Aporias of World Politics: the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization

This dissertation explores political representation and its intersection with human rights and transnational advocacy through the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization. I make two major arguments: first, that many people cannot be discursively represented domestically and/or internationally - that they have no space in which to 'appear' and thus occupy a liminal status with respect to particular regimes of recognition. Second, that international law and global governance oriented predominantly around states render certain forms of recognition a primarily political, rather than legal process.