2021 Statelessness & Citizenship Review 3(2) a specific solution: justifications that are still used today. 19 Indeed, the UNRWA definition of a Palestinian refugee is considerably different to that of UNHCR, with the former, today at least, being based on descent rather than on need for protection due to persecution. 20 It should be noted that this exceptionalism does have its geographic limitations. UNRWA are only mandated to work in a certain operational area: Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. Where UNRWA does not operate, the Palestinian refugees fall under UNHCR’s mandate. In practice, however, the exclusion of the Palestinians goes beyond these operational areas. 21 For example, in Egypt, Palestinian refugees cannot apply for asylum with the state or UNHCR. 22 One can also see the misapplication of art 1D resulting in the exclusion of some Palestinians from being granted refugee status in the global north. 23 Thus, despite them being the largest stateless refugee population, and the majority of Palestinian refugees being also stateless (under the Refugee Convention and 1954 Statelessness Convention definitions), the Palestinians have, and continue to be, categorised as exceptional in the international norms of refugeeness and statelessness. 24 This exceptionalism, and the associated labels (Palestinian refugees), meant that even before their flight from Syria, the PRS’s lives had been saturated with various stateless and refugee labels. BUREAUCRATIC LABELS AND STATELESS REFUGEE STANDPOINTS Given the centrality of labels in the socio-political landscape of asylum procedures, it is paramount to investigate how labelling interplays with stateless and refugee standpoints and self-identifications. As claimed, ‘[f]rom the first procedures of status determination — who is a refugee? — to the structural determinants of life chances which this identity then engenders, labels infuse the world of refugees’. 25 This research builds upon a substantial body of work that has investigated how the refugee label is imposed, experienced, resisted, rejected and internalised by those upon whom it is ascribed or denied. 26 Epistemologically, the study is centred on how the standpoints of the stateless and the refugees strongly articulate and inform these negotiations of labels. 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 ibid; Michael Dumper, The Future for Palestinian Refugees: Toward Equity and Peace (Lynne Rienner Publishers 2007). See Ilana Feldman, ‘The Challenge of Categories: UNRWA and the Definition of a Palestine Refugee’ (2012) 25(3) Journal of Refugee Studies 387. See Jinan Bastaki, ‘The Legacy of the 1951 Refugee Convention and Palestinian Refugees: Multiple Displacements, Multiple Exclusions’ (2017) 8(1) Berkeley Journal of Middle Eastern & Islamic Law 1. Marjan Claes, ‘Palestinian Refugees from Syria in Egypt: an Overview’, BADIL: Aj-Majdal Magazine (online, 2015) <http://www.badil.org/en/publication/periodicals/almajdal/item/2075-article-4.html>. Fiddian-Qasmiyeh (n 7). ibid; Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion (n 5). Roger Zetter, ‘Labelling Refugees: Forming and Transforming a Bureaucratic Identity’ (1991) 4(1) Journal of Refugee Studies 39. See, eg, Liisa H Malkki, ‘Refugees and Exile: From “Refugee Studies” to the National Order of Things’ [1995] 24 Annual Review of Anthropology 495; Nando Sigona, ‘How Can a “Nomad” be a “Refugee”?: Kosovo Roma and Labelling Policy in Italy’ (2003) 37(1) Sociology 69; Bernadette Ludwig, ‘“Wiping the Refugee Dust from My Feet”: Advantages and Burdens of Refugee Status and the Refugee Label’ (2013) 54(1) International Migration 5; Roger Zetter, ‘More Labels, Fewer Refugees: Remaking the Refugee Label in an Era of Globalization’ (2007) 20(2) Journal of Refugee Studies 172. 334