2021 Statelessness & Citizenship Review 3(1) question rather demands a major realignment of statelessness research to embrace the central epistemic role that stateless individuals have and the power of their inalienable agency to assume this role in research. Conventionally, statelessness research has striven to reflect and analyse the complex reality of statelessness as well as to design and inform policy to eliminate it. In doing so, a set of tales have been produced and reproduced over time through which statelessness has been fixated as a synonym for non-existence, exclusion and denial, bare life, falling between the cracks etc. 26 Such portrayals of victimhood risk neglecting the empowerment aspect that is crucial for research with vulnerable communities. What then really falls between the cracks in statelessness research is a solid engagement with the question of epistemology taking a point of departure in the stateless standpoint and the epistemic agency of the stateless. Such an engagement is very much needed nowadays while the academic debate around the focus, the methods and even the identity of the field of statelessness studies is ongoing. 27 At the same time, it is crucial to look at other relevant subject areas for inspiration. For instance, the question of epistemology has been central to indigenous studies for decades. 28 In fact, indigenous standpoint literature provides abundant examples illustrating transformative knowledge as constructed from the indigenous standpoint. 29 For statelessness research similar engagement with stateless standpoint epistemology is needed to produce knowledge that can catalyse ‘changing unjust systems of power’, an aim that that has always been central to standpoint theorists. 30 CONCLUSION Opening the discussion about epistemology in statelessness research, this commentary advocates for a stateless standpoint epistemology grounded in experiences of the stateless, their collective intersubjectivities and their inalienable epistemic agency. By interrogating how and what knowledge is produced on the issue, I argue that stateless standpoint epistemology is an invitation to realign our knowledge of statelessness vis-à-vis the accepted citizenist modes of knowledge. While such an epistemology may need time to take its legitimate place within statelessness research, the mission can start already by acknowledging the epistemic agency of the stateless, supporting emerging stateless researchers and denouncing extractive research practices that render naturalised knowledge on and about the stateless. This recognition is needed at all levels of research carried 26 27 28 29 30 See Ulrike Lauerhaß, Graham Pote and Eva Wuchold (eds), Atlas of the Stateless (RosaLuxemburg-Stiftung 2020). See David Baluarte, ‘The Arrival of “Statelessness Studies”’ (2019) 1(1) The Statelessness & Citizenship Review 156; Phillip Cole, ‘Taking Statelessness Seriously’ (2019) 1(1) The Statelessness & Citizenship Review 161; Lindsey N Kingston, ‘Expanding Statelessness Scholarship’ (2019) 1(1) The Statelessness & Citizenship Review 165. Lester-Irabinna Rigney, ‘Internationalization of an Indigenous Anticolonial Cultural Critique of Research Methodologies: A Guide to Indigenist Research Methodology and Its Principles’ (1999) 14(2) Wicazo Sa Review 109; Dennis Foley, ‘Indigenous Epistemology and Indigenous Standpoint Theory’ (2003) 22(1) Social Alternatives 44; Martin Nakata, Disciplining the Savages: Savaging the Disciplines (Aboriginal Studies Press 2007); Allan Ardill, ‘Australian Sovereignty, Indigenous Standpoint Theory and Feminist Standpoint Theory: First Peoples’ Sovereignties Matter’ (2013) 22(2) Griffith Law Review 315. See, eg, Rigney (n 28); Foley (n 28); Nakata (n 28), Ardill (n 28). Collins, ‘Comment on Hekman’s “Truth and Method”’ (n 9) 375. 118