In this episode, Luci Portugal speaks with Aleksejs Ivashuk, founder of Apatride Network and a leading advocate on statelessness in Europe, about what it means to live without recognition as a national by any state.
Moving beyond statelessness as a technical legal issue, the conversation explores how non-recognition shapes access to rights, mobility, education, work, healthcare, identity, and belonging. Through the lens of critical security studies, Luci and Aleksejs discuss statelessness as a form of human insecurity, asking whose security is protected by the state system and whose insecurity is made ordinary by it. The episode also considers Hannah Arendt’s idea of the “right to have rights,” the role of borders and citizenship deprivation, and why stateless-led advocacy is essential to producing knowledge and change.
Resources
Foster, M., & Lambert, H. (2016). Statelessness as a Human Rights Issue: A Concept Whose Time Has Come. International Journal of Refugee Law, 28(4), 564–584. https://doi.org/10.1093/ijrl/eew044
Gheciu, A., & Wohlforth, W. C. (Eds). (2018). The Oxford handbook of international security. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198777854.001.0001
Guillaume, X., & Grayson, K. (2023). Security Studies: Critical Perspectives (1st edn). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/hepl/9780198867487.001.0001
Hayden, P. (2008). From Exclusion to Containment: Arendt, Sovereign Power, and Statelessness. Societies Without Borders, 3(2), 248–269. https://doi.org/10.1163/187219108X300046
Kingston, L. N. (2013). “A Forgotten Human Rights Crisis”: Statelessness and Issue (Non)Emergence. Human Rights Review, 14(2), 73–87. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12142-013-0264-4
Rossi, N., & Riemann, M. (Eds). (2024). Security studies: An applied introduction. Sage.
Van Waas, L. (2014). ‘Are We There Yet?’ The Emergence of Statelessness on the International Human Rights Agenda. Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, 32(4), 342–346. https://doi.org/10.1177/016934411403200402
Related further reading:
Berkeley, B. (2009). Stateless People, Violent States. World Policy Journal, 26(1), 3–15. https://doi.org/10.1162/wopj.2009.26.1.3
