2019 Statelessness & Citizenship Review 1(1) researchers, and that labelling what is perceived to be quiescence as inaction, accommodation, or resignation may altogether overlook clandestine though no less important acts of resistance that for one reason or another remain imperceptible from the vantage point of the researcher. Still, and despite this acknowledgement, it is this concept’s reliance on express action and discourse that limits its utility and may lead researchers to conclude that a given population is without agency when definite evidence of dissensus has not been identified. Globally speaking, the findings presented herein are instructive for the UNHCR’s #IBELONG Campaign to end statelessness by 2024. That there continues to exist a rural rights deficit in Up-Country Sri Lanka more than a decade after this issue was finally resolved, and that the majority of those consulted in what was a fairly limited sample size view the acquisition of citizenship as bringing with it no substantive benefit, this paper challenges the notion that statelessness ‘can be resolved in a single moment’, 157 and establishes that declarations of Sri Lanka’s success in ending statelessness were made in haste. The euphoria surrounding this campaign and the subsequent jubilation that ensues when a stateless population has been granted citizenship are warranted, but when the media campaigns, public service announcements, international consultants and funding for such endeavours return to the ether, little may have changed for said population apart from the possession of identification documents and the opportunity to pay taxes. 158 In principle, this Campaign must be pursued, but if little support, guidance and attention follow in the months, years, and decades after a population has been provided citizenship, it should not be expected that previously stateless persons will have the same rights and entitlements that their compatriots have come to take for granted, or that these same people will naturally begin to belong. With these potential shortcomings in mind, the #IBELONG Campaign may deliver previously stateless communities and populations further into the shadows upon the receipt of citizenship when the act of conferment is celebrated and memorialised at the expense of true substantive change in the lives of those who as we are told want ‘nothing more than to come in from the cold — to belong’, 159 the (previously) stateless. Moving forward, there is a need for more expansive research to be conducted on the benefits of citizenship or the lack thereof among this population. For one, only those living on plantations were consulted in this study, excluding a sizeable demographic of Up-Country Tamils whose experiences of citizenship have not been reflected in these pages. As well, the questions designed to capture how this population has engaged the political process in the years following citizenship were perhaps too broad and either did not allow or overlooked activities that were nonetheless political but outside the scope of analysis and thus remained unnoticed. In a more general sense, there is need now to conduct comparative research on the experiences of citizenship among previously stateless persons 157 UNHCR Special Report (n 3). 158 ‘Over 1,500 articles were written about the Campaign and our materials reached up to 200 million people during the three weeks following the launch on 4 November 2014. Much of the focus was on the high-profile supporters who signed the High Commissioner’s Open Letter, including Angelina Jolie, Desmond Tutu, Louise Arbour, Madeleine Albright and Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka. The ripple-effect of the Campaign has been far-reaching. The BBC and Al Jazeera created their own videos and infographics to explain statelessness, responding to public interest in the issue. Al Jazeera dedicated an episode of the programme “The Stream” to the Campaign’: 2015 Campaign Update (n 33) 1. 159 UNHCR Special Report (n 3) 16. 36