38.2 (7) TEMPROSA.DOCX38.2 (7) TEMPROSA.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 246 BERKELEY JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW 1/16/2021 12:59 PM [Vol. 38:2 relativized world." 19 It is an examination of power as both marginalizing (domination) and productive (freedom), and of how this happens in argumentation.20 Here, rhetoric refers to the way that language operates, especially in argument.21 The Latin phrase "finis autem conversatio" (end of citizenship) 22 captures the phenomenon, highlighting the tentative and rhetoricized nature of statelessness determinations. I also develop the connection of the definition to ideographs, ideologies, and categories to analyze statelessness determinations. Existing literature on categories, labels, and definitions in the social sciences, refugee studies, and migration studies are incorporated in an interdisciplinary analysis. Throughout this Article, I consider status determinations as institutional State practices and not just mere opinions and adjudications of statelessness judges or officers. I draw from the practice of States that have established domestic procedures to determine statelessness. 23 19. McKerrow, supra note 18, at 91. 20. Sara L. McKinnon, Critical Theory, in ENCYCLOPEDIA OF COMMUNICATION THEORY 237, 241 (Stephen Littlejohn & Karen Foss eds., 2009). As McKinnon explains: "A central thread in critical theory research is the examination of social conditions for the hidden productive structures of marginalization. This sort of examination looks at the constraints placed on people's subjectivity, agency, and access to resources in particular contexts… In both creating knowledge about people and allocating resources to those people, these structures privilege some while marginalizing others. It is this inequality that is at the heart of critical theory's analysis. The goal in critiquing such structures of domination, however, is to produce possibilities for transforming social relations." Id. at 238. 21. See Lolita Buckner Inniss, A Critical Legal Rhetoric Approach to in Re African-American Slave Descendants Litigation, 24 ST. JOHN'S J. LEGAL COMMENT 649, 655 (2010) 22. This can also be translated as finis autem civitatis. I thank Velentina Vadi for her help in the translation and for her thoughts. Note that my use of this term should not be confused with postnationalism, which "involves the extension of rights to noncitizen immigrants, which blurs the dichotomy between nationals and aliens." See Yasemin Soysal, Postnational Citizenship: Reconfiguring the Familiar Terrain, in THE BLACKWELL COMPANION TO POLITICAL SOCIOLOGY 333 (Kate Nash & Alan Scott eds., 2001). 23. For an overview of the statelessness determination models in Europe, see generally KATIA BIANCHINI, PROTECTING STATELESS PERSONS: THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE CONVENTION RELATING TO THE STATUS OF STATELESS PERSONS ACROSS EU STATES (2018). See also Gábor Gyulai, The Determination of Statelessness and the Establishment of a Statelessness-Specific Protection Regime, in NATIONALITY AND STATELESSNESS UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW 122 (Alice Edwards & Laura van Waas eds., 2014). Gyulai provides a slightly more general account of statelessness determination models, including five procedures largely utilized in Europe. Most of the procedures are in Europe. Around twenty-five procedures exist as of this writing. Id. This Article also considers judicial decisions in addition to statelessness determination procedures.