b) What does it mean to be stateless? Interactive classroom activity. Can also be adapted as take-home exercise This activity aims to get students thinking about what having a (particular) nationality means. Divide the students into pairs and give them a set time to make a list of all the things that their nationality means to them: What are instances in •which you were asked to What might be different •if you had a different How would you feel •if you didn’t hold any indicate or to prove your nationality? nationality? nationality? • What does your nationality allow you to do? What do you think •might be more difficult or impossible if you didn’t hold any nationality? Then discuss the findings, for example by making a list of ideas on the whiteboard and talking about each one in turn. This activity can then be followed up with a second exercise, this time looking at information about situations of statelessness. Ask the students to read a report, magazine article or news item1 on the situation of a particular stateless population and underline all of the problems that stateless persons are reported to face. Ask the students to discuss (in class or as a written piece for a take-home exercise) how the findings in the report compared to their own preconceptions of the problem of statelessness - for example, compared to the list that they came up with in the previous exercise when looking at what their nationality means to them. What problems are particularly worrying or surprising? Exercise 2 Inclusion and exclusion, nationality and statelessness Interactive classroom activity Students should debate the following question: “Should nationality be attributed at birth?” This question allows students to consider the costs and benefits of nationality. For instance, if citizenship is attributed at birth, the person concerned cannot consent to the acquisition of citizenship even though this involves taking on certain obligations. The following two chapters of the publication “The Birthright Lottery: Citizenship and Global Inequality” by Ayelet Schachar, Harvard University Press, 2009, can provide useful background reading: * “Introduction: the puzzle of birthright citizenship” * “Chapter 5: Popular defences of birthright citizenship and their limitations”. 1. The editions of Refugees Magazine (2007) and Forced Migration Review (2009) devoted to statelessness are good sources of articles on different situations of statelessness. UNHCR’s statelessness website and the websites of various NGOs working on the issue of statelessness can also be consulted for recent reports or news items that would be suitable for this exercise – if students have ready access to the internet, they could be asked to find a report themselves using the suggested links included at the start of this Guide. A Guide to Teaching on Statelessness 47