Unwanted and ambivalent citizenship 81 and in practice. This chapter and the one that follows observe how, as a result of its historical and political context, citizenship is not unambiguously positive for those who must then define their relationships with liberal States in this way. The Iroquois National Lacrosse team and the 2010 World Lacrosse Championships2 The ‘Haudenosaunee’ are also referred to as ‘Iroquois’, a word with apparently uncertain roots.3 Haudenosaunee individuals traditionally live in parts of the east coast of North America, on both sides of the US-Canadian border. The Iroquois National Lacrosse Team is considered to be one of the best lacrosse teams in the world.4 It competes as a national team, alongside those of internationally recog nised States. The team members can claim formal citizenship of the US or Canada. And yet in championships they play lacrosse against US and Canadian teams. This has given rise to conflict which played out particularly publicly in relation to the 2010 Men’s World Lacrosse Championship. Examining this case through the language of unhyphenated noncitizenship helps to uncover addi tional ways in which noncitizenship can interact with formal citizenship. In 2010, the Men’s World Lacrosse Championship was held in Manchester in the UK. The Iroquois team was predicted to do well,5 but the players never made it to the tournament. Prevented from travelling on Haudenosaunee travel docu ments and unwilling to travel to the tournament on Canadian or US passports, in the end they returned home without having boarded the plane.6 An article in a 2 This case is examined in more detail in Tendayi Bloom (2017) ‘Colonised Groups and the Right to Have Rights’, in Tendayi Bloom, Katherine Tonkiss and Phillip Cole (2017) Understanding Statelessness, Routledge. The Iroquois Lacrosse Team example, and the situation for the Haude nosaunee more generally is given more air time than the struggles of other peoples in the same continent, which may then be left unheard. Here I draw upon this example both because of the interesting symbolism it presents and because of the wealth of literature available on it, but recog nise that these discussions also affect other groups. 3 The name ‘Haudenosaunee’, meaning ‘People of the Longhouse’, encompasses six nations located in what is now southeastern Canada and northeastern United States, the Cayuga, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca and Tuscarora peoples. See, for example, Audra Simpson (2000) ‘Paths Toward a Mohawk Nation: Narratives of Citizenship and Nationhood in Kahawake’, pp. 113–136 in Duncan Ivison, Paul Patton and Will Sanders (eds) (2000) Political Theory and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Cambridge University Press, at p. 127; and Capton Marques 2011 ibid. at p. 385. On the word ‘Iroquois’, Daniel K. Richter (1992) The Ordeal of the Longhouse: The Peoples of the Iroquois League in the Era of European Colonization, University of North Carolina press, p. 1; for a survey of thinking about the origins of the word in the 1960s, see Gordon M. Day (1968) ‘Iroquois: An Etymology’, pp. 389–402 in Ethnohistory 15(4). 4 In 2002 and 2006, the Iroquois team came fourth in the world. In 2010, they were unable to compete. In 2014, they came third in the world. 5 For example, it was identified as the side’s ‘most dynamic team yet’, John Jiloty (2010) ‘Iroquois Grounded but Future Looks Bright’, Inside Lacrosse 16 August 2010. 6 Wil Haygood (2010) ‘Iroquois National Lacrosse Team asks White House to honor sovereign passports’, Washington Post 14 July 2010; Marques 2011 ibid. ‘Divided We Stand: The Haudeno saunee, Their Passport and Legal Implications of Their Recognition in Canada and the United States’, pp. 363–426 in San Diego International Law Journal 13.