My research interests include statelessness, state crime, forced migration, ID systems and bordering technologies. My doctoral research draws on Rohingya oral histories and narratives about Myanmar’s genocide and ID schemes to critique the prevailing international approaches to statelessness and legal identities. Approaches to reducing and preventing statelessness often start with the promotion of civil registration and the provision of state issued identity documents. IDs and state registration are understood to assist people in accessing their right to nationality over time. The ‘legal identities for all’ target in the 2016 Sustainable Development Goals (16.9) increased the international focus on the provision of IDs. These approaches informed development policy in Myanmar. However, Rohingya narratives often described Myanmar’s use of ID cards and registration as integral to the persecution and genocide committed by the state. My research explores these tensions, using narrative methods. It considers how Rohingya survivors of state crime have disrupted international framings of statelessness and its solutions.
Researcher
Dr Natalie Brinham Senior Research Associate, School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies