the 1954 Statelessness Convention, arguing that they provide evidence of how stateless people were excluded from processes directly concerning them.
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Statelessness statistics and IROSS: The UN Statistical Commission grapples with definitions
In this blog entry, Bronwen Manby explores the history of statistical data on statelessness and the ongoing process to develop International Recommendations on Statelessness Statistics (IROSS).
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Transforming Gender Discriminatory Legal Frameworks
Considering Syria as a case study, Roua Al Taweel examines statelessness as both a conflict-induced harm, and one facilitated by the existing gendered legal framework.
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Spotlighting Romani women’s activism and role in addressing statelessness in Europe
In a collaboration between the European Network on Statelessness and Romani women activists, this blog spotlights the unique experiences of Romani women’s lives and their activism, and why including their voices and expertise in discussions on addressing statelessness in Europe is integral.
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Refugeeness doesn’t trump statelessness: A call to reject the UN’s “protection hierarchy” for stateless refugees
In this blog entry, Jason Tucker, Associate Senior Lecturer at Malmö University, challenges the ways in which the international community programmatically engages with stateless refugees.
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Lending legitimacy to a murderous military: What is in the “stateless” label for Rohingyas?
Natalie Brinham & Ali Johar call our attention to the ways in which labelling the Rohingya ethnic community as stateless undermines belonging and legitimises the power of the Myanmar military to exclude.
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Decentralising Solutions to Statelessness
Zahra Al-barazi, co-founder of the Middle East and North Africa Statelessness Network (Hawiati), questions the importance placed on Eurocentric solutions to dismantling statelessness.
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On Statelessness and Hypervisibility
Joe Poladoghly
In this blog entry, Joe Poladoghly, stateless writer from Lebanon, considers how non-consensual hypervisibility of stateless people can be just as problematic as their erasure through perceived ‘invisibility’. -
Statistical Reporting and the Representation of Stateless People: A Critical Note
In this blog entry, Brad Blitz calls into question the relatively recent attempts to quantify statelessness and the implications of such for stateless people.
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Caring about Statelessness: Unpacking the “End Statelessness" Campaigns through a Feminist Ethics of Care
Deirdre Brennan argues for an examination of the pervasive social function of care amongst people affected by statelessness.
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Reclaiming Statelessness Narratives by Resisting ‘Deficit’ Discourse and Amplifying the Voices of Stateless People
Director of Road to Refuge, Jeanine Hourani, reflects on efforts to change the narratives around statelessness by amplifying the voices of people with lived experience.
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Critical sociolinguistic ethnography as a lens to statelessness: a case from the Bidoon community in Kuwait
In this blog entry, Ahmad Jaber proposes critical sociolinguistic ethnography (CSE) as a counterhegemonic approach to understanding statelessness.
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Decolonising statelessness: unpacking colonial legacies and deconstructing forms of epistemic violence
Malak Benslama-Dabdoub's thought-provoking piece speaks to the value of decolonial theory and methodology for the statelessness field.
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Knowledge to Empower: Closing the Gap between Stateless People and Statelessness Research
Christiana Bukalo, founder of State Free, reflects on her experiences researching statelessness as a stateless person.
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Tackling the Nation-State ‘Container Model’ in Statelessness Research
Victoria Reitter critiques the heavy reliance on quantitative data in the statelessness field and seeks to expand the lens through an ethnographic approach.
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Experiencing the Anticipation of Statelessness – A South Asian Perspective of Mass Exclusion from Citizenship
Anubhav Dutt Tiwari calls for attention to be paid to the ways in which statelessness is in fact experienced before it is formally realised and before its consequences start taking shape
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On Stateless Activism and True Engagement
Haqqi Bahram considers challenges faced by stateless activists in achieving real engagement within the statelessness sector.
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Introductory Blog: Taking a “Critical” Approach to Statelessness
The Critical Statelessness Studies Project emerged to promote reflexive critical analyses of mainstream approaches to statelessness that have emerged over the past decade or so in both academia and civil society.