JOURNAL OF ETHNIC AND MIGRATION STUDIES 4799 traditional enemies to anomalies detected through algorithms, which reshapes our understanding of conflicts and security measures. Sharma and Bhat also depict how digital technologies, especially biometrics, are utilised by states to manage and verify identities, reinforcing the internalisation of borders through securitised digital technologies. These analyses collectively underscore a transnational continuum of securitisation practices, from the outsourcing of borders by Europe, Australia and the UK to the internalisation described by Sharma and Bhat, presenting a complex interplay of technology, policy and governance in shaping modern citizenship and security. Law, bureaucracy and paperwork The contemporary global recession in citizenship stability has brought the role of law into sharper focus. As noted by Jain (2022), states worldwide have systematically created statelessness within the framework of legality. The contributors to this special issue shed light on various themes intertwining citizenship attrition and the law. A noteworthy point is the paradoxical relationship between law and citizenship. While legality is expected to establish secure foundations for citizenship, this special issue reveals that it can yield precisely the opposite outcome by fostering instability in citizenship politics, methods and ramifications. Crucially, we contend that exclusionary citizenship politics is not solely reliant on explicit legal alterations; it can operate subtly alongside or behind formal legal changes. Law plays a role in ‘marking’ and ‘masking’ individuals as insiders or outsiders (Sharma 2024). It may formally designate individuals as outsiders, or covertly relegate insiders to outsider status through nuanced adjustments in citizenship regulations. State formation in the region like anywhere else has been about disciplining and othering mobility, and constituting staticity as the political normal. Even though historical mobility was the characteristic of all communities, these postcolonial states deemed certain population as ‘non-mobile’ and more nationally authentic, say the dominant Assamese (Gogoi and Sen 2024). On the other hand, they deemed minority communities as somehow more mobile (say the Tamils in Sri Lanka, or Muslims in Assam or Myanmar), engendering suspicion. Law has been central to this process. It has been used to normalise this staticity, and entrench and police borders. The contributions also show how legal recognition of documents and adjudicatory techniques have become subtle and everyday mechanisms for this. Authorities make documents difficult to procure for mobile populations, refuse to recognise how mobility shapes documents by classifying them as erroneous (Das 2024), or suspecting documents if they indicate any mobility whatsoever (Bhat 2024). Bureaucratic processes, especially the legalities of paperwork, are central to this phenomenon (further elaborated below). These practices often persist ‘at the edge of legality’ (Bhat 2023), partly because they operate ‘not through overtly discriminatory laws and unequal treatment, but rather by manipulating ostensibly neutral criteria for nationality’ (Sharma 2024). This underscores the importance of scrutinising detailed governance practices and their entanglement with populist politics, often evading notice due to their inconspicuous nature. The articles also highlight paradoxical legal practices contributing to the erosion of citizenship status. In various contexts presented in the articles, the proliferation of