‘Humanising’ Statelessness embrace and engage with it. Throughout this research, I investigated the artworks, metaphors, performances related to statelessness informed by such insights. Finally, I followed the grounded theory approach to understand my observation notes, transcriptions of discussion sessions, informal discussions and conversations. I decided not to employ a pre-determined theoretical framework to look at my data. Rather, I wanted to see what themes and sub-themes came from my observations and how these fit or contradicted existing discourses. Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss considered grounded theory to address ‘how the discovery of theory from data systematically obtained and analysed in social research-can be furthered’, rather than the rigorous analysis conducted upon the data in the theories of other sociological studies. 25 Likewise, the main concepts in this article — humanisation, empathy, hope and agency — came from my observation of the artworks, narrative and concepts employed by Creative Court and Empathy and Risk, as well as through my informal discussions and conversations with the artists and officials of both organisations. THE STATE OF STATELESSNESS RESEARCH: A SHORT LITERATURE REVIEW Statelessness is still considered an understudied and neglected issue. 26 Nevertheless, academics and organisations — such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (‘UNHCR’), European Network on Statelessness and ISI — publish a significant amount of research on statelessness. It is impossible to present the plethora of research and literature in these short paragraphs, but I intend to present the main thematic areas from existing pieces of literature. I have divided the literature into three broad thematic areas to present how statelessness is dominantly framed and represented, namely, defining statelessness, solving or preventing statelessness and critiques of human rights and nation-state frameworks. This also answers my first research question. Later, I discuss the importance of using art and artistic approaches to show what place art has in the field of statelessness. Defining Statelessness: Legal Framing and Representation Theoretically speaking, defining statelessness from a legal perspective is straightforward since, as explained above, the 1954 Convention outlines the definition of stateless persons. However, it is a complex and multifaceted issue and can arise from many different contexts and circumstances. 27 Common representations of statelessness emphasise that a lack of a nationality creates a 25 26 27 Barney Glaser and Anselm L Strauss, The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research (Aldine Transaction 1967) 1. Alice Edwards and Laura Van Waas, ‘Statelessness’ in Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh et al (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies (Oxford University Publishing 2014) 290, 298. See Tendayi Bloom, Katherine Tonkiss and Phillip Cole, ‘Introduction: Providing a Framework for Understanding Statelessness’ in Tendayi Bloom, Katherine Tonkiss & Phillip Cole (eds), Understanding Statelessness (Routledge 2017). See also Handbook on Statelessness in the OSCE Area: International Standards and Good Practices (Report, Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe 28 February 2017) 9 <https://www.osce.org/files/f/documents/5/1/302201.pdf>; Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion, The World’s Stateless (Wolf Legal 2014). 277