Pathways to statelessness: Denationalisation and the denial of personhood Milena Tripkovic What does being stateless really mean? Four case studies in this symposium which explore practices that lead to statelessness of distinct groups of citizens in India, Myanmar, Nigeria, and Syria provide an illuminating account of the varieties and processes of being denied the status of membership in a polity. Although geographically and temporally dispersed, the four cases show unique patterns and paint a similarly worrying picture of continuous attempts to deny either the status of citizenship or the rights associated with it to specific groups of citizens. Taken together, the cases demonstrate that statelessness should not be thought of only as a status that denotes a lack of citizen attachments to any state – as legally conceived1 – but that we should also consider the dynamics which precede it and make it possible, as well as the conditions which a lack of this status makes possible. This brief response has two objectives. First, I explore what the case studies (and some of my own reflections on European denationalisation policies) tell us about the processes which create various ‘shades’ of statelessness. Second, I propose that rather than thinking about these shades as distinct or mutually exclusive, they are better understood as placed along a continuum which allows us to trace how state policies almost inevitably become more stringent and exclusive over time, ultimately leading to a full removal of undesired groups of citizens from state territory. Statelessness consequently works to erase personhood, and far from demonstrating a lack of interest in the future of those who are denied citizenship, states intentionally and maliciously target distinct groups of citizens in order to reduce the level of protection accorded to them and increase their vulnerability, even post denationalisation. While statelessness is most correctly understood as a legal denial of citizenship and nationality, more subtle breaches of attachments to one’s state should be considered as pathways to statelessness, which therefore deserve our equal attention. One of the best ways to capture and reflect on the ‘shades’ of statelessness is to consider how visible and perceivable the limitations to the status are, internally, externally, and globally. The categorisation below rests on a significant degree of generalisation: cases are complex and state policies often follow diverse trajectories in the case of different groups, but the distinction nevertheless captures different phases of and pathways to statelessness. 1. Visible statelessness. The best example of this category is the statelessness of the Rohingya subsequent to their expulsion from Myanmar. Following a decades-long process of increasing discrimination and human rights violations in this country, the denial of their citizenship has more recently taken a dramatic and explicit form in their expulsion from the territory (made possible by previous policies which have long denied them access to identification documents). Their non-belonging is made blatantly obvious to both the population of Myanmar and the whole world. 2. Covert statelessness. This category is exemplified by the treatment of Kurds in Syria, as well as religious ‘others’ (predominantly Muslims) in India. In Syria, while many Kurds have over the years been expunged from the territory, a predominant majority continues to live within the territory of the state, but without the status and with almost no rights. In India, particularly in the state of Assam, widespread denial of citizenship relates to ‘foreigners’ or ‘illegal migrants’ who have actually lived in the territory for a number of years, but their deportation similarly seems unlikely. Their non-belonging is thus visible from the inside (to those living in Syria and India), but is less visible from the outside.  1 University of Edinburgh. United Nations (1954), Convention relating to the status of stateless persons, article 1. 41