172 Statelessness and the Feminist Toolbox of gender discrimination in nationality laws, many of which are led by feminist activists at national and international levels.8 And, advocacy for the eradication of those laws is unremittingly fostered by actors in the statelessness sector.9 Still, in this way gender and patriarchy are under-appreciated as omnipresent forces in society, and instead statelessness scholarship appears to approach gender in a way that compartmentalizes it.10 It means gender is addressed as one component of statelessness, like other discriminations or issues, such as ethnicity, religion or childhood statelessness, in need of legislative solutions. Essentially, this approach could be described as “add women and stir”, a method infamous in its shortcomings for equality.11 Instead, this article argues for the use of a feminist analysis of statelessness as it is a tool that—as will be demonstrated through the examples of feminist-stateless research ideas listed below—does not simply raise the question of women. Rather, feminist analysis incorporates critical work from postcolonial theory, intersectionality, poststructuralism, black/race studies, and others to infiltrate an issue at its foundations. The infiltration of feminist analysis serves to make sense of how structural inequalities disenfranchise both men and women, which would include those affected by statelessness. Feminist analysis is therefore a tool used to challenge structures that permit hierarchies, privilege and domination—a recipe for the creation, maintenance and growth of stateless populations. The goal behind the feminist perspective of international law for Charlesworth et. al. was the ‘rethinking and revision of those structures and principles which exclude most women’s voices.’ In using their goal as a template, a feminist perspective to statelessness solutions would mean the rethinking and revision of patriarchal structures and principles which created and perpetuate statelessness and add further subjugation to women and minorities affected by statelessness. To reach this goal, the following research questions demonstrate some of the ways in which feminist theory and practice can fertilize a more reflective and critical understanding of statelessness, with an aim of ultimately improving solutions toward ending statelessness: a) The influential feminist analyses of theories on agency, by Chandra Talpade Mohanty,12 and ­Judith Butler,13 can help researchers untangle the agent-victim dichotomy emerging in statelessness discourse about definitions and self-identification. For example, in what circumstances do people want to be identified or defined as stateless? What space is there in the sector’s discourse for stateless people to be seen as having agency? What are the implications for the proliferation of the victimization of stateless people i.e. the portrayal of stateless people as “ghosts”, “invisible” and “nowhere people”? b) Feminist theorist Kimberlé Crenshaw’s work on the theory of intersectionality can aid in (and as I will show later, in some cases already is aiding) our understanding of the interactions between multiple identities and experiences of subordination.14 A good case in point is to ask in what way stateless women from an ethnic minority experience statelessness? How can a research study be tailored to collect multiple experiences of statelessness? To what extent, or to what degree of detriment, have stateless people been assumed to be a coherent group with identical problems and needs? c) Queer theory is a foundational feminist tool for problematizing the “natural order” of things such as biological sex and heteronormativity. It offers users the opportunity to read against the grain of accepted patterns of thinking. Sara Ahmed’s work in ‘Queer Phenomenology’ would allow us to work through assumptions on stateless persons’ perspectives of statehood and citizenship.15 For instance, how do stateless people envisage their relationship or orientation with regard to the 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 See, Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights (GCENR), ‘The Problem’ <http://equalnationalityrights.org>. See, Women’s Refugee Commission 2013; Equal Rights Trust 2015; Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion 2018. The UN Women definition of gender, importantly that it is socio-cultural, relational and socially constructed, is used here for the purposes of this paper’s argument, ‘Gender refers to the social attributes and opportunities associated with being male and female and the relationships between women and men and girls and boys… These attributes, opportunities and relationships are socially constructed… Gender is part of the broader socio-cultural context. Other important criteria for socio-cultural analysis include race, class, poverty level, ethnic group and age.’ UN Women ‘Concepts and definitions’ http://www.un.org/womenwatch/osagi/conceptsandefinitions.htm accessed 10 January 2019. See, S N Hesse-Biber and P L Leavy, Feminist research practice (SAGE Publications 2007). Also, K Ellerby, No Shortcut to Change: An Unlikely Path to a More Gender Equitable World (NYU Press 2017). C Mohanty, ‘Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses’ (1988) 30 Feminist Review 61. J Butler, Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity (Routledge 1990). K Crenshaw, ‘Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics’ (1989) University of Chicago Legal Forum 139. S Ahmed, Queer phenomenology: Orientations, objects, others (Duke University Press 2006).