2021 Statelessness & Citizenship Review 3(2) well as to explore this relationship over time and space. Grounded in standpoint epistemology and stressing the central epistemic agency of our interlocutors, we study how PRS understand, negotiate and challenge the historical, political, legal and social conditions of the stateless and refugee labels. The paper demonstrates the relationship between the labels as being interconnected and sequential, in a bureaucratic process of imposition that is both highly fluid and simultaneously restrictive. This relationship is also realised as situationally instructed and context dependent but with some significant spillover from one context into another. By adopting standpoint theory, the research sheds light on how during the labelling process itself, the participants adopted multiple strategies to accept, reject, resist, negotiate or circumvent their re/de-labelling as stateless, Palestinian, refugee, asylum seeker or some variation thereof. PALESTINIAN SYRIANS Palestinians were chosen for this research for several reasons. First, they are the largest and most protracted stateless refugee population globally. Second, they have been subject to secondary forced migration in several states, so much so that it has been referred to as an almost ‘regular phenomenon’ for Palestinian refugees in the Middle East and North Africa. 8 Third, while Palestinian refugees can be found in numerous states, the recent displacement of Palestinians from Syria makes it highly topical, especially regarding the exploration of how refugee and stateless labels that were (or were not) previously imposed on the population are now being recast, contested and negotiated as they move through and to new international and national bureaucratic systems to seek refuge. Finally, there are possible policy-related ramifications for their selection. Specifically, that their previously held statuses and identities as Palestinians has meant that some PRS have faced restricted access to international protection or reduced mobility compared to other refugees from Syria. 9 Large numbers of Palestinian refugees arrived in Syria with the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. This establishment led to 750,000 Arabs fleeing or being expelled from Palestine, of which around 70,000 fled to Syria. 10 During the 1967 war, further displacement of Palestinians to Syria took place, as well as Palestinian refugees in the Golan Heights moving to other parts of the country. These refugees and their descendants were registered as Palestinian refugees in Syria and, due to the lack of possibility for the vast majority to naturalise as Syrian citizens, the stateless population continued to grow. By 2010 the United Nations Works and Relief Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (‘UNRWA’) reported that there were just over half a million Palestinian refugees registered in Syria. 11 8 9 10 11 See BADIL Editors, ‘Palestinian Refugees: Multiple Displacements and the Issue of Protection’ (2017) 59 (March) Al Majdal 1, 2. Mai Abu Moghli, Nael Bitarie and Nell Gabiam, ‘Palestinian Refugees from Syria: Stranded on the Margins of Law’, Al Shabaka (Blog Post, 9 October 2015) <https://alshabaka.org/briefs/palestinian-refugees-from-syria-stranded-on-the-margins-of-law/>; Tucker (n 4) 64. Marcin Szydzisz, ‘Palestinian Refugees in Syria During the Syrian Civil War’ (2017) 12(1) Teka Komisji Politologii i Stosunków Międzynarodowych 107. ‘Syria Crisis’, United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (Web Page, 2017) <https://www.unrwa.org/syria-crisis> (‘Syria Crisis’). 332