2019 Statelessness & Citizenship Review 1(2) using ethnographic methods namely participant observation and informal interview. The timing of my PhD project coincides with UNHCR’s global campaign to eradicate statelessness by 2024 that was launched in 2014. 21 As a westerneducated middle-class Thai citizen with previous work experience within the civil society sector, I have benefitted from my existing networks and familiarity with the international and local NGOs, bureaucrats and policymakers. Several times during my fieldwork, I was unexpectedly and informally invited by various NGO leaders to attend several high-level intergovernmental meetings and other exclusive events. One of such events was a fieldtrip with the National Human Rights Commission (‘NHRC’), which produced two ethnographic cases presented in this article. My social and cultural capital have allowed me to access sites and information that may not have otherwise been made available to other researchers. The long-term nature of ethnographic research has allowed me to earn the trust of my core youth participants and their families. Over the years, I spent time with them in various settings including households, workplaces, festivals, schools and sometimes district offices. In a highly stratified society such as Thailand, aspects of my identity particularly my class, gender (female) and western upbringing contribute to the dynamics of my relationship with my participants. At the same time, having spent nearly half of my life outside of Thailand, I am positioned as a halfie researcher, ‘whose cultural identity is mixed by virtue of migration, overseas education and parentage’. 22 This identity, which I discuss in more detail in my forthcoming thesis, 23 makes me stand out to my youth participants, who perceive me as someone who does not represent or embody Thai-ness in the same way as other Thai adults they know (especially their teachers and state authorities). In other words, my halfie identity has permitted me to navigate the world of Thai social hierarchy but also be positioned away from it. All the names of stateless persons in this article are pseudonyms. I also have changed the names of the districts to further protect their confidentiality. However, in the first two ethnographic accounts, the visits were official visits alongside the NHRC and so I do not suppress their details. BACKGROUND ON STATELESSNESS IN THAILAND Thailand has one of the largest stateless populations in the world, 24 despite its relatively open nationality laws which recognise both jus soli and jus sanguinis as principles of granting citizenship. 25 However, closer reading reveals jus soli only applies under certain circumstances: a non-Thai person born to illegal aliens under a selected time period specified by the laws can apply for citizenship, provided that the application is accompanied by required documentary proof. 26 Principles of granting citizenship therefore are not simply the matter of blood (lineage) and soil (by birth) but also, perhaps more importantly, paper (proof of birth within a 21 22 23 24 25 26 ‘#IBelong Campaign to End Statelessness’, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (Web Page) <https://www.unhcr.org/en-au/ibelong-campaign-to-end-statelessness.html>. Lila Abu-Lughod ‘Writing against Culture’ in Richard Fox (ed), Recapturing Anthropology: Working in the Present (School of American Research Press 1991) 137. See Cheva-Isarakul (n 10). Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion, Statelessness in Numbers: 2018 (Report, June 2018) <https://www.institutesi.org/ISI_statistics_analysis_2018.pdf>. Nationality Act B E 2508 (Thailand) 21 July 1965, ch 1 ss 6, 7 (‘Nationality Act’). ibid 7 bis. 218