AHMR African Human Mobilty Review - Volume 8 No 3, SEP-DEC 2022
reluctant even so to call it ‘their fair share’. However, the scholarship on statelessness
still needs to make meaningful headway in fields such as economics, philosophy,
and anthropology. Moreover, the role that psychology could play in helping us to
understand the implications of statelessness both at the individual and communal
levels is yet to be taken up in earnest. It is also not off the mark to inquire if there
are elements of traditional, customary, or religious law and practice that could help
inform the scholarship on statelessness in Africa.
Almost a decade ago, Mark Manly (the former head of the Statelessness Unit
at the UNHCR) and Laura van Waas noted the existence of an adequate amount of
academic activity on statelessness and concluded that ‘statelessness has “arrived” as a
recognised focus of both academic and policy-oriented study’.45 Five years down the
line, in 2019, in an article entitled ‘The arrival of “Statelessness Studies”?’, David C.
Baluarte further consolidated these arguments. Although he acknowledging that this
area of study is neither fully defined nor has one specific field to claim it, Baluarte
asserted ‘that the study of statelessness has emerged as a multi-disciplinary field’46
and went on to ‘urge that we institutionalise it as such’.47
It is worth exploring if researchers and academic institutions are paying
adequate attention to these developments. For example, it is not clear whether any
universities in Africa have engaged in activities such as curriculum development
with a focus on statelessness, and if they have, what the depth and breadth of their
courses are.
In moving forward, we should also ask critical questions such as the following:
How do we increase academic engagement around the issue of statelessness on the
African continent? What are some of the ‘dos and don’ts’ that we can learn from
other regions of the world? For example, is there room for African organisations
to organise themselves along the lines of the European Network on Statelessness (a
‘coordinating body and expert resource for organisations and individuals working
to promote the right to a nationality in Europe’),48 with membership spanning 41
European countries, for the purpose of expanding scholarship on statelessness in
Africa? How do we bring the next generation of African researchers into the fold to
contribute to the debate?
Part of expanding and deepening statelessness scholarship in Africa should
also involve paying close attention to the role of language. For example, how do
we capture the research being undertaken on the topic in languages other than
English? How should research findings on statelessness be communicated using local
languages?
It would also be remiss to overlook the role of donors in influencing the
scholarship around statelessness in Africa. A large number of projects around legal
Mark Manly & Laura van Waas ‘The state of statelessness research: A human rights imperative’ (2014) 19(1–2) Tilburg
Law Review at 3, 4.
46
David C Baluarte ‘The arrival of “statelessness studies”?’ (2019) Statelessness & Citizenship Review at 156.
47
Ibid.
48
European Network on Statelessness (ENS), available at https://www.statelessness.eu/about
45
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