2021 Statelessness & Citizenship Review 3(2) The aforementioned research has made significant progress in shaping a more nuanced understanding of the refugee label and, to a lesser extent, the stateless label. Yet, there remains a significant knowledge gap in our understanding of the relationship between these two closely interrelated labels. METHODOLOGY The research was based on interviews with 22 Palestinian refugees from Syria in three cities across Sweden: Gothenburg, Malmö and Stockholm. Sweden was chosen as it is a key migration asylum destination for Palestinian refugees from Syria. The interviews took place between February and December 2017. Seven women and 15 men participated in the research, with interviews being held in 18 sessions (two being held with married couples, one with a mother and son and another one with two friends). Most interviews took place in Arabic with the assistance of an interpreter. Three were held in English at the request of the interviewees. The participants’ ages ranged from 19 to 71 years old and there was considerable diversity amongst them in terms of their family situation, socioeconomic backgrounds and their migration histories. To ensure confidentiality, pseudonyms have been used and any information that would allow for the participants to be identified has been redacted. The majority of the interviews were undertaken by the Palestinian League for Human Rights — Syria as part of their research on the PRS in Germany, Lebanon and Sweden. 34 In addition, several interviews were conducted as part of a separate project exploring the statelessness of refugees in Sweden and Denmark. 35 All the participants were previously registered with UNRWA in Syria and were (until 2017) registered as refugees (flyktingstatus) or person in need of subsidiary protection (alternativt skyddsbehövande) in Sweden. Their citizenship was recorded as stateless (statslös) and their country of origin was recorded as Syria. All the participants arrived in Sweden between 2012 and 2017 and, as of 2017, none had acquired Swedish citizenship. Narratives were central in the data collection strategy, with participants describing their experiences of the refugee and/or stateless label(s) before, during and after their journey. This approach was chosen as previous research on labelling has had a leaning towards either methodological nationalism or focusing on the country of arrival. These are tendencies that some scholars warn against regarding migration research more generally. 36 The research was also sensitive to the ‘sedentarist analytical bias’, which is prevalent in forced migration research and the problematic perception that movement across nation-state borders ‘is often assumed a priori to entail not a transformation but a loss of culture and/or identity’. 37 Selection of quotations for presentation was based on their ability to illustrate themes. 34 35 36 37 Tom Rollins, ‘Syria’s Palestinians: A New Nakba’ (Report, March 2021) <http://newnakba.org/wp-content/uploads/Syria_s_Palestinians.pdf>. Our sincere gratitude goes to Salim Salamah, from the Palestinian League for Human Rights — Syria (PLHR-S), and Tom Rollins, the lead researcher on the PRS project for the PLHR-S. Salim and Tom were generous enough to share with us their incredibly rich data and insights. Ethical approval was granted for the project by the Swedish Regional Ethical Board (Lund, 4 May 2017). Andreas Wimmer and Nina Glick Schiller, ‘Methodological Nationalism and Beyond: Nation-State Building, Migration and the Social Sciences’ (2002) 2(4) Global Networks 301. Malkki (n 26) 508. 336