Statelessness and Worldlessness

As wars force people into exile and climate change drives communities from their homes, the idea of the state as a protector is steadily eroding. According to UNHCR, 4.4 million people were stateless at the end of 2024—a figure likely underestimated. Denied basic rights such as education, employment, and healthcare, these individuals embody a global crisis Hannah Arendt foresaw in her essays We Refugees (1943) and The Decline of the Nation-State and the End of the Rights of Man (1951). Having herself become stateless after fleeing Nazi Germany, Arendt offered enduring insights into democracy, human rights, and the essential freedom of individuals—insights that remain strikingly relevant today.
Through a combination of lectures, conversations, and poetic readings, we revisit Hannah Arendt’s reflections on statelessness and explore their resonance in contemporary politics and the continuing legacies of imperialism—together with Dr. Shahin Nasiri (Lecturer in Political Philosophy, University of Amsterdam), Dr. Nawal Mustafa (Assistant Professor in Black Studies, Critical Race Studies, and Indigenous Studies, University of Amsterdam), and Palestinian-Syrian poet Ghayath Almadhoun.