2025 Statelessness & Citizenship Review 7(2) TABLE OF CONTENTS I II III IV V VI Introduction ........................................................................................................... 152 Participatory Methodology, Positionality and Ethics ............................................ 154 The Legal History of Statelessness in Germany ................................................... 157 The Production of Hierarchies of Statelessness in Germany ................................ 161 Impacts of Statelessness on People’s Lives .......................................................... 166 A Encounters with the State and Legal Precarity ......................................... 167 B Impact on Education, Career Prospects and Self-Realisation ................... 169 C Statelessness as an Experience Anchored in Pain ..................................... 173 Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 176 I INTRODUCTION In recent years, the crisis of falling within the rifts of national restraints of identification has come to the fore as a pressing issue of legal and psychosocial significance. The predicament of neglecting cultural affiliation independent of ethnonational links as it arises in the global phenomenon of statelessness has attracted concern from scholars, international bodies and policymakers alike. Despite the implementation of international legal frameworks such as the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons (‘1954 Convention’)1 and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness (‘1961 Convention’)2 that were historically enshrined to prevent mass statelessness as it occurred in the early 20th century, millions of individuals worldwide continue to live without a recognised nationality. The very lack of citizenship renders individuals as vulnerable to systematic exclusions, access to fundamental rights, and political participation. Beyond these tangible deprivations, statelessness inflicts profound psychological wounds that manifest in the form of post-traumatic stress disorder (‘PTSD’), chronic stress and identity crisis. Statelessness has been exacerbated by the global surge in geopolitical volatility and the intensification of armed conflicts, both of which contribute to the disintegration of state structures and trigger waves of forced migration, rendering many stateless. As borders shift and nationality laws grow exclusionary, stateless individuals are further burdened by a ‘legal stratification’3 of non-citizenship. It determines their legal recognition and access to rights through racial, ethnic and gendered hierarchies embedded in legal frameworks and upheld through bureaucratic practices. This legal stratification creates a hierarchy of statelessness where some individuals are legally recognised as stateless, while others remain trapped in a state of legal limbo, marked by their undetermined nationality. While this stratification is legally codified, it is meted out through administrative practices of recognition, categorisation and exclusion. It is not a static hierarchy but a precarious system in which conceded rights and recognition may abruptly shift due to administrative officials’ different interpretations, practices and 1 2 3 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, opened for signature 28 September 1954, 360 UNTS 117 (entered into force 6 June 1960) (‘1954 Convention’). Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, opened for signature 30 August 1961, 989 UNTS 175 (entered into force 13 December 1975) (‘1961 Convention’). Luke de Noronha, ‘Hierarchies of Membership and the Management of Global Population: Reflections on Citizenship and Racial Ordering’ (2022) 26(4–5) Citizenship Studies 426, 427. 152