Table Of ContentStatelessness and Citizenship
In depth fi eld research with a stateless population in Bangladesh has revealed that,
despite liberal theory’s reductive vision, the limits of political community are not
set in stone. The Urdu-speaking population in Bangladesh exemplify some of the
key problems facing uprooted populations and their experience provides insights
into the long term unintended consequences of major historical events. Set in a site
of camp and non-camp based displacement it illustrates the nuances of political
identity and lived spaces of statelessness that Western political theory has too long
hidden from view. Using Bangladesh as a case study, Statelessness and Citizenship:
Camps and the creation of political space argues that the crude binary oppositions
of statelessness and citizenship are no longer relevant; access to and understandings
of citizenship are not just jurally but socially, spatially and temporally produced.
Unpicking Agamben’s distinction between ‘political beings’ and ‘bare life’, the
book considers experiences of citizenship through the camp as a social form. The
camps of Bangladesh do not function as bounded physical or conceptual spaces in
which denationalized groups are altogether divorced from the polity. Instead,
citizenship is claimed at the level of everyday life, as the moments in which formal
status is transgressed. Moreover, once in possession of ‘formal status’ internal
borders within the nation-state render ‘rights-bearing citizens’ effectively
‘stateless’, and the experience of ‘citizens’ is very often equally uneven. While
‘statelessness’ may function as a cold instrument of exclusion, certainly, it is neither
fi xed nor static; just as citizenship is neither as stable nor benign as the dichotomy
would suggest. Using these insights, the book develops the concept of ‘political
space’ – an analysis of the way history and space inform the identities and political
subjectivity available to people. In doing so, it provides an analytic approach of
relevance to wider problems of displacement, citizenship and ethnic relations.
Dr Victoria Redclift is a Research Associate in the Department of Sociology at
the University of Manchester. She researched at the Refugee and Migratory
Movements Research Unit in Bangladesh and won the LSE’s fi rst four-year
Bonnart-Braunthal PhD Scholarship in the Department of Sociology.
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Statelessness
and Citizenship
Camps and the creation of
political space
Victoria Redclift
First published 2013
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa
business
© 2013 Victoria Redclift
The right of Victoria Redclift to be identifi ed as author of this work has
been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identifi cation and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Redclift, Victoria.
Statelessness and citizenship : camps and the creation of political space /
Victoria Redclift.
pages cm. -- (Routledge explorations in development studies ; 5)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Refugees--Bangladesh. 2. Stateless persons--Bangladesh. 3. Citizenship-
-Bangladesh. I. Title.
HV640.5.B35R44 2013
325--dc23
2012049742
ISBN13: 978-0-415-63135-8 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-203-09687-1 (ebk)
Typeset in Times by
Saxon Graphics Ltd, Derby
For Ajit
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Contents
Acknowledgements ix
Names and acronyms xii
1 Introduction 1
Statelessness and citizenship 2
Displacement and state protection 4
‘Bare life’ 6
Camps and the creation of political space 7
The historical and social setting 8
Urdu-speakers in national and international law, 1972–2008 19
Conducting research at the limits of the state 24
2 Spatial formations of exclusion 32
The state, the nation and its citizens 33
Nationalism, citizenship and the postcolonial nation-state 39
Ethnicity, identity and community 45
‘Diaspora’ and displacement 47
Natural, social and ‘political space’ 53
3 The socio-spatial contours of community 57
Boundaries 59
Intersections 72
The socio-spatial structure 80
Conclusion 84
4 The crafting of citizenship: Property, territory and the
post-colonial state 86
Histories of citizenship in Bangladesh 87
Agency, choice and blame 94
Space and ‘substantive’ access 101
viii Contents
Claiming political subjectivity 108
Conclusion 112
5 The ‘social fi eld of citizenship’ and the language of rights 114
‘Identities of citizenship’ 116
Property and citizenship in Bangladesh: past and present 119
Gains and losses 123
A look to the future 131
Conclusion 133
6 Discourses of ‘integration’: Capital, movement and ‘modernity’ 134
Economic capital 136
Cultural capital: language 142
Cultural capital: foods, festivals, religion 148
Social capital 158
‘Passing as Bengali’ 164
Conclusion 168
7 Conclusion 170
Nationlist discourse and the ‘crafting of citizenship’ 171
The creation of political space 172
Agents or abjects? The camp as a social form 173
Globalising forces and emergent spaces 174
Notes 176
References 181
Index 191
Acknowledgements
There are many different people who have contributed intellectual, practical or
emotional support in the writing of both this book and the thesis on which it is
based; however, my fi rst debt is to Ajit. Without his help and guidance the research
would simply not have been carried out, and without his humour and generosity it
would certainly not have been as productive and enjoyable as it was. Ajit, I am
grateful to know you. In a similar vein I would like to thank Al Falah Bangladesh
and the Shamshul Huque Foundation Saidpur. Without their help, their patience
and their friendship, the research would not have been possible. Of course it is to
the participants that I owe the greatest debt. It goes without saying that the Urdu-
speakers of Bangladesh, who welcomed me so generously into their world, are the
very heart of this study. I thank them for sharing their stories and their lives so
openly with me. I am indebted to Professor Chowdhury Abrar, Dr Tasneem
Siddiqui, the Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit (RMMRU) and
the Sussex Centre for Migration Research for introducing me to the topic, and the
country, as a research assistant in Bangladesh.
I must also express my deepest thanks to Dr Claire Alexander and Dr Manali
Desai for thought-provoking feedback throughout. As models of intellectual and
pedagogic integrity, they have given me something to aspire to and I realise I
have been tremendously lucky. I would also like to thank my examiners,
Professors David Lewis and Michael Keith, for deliberate and detailed comments
on the thesis and their continued help and support over the last twelve months.
At LSE I was lucky enough to receive the advice and encouragement of a number
of people, including Dr Joya Chatterji, Dr Ilina Singh, Dr Suki Ali, Professor
Robin Archer and Dr Margot Saloman, as well as Dr Francesca Fabbri, John
Howe and Alexander Armstrong from the Bonnart-Braunthal Trust, and my
friends and colleagues in the Sociology department. I am grateful for the
stimulation and support of all contributors to the Race, Ethnicity and Postcolonial
Studies (REPS) research group at LSE, Goldsmiths and City – particularly Helen
Kim, Malcolm James, Naaz Rashid, and Cecelia Dinardi.
I have also to thank Professors Michael and Nanneke Redclift. I will be thanking
them for the rest of my life no doubt, as they continue to provide help, support,
encouragement and love. They are, in fact, the intellectual, practical and emotional
support rolled into one, and few are as fortunate. Enormous thanks go also to Joe
