Natalie Brinham, Citizenship and Genocide Cards: IDs, Statelessness and Rohingya Resistance in Myanmar

In Citizenship and Genocide Cards: IDs, Statelessness and Rohingya Resistance in Myanmar, Natalie Brinham links Myanmar’s deliberate efforts to manufacture and consolidate Rohingya statelessness with the destruction of the Rohingya as a group. Through nine carefully crafted chapters, Brinham explores Myanmar’s policies on citizenship and legal identity documents, and demonstrates the central role they have played in genocidal violence against the Rohingya. In doing so, Brinham demonstrates the capacity of States to weaponise legal identity documents, and challenges international approaches to statelessness. Brinham’s study of genocide through an examination of legal identity documents is both unique and intentional. Her research for this book comprised narrative interviews with survivors of violence, with Brinham organising focus group discussions and observing and interacting with the participants of the study. As she notes in chapter 2, she focused on legal identity documents to ensure that the interviews with participants did not have the effect of traumatising them. This focus also enabled participants to enjoy autonomy and control over the information they divulged during the interview process.