Rethinking Statelessness from Within characterisations, I argue that de facto statelessness is a useful conceptualisation of their experiences. By comparing de facto statelessness with intra-Haitian experiences from 2010 onwards, I aim to link context and theory to deepen our perspective on statelessness. In deepening our understanding of de facto statelessness in this context, this article aims to contribute to the development of theoretical frameworks that can better capture the lived realities of stateless people, moving beyond legal definitions to encompass issues of social texture, political agency and the state-citizen relationship. V THE EARTHQUAKE In January 2010, an earthquake struck Haiti, resulting in approximately 200,000 deaths and massive internal and outgoing displacement.81 Any state may struggle to recover from natural hazards, whether they be floods, earthquakes or fires. Yet, Jane McAdam argues that a state’s socio-economic foundations determine whether a ‘merely hazardous encounter’ becomes a crisis that tests ‘individual and community resilience’. 82 From an environmental perspective, ‘poor urban planning[,] substandard infrastructure and housing[,] large coastal populations[,] and widespread dependence on subsistence farming’ left Haiti vulnerable to severe environmental impacts.83 Further, Haiti’s longstanding political vulnerability and discontent (as described above) left it unprepared to mitigate the social effects of the earthquake on their citizenry. As Diana Thomaz states, ‘Haiti has endured over two centuries of complex political strife, successive coups d’état, authoritarian governments and international interventions that have left it with weak institutions, largely unresponsive to the needs of the population’. 84 The earthquake only amplified these weaknesses. In fact, Fatton makes the argument in his 2014 book that the earthquake represents the moment where Haiti fell into the ‘virtual “trusteeship” of the international community’.85 Though he does not leverage the phrasing of de facto statelessness as I do, he does express how the ‘very idea of citizenship’ becomes ‘moot’ with the loss of territorial sovereignty experienced by Haiti, both historically and most acutely post-earthquake.86 The experience of those impacted by the 2010 earthquake illustrates that rights such as education, movement and healthcare only exist if the state is willing and able to provide them –– whether in Haiti or abroad. Through this, it demonstrates that the lack of functioning citizenship not only harms Haitians in situ, but also as they endeavour to move abroad. This is another reason to consider the effects of the 2010 earthquake through the lens of de facto statelessness: the international community vehemently denied refugee or de jure stateless status to the victims of earthquake, as they retained legal Haitian nationality.87 Despite lacking a home, documentation, rights protections, work or security, earthquake victims were 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 Lara Gautier et al, ‘What Links Can Be Made from Narratives of Migration and SelfPerceived Health? A Qualitative Study with Haitian Migrants Settling in Quebec after the 2010 Haiti Earthquake’ [2020] (1–2) Journal of Migration and Health 1, 1. Jane McAdam, ‘The Problem of “Crisis Migration”’ (2013) 19(3) Australian Journal of Human Rights 7, 12. Roy and Labrador (n 23). Diana Thomaz, ‘Post-Disaster Haitian Migration’ (2013) 43 (May) Forced Migration Review 35. Fatton (n 7) vii. ibid 58. Thomaz (n 84) 35. 139