12 Introduction
with particular reference to the work of Gregory Stanton (2004, 2017) and
Daniel Feierstein (2014, 2015). It also considers how Rohingya narratives
often refer to attempts to destroy their identity through state ID schemes as
part of a ‘masterplan’ or state intent relating to genocide. Chapter 7, ‘“Genocide Cards”: IDs, Registration, and the Phases of Rohingya Genocide,’ draws
predominantly on the scholarship relating to ‘reorganising genocides’ (Feierstein 2014) to explore Rohingya experiences of Myanmar’s registration and
ID schemes. It considers how ID schemes were utilised as a technology to
reorganise national identities and social relations in such a way as to destroy
Rohingya identity and establish a new exclusive national identity without
Rohingya.
Chapter 8, ‘IDs and International Approaches to Rohingya Statelessness:
Towards Social Inclusion or Identity Destruction?,’ explores where Rohingya
understandings and experiences of the role of state-issued IDs diverge from
the approaches of international agencies working to resolve Rohingya statelessness in Myanmar. Referring back to previous chapters, it considers the
increasing push within global governance to provide ‘legal identities for all’
as a method of managing international development projects, international
migration, and refugee situations. Whilst the language of legal identities for
all is couched within the discourses of human rights and resolving statelessness, Rohingya narratives suggest that approaches that support the provision
of Myanmar’s IDs and registration served to legitimise an abusive state system and set them on a trajectory away from citizenship recognition, not on a
pathway towards citizenship.
The concluding chapter, ‘Seeing the State and Criminality in Statelessness,’
summarises the findings from the chapters, focusing on how Rohingya narratives from this research have disrupted some of the assumptions about ‘the
stateless person’ and ‘the state’ that inform international action plans and
approaches to reducing and resolving statelessness. In this chapter, I also consider the contributions of this research to scholarship about state crime, legal
identities, and statelessness. I outline the value of methodologies that explore
the ID narratives of people affected by statelessness. I conclude that better
consideration of how people affected by statelessness or citizenship deprivation understand and experience the state and its bureaucracies in statelessness
research and policy consideration is vital in assessing and improving the effectiveness of actions to reduce and prevent statelessness. In particular, state
crime frameworks and analysis of the potential for ID systems to be utilised by
states to do harm are conspicuously absent in the global push for IDs for all.
Notes
1 The name of the country was officially changed from Burma to Myanmar in
1989 under the military junta called State Law and Order Restoration Council
(SLORC). The political and ethnic opposition continued to contest the name. It
was only after the reforms of 2010 that the term Myanmar became gradually