“Citizenship” is a legal concept describing an individual’s relationship to the State. In contrast, “statelessness” is when somebody does not have citizenship of any State. Terms such as “nationality,” “race” or “ethnicity” are generally culturally embedded concepts, understood differently by different people and in different contexts. These terms are often, but not uniformly, conflated or used interchangeably. In many countries, particularly those with diverse populations, the right to citizenship is defined broadly to include persons with different ethnicities and even nationalities. In post-independence Myanmar, the concept of being a “national” or “indigenous”1 had a generally broad definition, allowing persons of different backgrounds to become citizens, including but not limited to the descendants of persons who immigrated to Myanmar. In 1982, the current narrow definition of citizenship was introduced, which generally links citizenship acquisition to membership of a prescribed “national race.” (See further on these terms in this briefing, particularly in sections 3 and 4).