Rethinking Statelessness from Within definition is central to legal frameworks and institutions, this emphasis creates a theoretical gap, marginalising those who, despite possessing legal nationality, effectively cannot access citizenship benefits and political belonging — the de facto stateless. To address this gap, I aim to re-centre the feelings of precarity, the loss of belonging and political rights and the insecurity central to what Hannah Arendt describes as relating to the conditions of a de facto stateless existence,3 utilising the rooted experiences of the Haitian populace as a case study to this effect. A further lacuna I aim to overcome is that typical depictions of colonialised groups place those they depict as ‘between understanding others as transparent and comprehensible, on the one hand, and as inscrutably Other on the other hand’ with theorising more aimed at extraction over human-centric interpretation. 4 In the Haitian case, racialised conceptions of citizenship have been used by a ‘world dominated by Christianity, capitalism and whiteness’ to paint a ‘supposed incomprehensible nature of Haitian reality’.5 In so doing, Haiti’s so-called ‘weird’ history undermines its role as the world’s first post-colonial state and instead paints it with an ‘incomprehensibility’ that enables the continued neglect of Black histories in migration and statelessness studies.6 That is, the historical painting of Haiti as an anomaly of untameable catastrophes serves the dual purpose of continuing to promote Western interventionism and moral superiority, while simultaneously neglecting the integration of Haiti and other post-colonial nations into the citizenship canon. This article posits that the Haitian context offers a compelling case study for re-understanding de facto statelessness and for countering the paternalistic narratives that have historically enabled Western interventionism and neglect of Black histories. Following the lead of theorists such as Suzy Castor, Michel-Rolph Trouillot and Alex Dupuy, I will demonstrate how the enduring legacy of colonialism means that social and economic conditions in Haiti violate individual rights, community and security. This precarity and disenfranchisement is demonstrative of de facto statelessness. To illustrate, I analyse two key events: the socio-political ramifications of the 2010 earthquake, and the ongoing absence of democratic voting in Haiti since 2016. The aftermath of the earthquake reveals the state's inability to provide basic protections and services, while the absence of voting highlights the denial of political participation, a fundamental aspect of citizenship, further eroding the bonds of citizenship. Influential theorists in the field of Haitian studies, such as Dupuy and Robert Fatton, have expressed the impact of the 2010 earthquake on life in Haiti, not just as an environmental event, but as a linchpin moment for Haitian political life.7 These events serve as case studies to highlight the Haitian government's ineffectiveness in providing a meaningful relationship with its citizenry. Ultimately, this article contributes to a more nuanced understanding of statelessness by highlighting the complexities of de facto statelessness within a 3 4 5 6 7 Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (Penguin Classics 2017) 350. Benjamin P Davis, Choose Your Bearing: Édouard Glissant, Human Rights and Decolonial Ethics (Edinburgh University Press 2023) 39. Fabio Santos, ‘The Necropolitics of Statelessness: Coloniality, Citizenship, and Disposable Lives’ (2025) 29(1) Citizenship Studies 17, 19. ibid. Alex Dupuy, ‘Beyond the Earthquake: A Wake-up Call for Haiti’ (2010) 37(3) Latin American Perspectives 195, 198 (‘Dupuy, “Beyond the Earthquake”’); Robert Fatton Jr, Haiti: Trapped in the Outer Periphery (Lynne Rienner Publishers 2013) 14–5. 127