Drawing on years of research and fieldwork in Thailand and Nepal, Professor Flaim examines how the condition of statelessness, often framed as the absence of belonging, can instead reveal the ways states create and control citizenship itself. Her talk explores how policies surrounding human rights, migration, and registration both produce and manage stateless populations, shaping who counts as a member of the political community.
Amanda Flaim studies problems and paradoxes in human rights policy, including statelessness and citizenship, human trafficking, and the global expansion of rights to education and birth registration. Her current research projects explore the risk of trafficking among Cambodian and Burmese men and boys into the Thai fishing industry, and the causes and consequences of statelessness in Thailand and Nepal. Professor Flaim has consulted for several NGOs and United Nations agencies on a number of projects, including designing and leading two of the largest country-level surveys of stateless populations conducted to date.
Part of the Kennedy Center's fall 2025 lecture series, "The Future of Citizenship."