2019 Statelessness & Citizenship Review 1(1) rights of citizenship that are said to be theirs and which they are owed. 138 Nevertheless, the findings presented herein challenge the reigning narrative of ending statelessness in Sri Lanka as a tale of success and are instructive for the global #IBELONG Campaign to end statelessness by 2024. 4 Seeking Dissensus Although there exists a rural rights deficit, this study has not revealed that those who are subject to this deficit and unable to enact their rights have undertaken to construct a dissensus against the denial of rights they suffer. Rather, inaction, accommodation or resignation characterise how people respond to such denial. It must be understood that people’s actions or the lack thereof, and the manner by which they exercise their agency is conditioned by the cultural contexts and social structures they inhabit, meaning that the specific form agency takes will vary in different times and places, 139 though it is never entirely absent. However, as Bass argues, the Up-Country Tamil population is acutely aware of how ‘hegemonic social and political systems allow them little leverage or voice in affairs beyond their immediate surroundings’. 140 For this reason, inaction, or what can otherwise be referred to as resignation, ‘is often the result of a pragmatic decision to avoid conflict when their efforts would not likely lead to tangible results’. 141 Still, it is imperative to view resignation and resistance not as antithetical but as ‘being a continuum of one activity’, 142 for resignation is not indicative of an absence of agency but does signal that the ‘coincidence of forces and factors that will enable change to occur’, 143 such as constructing a dissensus against a denial of rights, have yet to emerge and that inaction or resignation is the most profitable course of action for the time being. Ultimately, the inaction, accommodation or resignation observed among some respondents is a strategised response to the hegemonic social and political systems some have encountered, though this particular method of negotiation is but one of many options pursued by respondents in the given historical moment. 144 Be that as it may, it must be understood that out of a sum total of only 30 interviews, inaction, accommodation or resignation to hegemonic social and 138 Khalid Hussain, ‘The End of Bihari Statelessness’ (2009) 32 Forced Migration Review 30; 139 140 141 142 143 144 Ninette Kelley, ‘Ideas, Interests and Institutions: Conceding Citizenship in Bangladesh’ (2010) 60(2) University of Toronto Law Journal 349; Katherine Southwick, ‘The Urduspeakers of Bangladesh: An Unfinished Story of Enforcing Citizenship Rights’ in Sri Lanka’ in Brad K Blitz and Maureen Lynch (eds), Statelessness and Citizenship: A Comparative Study on the Benefits of Nationality (Edward Elgar 2011) 115; Victoria Redclift, Statelessness and Citizenship: Camps and the Creation of Political Space (Routledge 2013). Sherry B Ortner, Anthropology and Social Theory: Culture, Power and the Acting Subject (Duke University Press 2006); Bass (n 61). Bass (n 61) 99–100. ibid. Doug Munro, ‘Patterns of Resistance and Accommodation’ in Brij V Lal, Doug Munro and Edward D Beechert (eds), Plantation Workers: Resistance and Accommodation (University of Hawaii Press 1993) 10. Bass (n 61) 99. By way of example, 30-year-old Kanchana reported that her child was discriminated against when attending a town school because of their family’s ethnic identity. It was said that Sinhala students were favoured by the teachers, and that as a result her child received far less attention than Sinhala students. Further, her child was made to sit at the back of the class as opposed to Sinhala students who were seated at the front. In response, Kanchana removed her child from the town school and enrolled her child in an estate school. 32