The United Nations estimates over 10 million people worldwide are not recognized by any country and are stateless. The book Nowhere People is a 10-year investigation (2005-2015) by award-winning photojournalist Greg Constantine that documents and exposes one of the most extreme and radical yet underreported human rights issues today: the arbitrary denial of citizenship by the State to individuals and entire ethnic communities as a weapon of racism, discrimination and exclusion and the impact statelessness and the ensuing deprivation of any number of rights has on the human condition.
Through extensive text, interviews, testimonies, poems and documentary photography, the book explores this complex human rights issue and also exposes the gross violations of human rights via the mechanism of the denial of the fundamental right to a nationality and the right to have rights. It sheds light on the tactics States and people in power take to exclude and legally erase entire ethnic communities from the larger fabric of society, often with impunity. It presents a critical look at the over-arching power of the State as the caregiver of rights today in 2015 while also challenging us to question our definitions of identity, belonging, citizenship and human rights in an ever changing, interwoven and interconnected world.
The book focuses on stateless individuals and communities in twelve countries around the world including: Bangladesh, Nepal, Malaysia, Myanmar, Kuwait, Iraq, Serbia, Italy, Ukraine, Kenya, Ivory Coast and the Dominican Republic. It is the third book in a series of inter-related books from the project Nowhere People.
One of the many objectives of Nowhere People is to help address the question, “What does statelessness look like in 2015?” The project aims to reveal the human face of statelessness as well as the lengths stateless people will go to survive and find a place in society. Built around the voices, testimonies and stories of stateless people themselves, Nowhere People provides tangible documentation and proof of a global issue that has been ignored for far too long.
BOOK
Nowhere People
Greg Constantine
374 Pages (Hardcover)
Foreword by Shirin Ebadi (2003 Nobel Peace Prize Winner)
11.2 x 8.8 x 1.5 inches
320 B&W photos
Includes poems, song lyrics and testimonies
Text & Photographs by Greg Constantine
Design by Helen Kudrich Coleman
http://www.nowherepeople.org
http://www.gregconstantine.com
