Disaggregating citizenship

Tibetan refugees navigating identity, belonging, and exclusionary state policies in India

Bibliographic Data

ID2290975
AuthorsIshani Dasgupta (0000-0002-5786-5887, Pozen Center for Human Rights University of Chicago Chicago Illinois USA)
Year2024
Volume47
Issue2
Pages176-190
Publication date2024-11-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePoLAR Political and Legal Anthropology Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1081-6976 • E-ISSN: 1555-2934
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/plar.12580
OpenAlexW4404292604
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited57

This essay explores the struggles of second-generation Tibetan refugees under an exclusionary Indian citizenship regime. Confronted with a national orthodoxy that entwines legal status, entitlements, and national identity, Tibetans respond by "disaggregating" citizenship. First, stateless Tibetans, born in India to refugee parents, won legal appeals by demonstrating that Tibetan nationality was no bar to Indian citizenship. In response, Indian authorities demanded that Tibetans give up refugee entitlements and remove themselves from their national space and political community in exile as the price of Indian citizenship. This article explores the diverse responses of Tibetans to the citizenship-on-offer: some aspiring for it, some accepting it, and others actively rejecting it. These responses illustrate strategies refugees employ to navigate citizenship regimes that often render them liminal. Refugees act both to mitigate the precarity of statelessness and to preserve their identity, community, and political aspirations against erasure. In doing so, they not only disrupt the national orthodoxy of states that negates refugee experiences but also reveal the incompleteness and contradictions of citizenship regimes

Asian Geopolitics and Ethnography · Migration, Refugees, and Integration · South Asian Studies and Conflicts

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