Citizenship and Genocide Cards
This book draws on Rohingya oral histories and narratives about Myanmar’s
genocide and ID schemes to critique prevailing international approaches to
legal identities and statelessness. By centring the narratives of survivors of
state crimes, collected in the aftermath of the 2017 genocidal violence, this
book examines the multiple uses of state-issued ID cards and registration
documents in producing statelessness and facilitating genocide. In doing
so, it challenges some of the international solutions put forward to resolve
statelessness.
Rohingya narratives disrupt a simple linear understanding of documenting
legal identity that marginalises experiences of these processes. The richly
layered accounts of the effects of citizenship laws and registration processes
on the lives of Rohingya problematise the ways in which international actors
have endorsed state ID schemes and by-passed state-led persecution of the
group. This book will be valuable for scholars studying global criminology,
state crime, development studies, refugee and migration studies, statelessness
and nationality, citizenship studies, and genocide studies.
Natalie Brinham is a researcher and author working on statelessness, ID
systems, forced migration, and genocide. She also has many years of
experience working in the UK and Southeast Asia in human rights, advocacy,
and frontline provision for refugees and migrants. She holds a PhD in Legal
Studies from Queen Mary University of London and an MA in Gender,
Education and International Development from University College London.