Stateless Nationals: The Struggle for Recognition and Identity Insecurity

The right to a nationality is a fundamental human right. Nevertheless, statelessness is often a cause or consequence of migration. As migration has become a thoroughly globalized reality, border crossings in cases of contested sovereignty pose new challenges to the countries of settlement. The particular vulnerability of nationals who find themselves without a state is epitomized not only in a fragile legal status, but also often in a precarious socioeconomic status. This paper investigates the phenomenon of statelessness in a world characterized by an amorphous plurality of citizenship regimes governed by unequal nation-states. Statelessness as such has always occupied a highly paradox position within the framework of nation-states since the dichotomy of nationality and non-nationality is built on the very premise that the non-national is part of another nation-state. At the same time, its de-facto existence is somewhat systemic: In many cases members of such stateless communities remain, either by choice or lack of possibility, over generations in this situation, being neither citizens of their receiving states nor their sending states. By analysing the historical context of the development of the notion of statelessness, this paper asks in what ways the original function and idea behind this notion needs to be reconceptualised in the 21st century. Building on an interdisciplinary approach and through a qualitative inquiry, this paper first examines the legal context by reference to the key international conventions addressing statelessness. Second, it empirically analyses the concept by investigating the case study of the Tibetan diaspora in Switzerland in a historical and comparative perspective. Due to changing political factors and tightening legal practices, Tibetan refugees in Switzerland today face harsher policies compared to the 60ies, when they were welcomed with open arms as the the country’s first non-European refugees. The analysis points to a complex interplay between state policies and the status and protection as refugees on the one hand, and transnational diaspora politics on the other. Additionally, we argue that in a context of China’s increased securitization within and outside its territory, likewise Tibetan activism is not only driven by nationalism towards an imagined homeland, but also by identity insecurity. While the acquisition of citizenship is important, it has also its limits in understanding the belongings of people who consider themselves as stateless in a world of nation-states. Therefore, the refusal of citizenship or nationality is understood as a political practice. We posit that statelessness thus is no longer to be seen and treated as a subsidiary legal status category to fall back to as a last resort, but deserves heightened attention, especially as regards to its emancipatory potential. Therefore, this paper makes a critical contribution to the scholarship exploring the nexus between migration, statelessness and security studies.