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18811. ‘People without a State Also Must Live’ Kurds’ Experiences of Citizenship in the Middle East and the Netherlands

Author:
Nannie Skold
Publication Date:
12-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Statelessness & Citizenship Review
Institution:
Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness, Melbourne Law School
Abstract:
Through considering the historical and ongoing systematic oppression of Kurds in the Middle East, this paper seeks to interrogate the role of citizenship in relation to processes of inclusion and exclusion within nation states. By situating the concepts of citizenship and statelessness within their appropriate political context, this paper explores the extent to which citizenship regimes can be used to serve the interests of the state and undermine the interests of minority citizens. This is analysed through considering the framework of the modern state system, in which individuals are largely dependent on citizenship for access to rights. The severe implications of non-citizenship increase citizens’ dependency on states, increasing the capability of states to oppress minority citizens who are not considered to belong within the national community. Through navigating participants’ narratives of citizenship and statelessness, a nuanced understanding of the role of citizenship will challenge dominant assumptions.
Topic:
Governance, Citizenship, Oppression, and Stateless Population
Political Geography:
Europe and Netherlands

18812. Assessment of the #IBelong Campaign Mid-Point and the High-Level Segment on Statelessness

Author:
Carol Batchelor
Publication Date:
12-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Statelessness & Citizenship Review
Institution:
Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness, Melbourne Law School
Abstract:
7 October 2019 marked a critical moment in the #IBelong Campaign to End Statelessness.1 This decade long undertaking, launched in 2014 by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (‘UNHCR’), reached its mid-point this year. As part of the annual Executive Committee meeting, UNHCR held a High Level Segment on Statelessness to assess the status of the Campaign: achievements and successes in the first five years from 2014–19, and remaining areas to be addressed in the last half of the Campaign from 2019–24.2 In order to concretise efforts to fill any identified gaps, and thereby end statelessness by 2024, participants including states, international and regional organisations, and non-governmental organisations (‘NGOs’) were invited to make concrete, timebound and measurable pledges for action. In a watershed moment for the Campaign, it received over 350 pledges from a scope of actors to take steps that will play a role in ending statelessness by 2024.3Statelessness is a surreal problem for those afflicted by it. Without a nationality in any country, stateless persons are often relegated to the fringes of society. Many stateless people are not able to undertake daily functions necessary for survival, such as having a legitimate job or doing things that require identification and legal status such as marrying, going to school, getting medical treatment, owning property or traveling. Even leaving the house to shop for groceries can result in detention when an individual cannot show who they are, where they come from, or where they belong in legal terms. In a world composed of states, statelessness is a condition of exclusion, fear and a lack of attachment or belonging
Topic:
United Nations, Refugees, Humanitarian Crisis, and Stateless Population
Political Geography:
Global Focus

18813. Resisting Erasure The Politics of Reckoning with Statelessness in the Arts

Author:
Nicoletta Enria
Publication Date:
12-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Statelessness & Citizenship Review
Institution:
Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness, Melbourne Law School
Abstract:
Stateless art interlocutors are reclaiming the discourse on statelessness through their creative productions. By reshaping and contesting statelessness to elicit an empathetic connection, they effectively reshuffle the European, and potentially global, system of knowledge on statelessness. First by rejecting the term and redefining it in terms of an ontologically real or delocalised ‘home’, then by shedding light on the universality of experience that exposes that membership must not be based on nation-state boundaries. Finally, stateless art interlocutors reflect on the colonial legacies of their plights, shedding light on historical connections and breaking colonial stereotypes that define stateless peoples as victims worthy of European rescue. This dissents from the discourse of statelessness as a ‘curse’ to be eradicated. Whilst still acknowledging statelessness as a source of torment and pain due to the context of becoming stateless being one of exile and conflict, and the anguish potentially contingent in a lack of a national identity, it does so in a dignified, empowering manner allowing affected populations a voice and agency. This is a perspective that must be taken into account in policy-circles. Through the arts, policy-makers can not only listen to the lived experience of affected populations, but be immersed in their experiential world. Moreover, others can become involved to help bring attention to statelessness in the arts: follow your local galleries, and urge them to support artists working on statelessness, and to include these voices in their collections. The radical empathy fostered in these artworks makes statelessness harder and harder to discard — leaving an indelible mark in our minds. Swaitat’s initial lesson rings truer than ever; he disappeared but he did not die – we must not let his story and that of other stateless art interlocutors slip through the cracks. In 2018 the Statelessness & Citizenship Review had an open call for artworks responding to the Review’s focus on advancing understandings of statelessness and citizenship phenomena and challenges.35 The winning artwork Critical Massby Wasim zaid Habashneh beautifully ties together many of the themes and styles adopted by the stateless art interlocutors I worked with, of home, global community, unity in difference and the universality of experience. The piece, created using a traditional Jordanian sand art in discarded fluorescent tubes with pixelated patterns, incorporates Habashneh’s architectural background in its composition moulded with larger concepts of home, belonging and identity. Critical Mass means the sufficient number to achieve a result — here Habashneh uses this as the title to prompt the question: what makes civil society? Critical Mass seems to resemble the shape of a world map, with the moving tubes structured with different slithers of colour. This alludes to a global community, whilst also delineating difference in the different colours. This also underlines how stateless people and non-citizens are equally as deserving of belonging in a global community, but should not have to erase their identity to become a part of it. Moreover, the motion of the tubes importantly signifies how societies are not static but are in fact always changing. In fact, what statelessness is and how it configures in societies will always be changing, much like shown by the fluid component of sand. Habashneh opens up our understanding of identity and belonging as territorially marked and fixed, but as always changing and able to incorporate stateless people and non-citizens, often excluded and considered anomalies. Critical Mass shows us how our perception of who and what makes a society must remain fluid and open to what the ‘critical mass’ for it to flourish is. Especially one that leaves no one behind.
Topic:
Arts, Feminism, Stateless Population, and Gender
Political Geography:
Global Focus

