Refusal as political practice: Citizenship, sovereignty, and Tibetan refugee status

Is it possible to be both a refugee and a citizen? For six decades, Tibetan refugees have refused citizenship in South Asia as part of their claims to Tibetan state sovereignty. They have lived in India and Nepal as refugee noncitizens, either undocumented or underdocumented, for multiple generation...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:American ethnologist 2018-08, Vol.45 (3), p.367-379
Main Author: McGRANAHAN, CAROLE
Format: Article
Language:English
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Summary:Is it possible to be both a refugee and a citizen? For six decades, Tibetan refugees have refused citizenship in South Asia as part of their claims to Tibetan state sovereignty. They have lived in India and Nepal as refugee noncitizens, either undocumented or underdocumented, for multiple generations. But as Tibetans migrate to the United States and Canada, they gain citizenship through political asylum while maintaining their belonging to the Dalai Lama's refugee community. This shift in political practice is as situated in specific histories as it is in geographies. Tibetan citizenship practices in exile are not claims for recognition or forms of resistance; they are, rather, a refusal of international norms through a present‐day insistence on past and future political sovereignty.
ISSN:0094-0496
1548-1425
DOI:10.1111/amet.12671