4800 M. A. BHAT AND R. SHAHID regulations, forms and documents creates a liminal form of citizenship. This apparent paradox stems from inconsistencies in managing citizenship status. In certain cases, as observed by Bhat, contradictory official stances towards the credibility of legal identity documents – termed as ‘documentary doublethink” – give rise to everyday legal uncertainties regarding citizenship status. Meanwhile, Berger and Garg note the role of astute state elites who exploit ‘the contradictory effects of legal abundance and seemingly technical implementation problems’ to foster and extend liminal citizenship. Specifically, they demonstrate how ‘an abundance of rules and forums, often contradictory or confusing about different pathways to citizenship’, shifts the ‘burden of proof’ onto individuals to establish their citizenship. Another significant theme is the practice of ‘illegalisation’. This process, at times explicit (evident in the case of Rohingya refugees in India highlighted by Tiwari et al.), or gradual (such as observed among Miya Muslims in Assam), underscores that the legality-illegality dichotomy is not fixed or inherent but shaped through intricate interplay among politics, history and institutional norms. According to the contributors, illegalisation occurs through various avenues: incorporating ethnic exclusion in the law (Gogoi and Sen), ethnicising routine legal and administrative practices (Bhat), establishing unfair documentary regimes (Berger and Garg), restricting access to ordinary legal resources through the proliferation of hollow documents (Das), or, more broadly, fostering ‘a deliberate lack of clarity’ (Tiwari et al.). These observations intricately relate to the bureaucratic administration of citizenship. Developments associated with citizenship attrition emerge from legal manoeuvres involving paperwork. The contributors illustrate how the creation of exclusionary and precarious citizenship hinges on ‘the interplay between legislative changes and bureaucratic practices to capture exclusionary tendencies across the region’ (Berger and Garg). It’s crucial to note that these practices are not solely driven by politically aligned actors but often involve the active engagement of courts and bureaucracies. For instance, Bhat and Tiwari et al. reveal how India’s elite institutions, especially the judiciary, actively contribute to the ongoing ethnicisation of immigration, perpetuating the marginalisation and targeting of immigrant communities. The discretion embedded within these documentary regimes is pivotal. This discretion is visible in contexts like Myanmar (Berger and Garg) and India (Bhat), both concerning citizens and non-citizens. Regarding non-citizens, Tiwari et al. demonstrate how, despite international and constitutional obligations, the Indian state wields ‘broad power’ to exclude vulnerable refugee communities from legal protection. Concerning citizens, Berger and Garg, along with Bhat, highlight how South and Southeast Asian states have established discretionary regimes of legal procedures, echoing colonial continuities. History plays a central role in this aspect. Berger and Garg, Bhat, and others illustrate how contemporary citizenship practices maintain links with colonial legacies, evident in discretionary decision-making processes characterised by exceptionalism, observed in Sri Lanka and India. All this speaks to the need to critique and demystify the role of legal process in citizenship processes in the region and beyond. Gogoi and Sen, and Bhat, for instance, examine documentary mechanisms and their impact on citizenship status in India from diverse angles but reach analogous conclusions. Gogoi and Sen reveal how legal discourse operates under a ‘myth of transcendence’, exacerbating and obfuscating violence. In contrast,