In this light it is prudent to consider the notion of ‘statefulness’ and whether statelessness is really that dreadful. De Chickera (2014) asks whether citizenship would be so desired if human rights were guaranteed to those without it. He writes that stateless persons and citizens alike should be afforded the opportunity to opt for a ‘stateless person status’ in the name of the democratic right to choose—a ‘statefulness’ as a noncitizenship form of membership. Here, choosing to be stateless turns on its head Arendt’s claim that statelessness renders man superfluous (Arendt, 1958: 296). Conclusion The idea that people choose to be stateless is not unfamiliar (Muižnieks 2013, Ubaid 2015, Who Benefits from Statelessness n.d.), but what we know about voluntary statelessness comes largely from personal narratives and media stories. These accounts are valuable to introducing the phenomenon of voluntary statelessness but they leave us with several questions. There are numerous areas, for example, where voluntary statelessness can interact with public policy: social service provision and access, “mystery” populations, child welfare, tax revenue, and infrastructure development among other issues. What of the socio, political, and historical contexts that influence those who have chosen to be stateless? What are their lived experiences with respect to accessing their ‘life needs’10 in the face of the inability to access citizenship-based social and political rights? How do gender and family dynamics interact with this phenomenon? The needs and possibilities for future research in this area are vast. I have attempted to show that a preliminary look at the literature demonstrates that people are disengaging from the state purposefully, and for reasons that see the state as illegitimate. Such a bold attempt to challenge the state system is one that surely demands further exploration. References Abrahamian, Atossa Araxia. 2014. “A Bum Without a Country”. Vice. https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/bn57dw/a-bum-without-a-country-0000326-v21n5 (June 17, 2018) Arendt, Hannah. 1958. The Origins of Totalitarianism. 2nd ed. Cleveland, OH: Meridian Books, The World Publishing Company Asylum Aid. 2017. “Asylum Aid and Statelessness.” Migrants Rights Resource. https://www.asylumaid.org.uk/statelessness/ (June 18, 2018) Baser, Bahar and Ashok Swain. 2010. “Stateless diaspora groups and their repertoires of nationalist activism in host countries.” Journal of International Relations 8(1): 37-60 Here “life needs” is defined broadly as access to health care, education, employment, housing, nutrition, justice, freedom from duress and undue influence, and the ability to participate in social political institutions, for example community involvement, marriage, and birth registration. 10 http://community.apsanet.org/migrationcitizenship/home 51