I have been asked to use this blog as an opportunity to introduce myself,
my background and my current research.
My area of interest lies particularly within the field of migration
studies. In the past I have worked on human trafficking in the Indonesian and
US contexts and with informal civil society organisations for Sudanese refugees in Cairo. For
several years now though I have focused specifically on statelessness. I began
my PhD at the University of Bath, in the U.K, in 2010 and have just entered my
final year. My thesis looks at the
concepts of global citizenship and how they are being used to address
statelessness.
Exploring the magnitude of the literature
and theoretical debate surrounding global citizenship would pose an unrealistic
challenge due to the restrictions of the size of this post. Several key areas though
can be highlighted to reflect the breadth of this debate and its relevance to
the statelessness discourse. When the concept of global citizenship (sometimes
referred to as cosmopolitanism) is introduced it is often the case that the
audience, if not versed on the topic, will either conceptualise it as future ‘world citizenship’ with
various manifestations such as a world passport and/or a world government, or
on the other hand think of it as a vacuous buzz word, thrown around by
activists, politicians, businesses and anyone who wants to jump on the global
citizenship band wagon. In both cases it is easy to dismiss it as either overly
idealistic or so vaguely defined as to be insignificant.
While these two conceptualisations are not totally without merit they by
no means even begin to scratch the surface of the depth and nuances of the
debate on global citizenship. To mention but a few ways that this expanded
moral obligation has been theorised we can see Nussbaum’s (1996) ‘cosmopolitan education’, Buchanan’s (2004)
focus on legal cosmopolitanism, Held’s (1999) argument that international institutions
should internalise cosmopolitan principles and enforce them through international
laws, Linklater’s (1999) claim it should be realized through trans-state
dialogue in international institutions and the idea of ‘deliberative democracy’
put forward by such scholars as Habermas.
So then how do these concepts relate to the statelessness discourse? Examples
of this are few and far between. But they do exist. For example, Byers (2005:2
my emphasis) noted:
“There are tens of millions of stateless persons in
the world today. They have no right to reside, vote, express opinions,
associate or travel anywhere at all. Their lack of national citizenship, and
their consequential, desperate need for governmental assistance and
accountability, makes them the most
obvious candidates for global citizenship”.
My thesis aims to begin to explore the relationship
between global citizenship and the addressing of statelessness, with a specific
focus on Lebanon. My research arose due to the assumptions made by several
scholars that the stateless, having none of the normal channels through which
to participate in the nation-state system, could benefit from global
citizenship, as Byers’ quote reflects. This however was the limit of his theoretical
reflection, and more generally the assumed relationship has not been based on
empirical foundations but remains abstract and normative. Finding this a highly
interesting, though as of yet a greatly under-researched and theorized idea, I
decided to contextualise this assumption in a country with multiple, vast,
protracted and varying stateless communities and persons, namely Lebanon. This
highly complex national environment allowed me to draw on comparisons between
the actors addressing the statelessness of the different stateless groups in
the country, with the aim of reaching a more grounded understanding of the use
of global citizenship upon which to base future debate. To do this I spent
three months in Lebanon at the beginning of the year interviewing those working
with the stateless in the country, based out of the Lebanese American
University in Beirut.
I am currently working through and analyzing
all the data that I collected from my time in Lebanon and am unable to provide
a conclusive set of findings at this moment. I can, however, reflect on a few
broad topics that have arisen so far. The
data highlights how the various stateless groups reflect on the concepts of
citizenship and nationality, how the government use the concept of the
suspension of judicial order in certain spaces inhabited by the stateless, with
these ‘stateless spaces’ being the subject of multiple and partial
sovereignties as developed by Giorgio Agamben
(1993,1998, 2005), and finally the claim of the ‘natural’
statelessness of the Bedouin. Following
a detailed analysis of the conceptualisations of the nation-state and
citizenship and relating this statelessness focused assessment to the
state-nation-territory trinity in the first two analytical chapters of my
thesis, the final chapter focuses specifically on global citizenship, trying to
draw out a relatively inclusive understanding of what form of it is being used
to address statelessness in Lebanon. One line of thinking that I am developing
at the moment is the concept of the paradox of defining the Palestinians NGOs
and activists as global citizens, since their moral obligation only extends to
fellow Palestinians and they are using it for reductionist ends, namely to
regain citizenship within a Palestinian state. To reconcile this theoretical
concern, I argue that we need to shift our understanding of global citizenship
away from the claim that it can only manifest itself as the actions of an
individual with an expanded sense of moral obligations to that of global
citizenship as a means to create a space for dialogue.
Following my time in Lebanon earlier this
year I transferred to the Statelessness Programme for six months at the
beginning of October, which is where I am currently working through my data, as
well participating in other projects taking place here. During my time in Tilburg
I have developed my understanding of statelessness under international law and
how to situate this legal understanding back within more sociological
debates. By drawing on the internationally
recognised legal definition of statelessness in sociological research we open an
under utilised avenue to understanding the phenomenon with the view to more
effectively addressing it. Further to this, my time here has allowed me to
better understand the development of the stateless discourse within the UNHCR,
the problems they face, and how some of these hurdles have been overcome.
Jason Tucker, Visiting scholar with the Statelessness Programme
References / further reading
Agamben, 1993, Beyond
Human Rights [online], Available from:
http://www.skor.nl/_files/Files/OPEN15_P90-95(1).pdf, [Accessed 9/11/2011]
Agamben, G. 1998. Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power
and Bare Life. D. Heller-Roazen, Trans. Stanford, CA: Stanford University
Press.
Agamben, G., 2005, State of Exception, Kevin Attell Trans, Chicago: University of
Chicago Press
Byers, M., 2005, Are You a Global Citizen? [online],
The Tyee, Available from: http://thetyee.ca/Views/2005/10/05/globalcitizen/,
[Accessed 14/2/2011]
Held, D., 1999, Transformation of Political Community: Rethinking
Democracy in the Context of Globalization, In: I, Shapiro and C, Hacker-Cordón
(eds), Democracy's Edges, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Linklater,
A., 1999, Cosmopolitan Citizenship, In Kimberly Hutchings and Roland Dannreuter
(eds), Cosmopolitan Citizenship, Houndsmill: Macmillan, pp.35-59
Nussbaum, M., 1996, Reply, In Cohen, J.,
(ed) For Love of Country: Debating the
Limits of Patriotism, Boston: Beacon Press
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