Sköld 221 Considering Calhoun’s statement that ‘[t]he notion of nation is so deeply imbricated in modern politics as to be ‘essentially contested’ (in Gallie’s phrase), because any definition will legitimate some claims and delegitimate others’,31 the suggestion that the international state system fails to accommodate certain groups is necessarily political. Fiddian-Qasmiyeh argues that currently it is only stateless Palestinians, excluded from UNHCR’s campaigns and statistics on stateless, for whom the issue of statelessness is considered political, and their situation considered ‘exceptional’. She poses that stateless persons (whether individually or collectively stateless, or both) ought to be approached as ‘political subjects’ rather than primarily as victims. Understood as political subjects, stateless persons would (at least theoretically) be in a position to define the terms of their inclusion and to demand individual, collective, and perhaps national, rights.32 4 Problematizing the State as an Emancipatory Actor and Citizenship as a Blanket Solution The notion of citizenship as a blanket solution to statelessness, as advocated within the dominant discourse on statelessness, can be challenged on several fronts through a sociologically informed understanding of citizenship and statelessness. The problematization of a “thin” notion of citizenship as limited to formal legal status and the analysis of how citizenship is deeply embedded within dominant ideas of nationhood, highlight the shortfalls of addressing statelessness solely through citizenship acquisition. Firstly, the problematization of the concept of citizenship itself illustrates that the idea of being a “full citizen” is not synonymous with acquiring a formal legal status. Secondly, analyzing how citizenship and nationhood are deeply interrelated exposes structural dimensions of exclusion that are operationalized through citizenship. And lastly, critiquing the international state system raises the question of which nations are recognized as sovereign states and thereby legitimized. Through each of these strands of thought, the notions of citizenship as a blanket solution can be challenged. A range of authors, focusing on different approaches to the issue, have challenged this idea of the state as an emancipatory actor and of citizenship as a blanket solution to statelessness.33 This is not to say that academics and practitioners within the field of statelessness presume that citizenship acquisition solves all problems associated with statelessness, but to challenge the crux of the dominant approach to statelessness by problematizing one of its core tenets. By complicating the notion of citizenship and broadening its definition to encompass the three dimensions of citizenship outlined by Isin and Turner—extent, content and depth—the idea of citizenship as a blanket solution to statelessness is problematized. Behind the idea of citizenship as a blanket solution to statelessness lies the assumption of universality within citizenship. The idea that citizenship acquisition ‘solves’ the rightlessness and exclusion associated with statelessness, as well as the inherent legal problem of existing in a condition of statelessness, is only appealing if citizenship by definition also means access to rights and inclusion. If citizenship is instead conceptualized in line with Schinkel and van Houdt’s definition—as ‘a state regulated mechanism of inclusion and exclusion’34—inclusion cannot be understood as inherent in all citizenship, as terms such as “differentiated citizenship” suggest. This is further problematized when accounting for Kingston’s idea that statelessness is both a cause and a symptom of marginalization.35 The intention here is by no means to undermine the immense importance of being recognized as a legal citizen. Rather, what this paper aims to challenge is the idea that citizenship acquisition can in all cases be considered the solution to statelessness. In situations of statelessness in which the stateless group does not consider the acquisition of citizenship of the state in which they are situated to be an appropriate way to address their exclusion, the idea of citizenship as a blanket solution must be questioned. For groups in this situation, which might include “stateless people” such as Palestinians and Kurds as well as indigenous peoples, the state cannot a priori be assumed to be an emancipatory actor that holds the key to inclusion through the granting of citizenship. This becomes strikingly apparent within the context of struggles for self-determination, such as in the case of (a few) Puerto Rican independentistas who voluntarily renounced their only citizenship—that of the USA—in their struggle for recognition as a sovereign state.36 In cases of struggle for self-determination, the 31 32 33 34 35 36 Calhoun (n 14) 215. Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, ‘On the Threshold of Statelessness: Palestinian Narratives of Loss and Erasure’ (2015) 39 Ethnic and Racial Studies 303, 306. See Bloom, Tonkiss and Cole (n 2); Tas (n 2); Staples (n 27); Eliassi (n 20); Gabiam (n 25); Fiddian-Qasmiyeh (n 31); Blitz (n 24); Kingston (n 2). Schinkel and van Houdt (n 9) 696. Kingston (n 2). Katherine Nylund, ‘The Indignity of a False Citizenship.’ (2014) 19 Tilburg Law Review 224.