Iqbal, Humera;
Malik, Anushay;
Rashid, Maria;
(2025)
Suspended identity: statelessness, citizenship challenges and the impermanence of identity status faced by Pakistani Bengalis.
Citizenship Studies
10.1080/13621025.2025.2523251.
(In press).
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Abstract
Approximately 3 million ethnic Bengalis reside in Pakistan, some of whom have been refused citizenship rights and continue to face social and cultural exclusion despite being in their third and fourth generations. Many came following the creation of Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan) in 1971 under challenging circumstances. This paper examines the ongoing citizenship challenges faced by the Pakistani Bengali community in Karachi, Pakistan, with a particular focus on their experiences within the space of the citizenship registration office. Drawing on 85 oral history interviews with both adult and young Pakistani Bengalis, our findings reveal that the treatment of Pakistani Bengalis in this space is shaped by dominant racialised commonsense representations of them as ‘eternal outsiders’ and ‘unworthy of belonging’, rooted in a historical past marked by conflict and a series of exclusionary citizenship and state-security policies. Consequently, many are met with discrimination and challenges around identity acquisition, resulting in lasting intergenerational impacts in their own and their family’s everyday lives, leaving them precarious. Our paper more broadly argues that within the social imagination of nations, particularly post-colonial ones, certain groups are constructed as outsiders, shaping racialised understandings that influence discriminatory citizenship practices in turn creating a state of suspended identity.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Suspended identity: statelessness, citizenship challenges and the impermanence of identity status faced by Pakistani Bengalis |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1080/13621025.2025.2523251 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1080/13621025.2025.2523251 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
| Keywords: | Citizenship, claiming citizenship, discrimination, stateless, identity |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Social Research Institute |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10210826 |
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