Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of the book. The book explores a political theory which engages with a range of social sciences and humanities disciplines in order to understand the realities of statelessness today. It re-examines the structures that allow such forms of disenfranchisement and dehumanisation to occur. The book draws on the real-world experience of statelessness to deconstruct assumptions and consider the ways in which the liberal State system both theoretically and in reality contributes to the exclusion of stateless persons from considerations of rights and justice. It presents the theoretical, legal and political concept of statelessness through the work of leading critical thinkers in this area. The book offers a critique of the existing framework through the in-depth and theoretically-based presentation of some particularly challenging contexts of statelessness in the real world.