18814. Better Must Come: Citizenship and Belonging after Statelessness

Author:
Patrick Balazo
Publication Date:
06-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Statelessness & Citizenship Review
Institution:
Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness, Melbourne Law School
Abstract:
In light of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugee’s global #IBELONG Campaign to end statelessness by 2024, this paper examines the benefits of citizenship acquisition among Sri Lanka’s previously stateless Up-Country Tamil population. From 1948 until 2003, the Up-Country Tamil population was stateless and excluded from the Sri Lankan political process, though with the 2003 grant of citizenship Sri Lanka was celebrated as an example of what it means to successfully end statelessness. Using a liberal theory of citizenship extended by the Rancièrian concept of dissensus, and based on qualitative interviews and questionnaire surveys conducted in Sri Lanka between July and August 2016, this paper identifies potential shortcomings of citizenship acquisition that clash with the promise of the #IBELONG Campaign and the narrative of Sri Lanka’s success in ending statelessness: a rural rights deficit and a shared absence of belonging despite the acquisition of citizenship.
Topic:
Human Rights, International Cooperation, United Nations, and Stateless Population
Political Geography:
Asia and Sri Lanka

18815. Rising Statelessness Due to Disappearing Island States

Author:
Marija Dobric
Publication Date:
06-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Statelessness & Citizenship Review
Institution:
Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness, Melbourne Law School
Abstract:
Scientific prognoses have shown that by the year 2100, several low-lying island states such as Tuvalu and Kiribati will disappear due to rising sea levels. The submergence of whole territories will have consequences including the displacement of a huge number of islanders. In that context, the question of how to protect their human rights in their future host states is of great importance. In fact, their human rights protection will most likely prove even more difficult if disappearing island states are considered to have lost statehood. Without the nationality of any state, those displaced islanders will be stateless under international law. In this article, the author assesses whether displaced island populations are sufficiently protected by existing international law norms or whether the international community is called upon to create new rules addressing these future challenges.
Topic:
Climate Change, Environment, Maritime, and Stateless Population
Political Geography:
Global Focus

18816. Adrift? Britain’s Global Role Beyond Brexit

Publication Date:
12-2019
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Mile End Institute, Queen Mary University of London
Abstract:
As politicians grapple over the nation’s future, and the British people prepare to vote, is there a vision of Britain’s national interest and role in the world that its diverse society can unite around? The idea that Britain stood for an economically liberal, rules-based international order, in close alliance with the United States and European powers, is now increasingly questioned. There is not only deep division about Britain’s relationship with Europe, but also the Transatlantic relationship and NATO; the role of the Commonwealth, Britain’s nuclear deterrent and military posture; trade and globalization; responsibilities towards the global south; human rights; defence sales; and the correct grounds for military intervention.
Topic:
Globalization, International Cooperation, Hegemony, International Order, and Influence
Political Geography:
United Kingdom and Europe

18817. What is ‘Corbynomics’? The Emerging Political Economy of the British Left

Publication Date:
11-2019
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Mile End Institute, Queen Mary University of London
Abstract:
Jeremy Corbyn was elected as leader of the Labour Party promising a break with a ‘neoliberal consensus’ that, his supporters argue, has dominated Britain for the past forty years. Even though Labour’s Corbynite turn demonstrated an endurance and electoral potency unanticipated by many mainstream commentators before the 2017 General Election, the agenda of a prospective Labour government remains under explored. In contrast, within the Left itself there have been urgent debates on the ideal policies of a socialist government and the best strategies to replace ‘neoliberalism’. Left-wing writers and think-tankers now discuss proposals like the ‘Preston Model’ and a ‘Green New Deal’ with increasing confidence and excitement. At this event, we will hear from some key figures in the development of the new economic thinking pursued by the Labour leadership. This panel will introduce the emerging political economic settlement, dubbed ‘Corbynomics’ by the Economist, and interrogate its ideas, strategies and prospects.
Topic:
Governance, Leadership, Domestic Politics, and Labour Party
Political Geography:
United Kingdom and Europe

18818. Mile End Institute: Data Rights - Subjects or Citizens?

Publication Date:
11-2019
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Mile End Institute, Queen Mary University of London
Abstract:
This event explored how the exponential accumulation of data from every day online and offline activities raises tensions about who has the right to produce and own such data.
Topic:
Data, Digitalization, and Economic Rights
Political Geography:
Global Focus

18819. Referendums in Europe: People Power or Device of the Political Elite?

Publication Date:
11-2019
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Mile End Institute, Queen Mary University of London
Abstract:
Based on the findings of her recent book ‘The Politics of Referendum Use in European Democracies’, Dr. Saskia Hollander debates the strategic use of referendums in Europe.
Topic:
Politics, Social Movement, Referendum, and Elites
Political Geography:
Europe

18820. Hostile Environment: How Immigrants Became Scapegoats with Dr. Maya Goodfellow

Publication Date:
11-2019
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Mile End Institute, Queen Mary University of London
Abstract:
In this event, Maya Goodfellow discussed her new book 'Hostile Environment: How Immigrants Became Scapegoats' in conversation with Tim Bale, Co-Director of the Mile End Institute.m
Topic:
Border Control, Immigrants, Discrimination, and Xenophobia
Political Geography:
Global Focus