IDs for Rohingya: 'Pathways to Citizenship' or Instruments of Genocide?

My 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. During this fellowship, I will: develop this research towards further dissemination and publications including a book; build national and international collaborations with researchers working on legal identities and precarious citizenships in different contexts; and develop further research plans and a proposal relating to the use of ID technologies and ID histories in the context of resistance and state crime.

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. Drawing on Rohingya oral histories and narratives relating to their ID cards, it considers how Rohingya survivors of state crime have disrupted international framings of statelessness and its solutions.

As with much state crime research, this research is strongly grounded in notions of social justice. Findings have so far been used to: advocate internationally for the recognition of mass atrocities against the Rohingya as 'genocide'; educate Myanmar and regional civil society groups about genocide and genocide prevention; highlight the need for protection for refugees against unsafe, premature or forced repatriation; and promote better involvement of refugees, noncitizens and marginalised groups in assessing and articulating risks associated with ID systems. This fellowship consolidates my doctoral research. It also highlights and broadens the potential for social action and activism in relation to identification processes.