himself of the ‘burden’ of adhering to U.S. financial requirements (tax law) motivated him to become stateless (Berwick 2015, glr.com n.d.). “Mike Gogulski, Garry Davis, and Clark Hanjian have all renounced their respective citizenships and become stateless in resistance to what they believe are oppressive state practices in which citizenship renders them complicit” Then there is political activism against one’s own state. Some stateless Tibetans in India have chosen to apply for refugee status abroad (and therefore acquire a path to citizenship), while others have chosen to remain stateless in India. Both groups’ choices are influenced by the role citizenship can play in assisting them with their political quests. For those who remain stateless in India, foreign citizenship loses its value as they believe that they are better equipped to affect political change and the freedom of their people in Tibet without it (Hess 2006). Entire communities have also resisted the state. James C. Scott (2010) tells us about the Zomia peoples of Southeast Asia who have resisted the state system for centuries. These people have adapted their ways of life in active resistance to the state authorities, resulting in a distinct agro-culture characterized by living and migrating in the hills of South East Asia (Scott 2010). Resistance, and autonomy from the state: political and legal perspectives Bloom (2017) tells us of the Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy in Southeastern Canada and Northeastern United States who claim their own nation status complete with identity documents and systems of governance. The Confederacy rejects North American colonisation but has created its own parallel sovereign system that mandates its own membership practices. Resistance to membership and the state system cannot be understood here in absolute terms—it is resistance to the colonial state system that is of concern to the Confederacy, not the individual-state relationship itself. The Freemen of the Land present an interesting case whereby this community uses state law to demonstrate that they are not, in fact, citizens of their respective states. They claim that the law and the practices that evidence it, such as registering one’s birth, paying taxes, or receiving a pension, are actually one side of a contract, and it is only when one engages with these practices that one consents to that contract and becomes a citizen (UCLUW 2017, FreeMan Society of Canada 2012). For the Freemen, it is the social contract itself that they challenge, though they do not reject the notion of membership in a community.5 Despite being characterised as radicals and freeloaders, 5 Without empirical research it is difficult to know whether the Freemen of the Land are legally stateless or whether their chosen way of life is a statelessness of the figurative kind. De jure statelessness is unlikely given that for one to renounce United States citizenship they must be outside of the country (Immigration http://community.apsanet.org/migrationcitizenship/home 46