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Book Cover
E-book
Author Chen, Tienshi Lara

Title Stateless
Published Singapore : NUS Press, 2023

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Description 1 online resource
Contents Cover -- Half title page -- Full title page -- Copyright page -- Contents -- List of Images -- Prologue -- Chapter 1: Lara of Chintown -- Chapter 2: Living in the Crevice between Two Countries -- Chapter 3: Assimilating into Japanese Society -- Chapter 4: Venturing Out into the World -- Chapter 5: Off to Hong Kong, Off to America -- Chapter 6: Learning about Statelessness -- Chapter 7: Asians and Statelessness -- Chapter 8: Applying for Naturalization -- Chapter 9: Statelessness in Other Countries -- Chapter 10: Launching the Stateless Network NGO -- Chapter 11: Not Someone Else's Problem
Chapter 12: State-Engendered Counceptual Boundaries: Nationality, IDs, Xenophobia, and COVID-19 -- Epilogue -- Bibliography -- Index
Summary A captivating auto-ethnography and study of statelessness. "In the springtime of the year that I was twenty-one, I found myself stuck at the border between two familiar countries, unable to enter either. I had never felt my statelessness so keenly." Japan's 1971 termination of diplomatic ties with the Republic of China left 9,200 Chinese residents stateless. Tienshi "Lara" Chen was one of them, born to Chinese parents in Yokohama's Chinatown. What does it mean to be stateless? What does it feel like? To answer, Stateless presents Chen's engaging autobiographical account of her bi-cultural upbringing and Japanese education. She reflects on her experience of statelessness eventually led her into a career spanning academia and activism, and she analyzes the contradictions inherent in the concepts of nationality, nation-state, and citizenship, in a world where individual nationality, identity, and experience are increasingly complex. She concludes that the current system of regulating individuals with citizenship is unworkable in the long run. Blending life writing, auto-ethnography, and a study of stateless communities around Asia, this book unpacks the idea of citizenship by showing the hidden everyday narratives and lived experiences of stateless persons who have no legal ties to any nation-state. Originally published in Japanese, this adapted and updated English edition critically engages with questions of borders, mobility, belonging, and identity
Subject Chen, Tienshi Lara
Chinese -- Japan -- Biography
Stateless persons -- Japan
Statelessness.
BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY.
Civics & Citizenship.
Cultural.
Anthropology.
SOCIAL SCIENCE.
Genre/Form Electronic books
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9789813252332
9813252332