By-passing state power and neutralising state bureaucracies 55 Joppke 2007). However, since this study is concerned with de jure statelessness, I draw on Joppke’s notion of identity as an ‘intrinsically state-related concept’ (2007:38). Theorisations of the third aspect of citizenship, identity, have been strongly influenced since the 1990s by the entrenchment of the human rights regime (Spiro 2011). Contemporary theories of citizenship, such as universalist and post-national approaches, have framed citizenship around individual rights rather than collective identities—people are understood to claim and enjoy citizenship in different countries that do not always reflect their ethnic or cultural identity (Benhabib 1999; Sassen 2003; Benhabib 2004; Soysal 2004). These theories have gained increasing prominence, particularly in understanding the dynamic nature of citizenship in the global north. Within these theories, there has been a ‘decoupling of rights and identity’ (Soysal 2004; Howard-Hassmann 2015). As an issue of justice in an age of mass mobility, claims to citizenship based on long-term residence and the individual human right to citizenship are often viewed as trumping claims based solely on membership of an ethnic, cultural, or ‘national’ group (Carens 2013). A person may enjoy and enact rights as a citizen of a particular state, and yet that citizenship may only be loosely associated with the multiple and shifting collective identities of that person. Contrastingly, in Myanmar, ethnic identity, which is framed by the ethno-centric citizenship law, has been at the heart of claims to citizenship and cannot be decoupled from rights. Ethnic identity remains salient in the ongoing formation of a post-colonial national identity (Ganesan and Hlaing 2007; South 2008; Zarni and Brinham 2017). Rohingya claims to Myanmar citizenship are often not simply claims to citizenship status and its attached bundle of rights but are also more fundamentally identity-based claims. Through membership of a distinct ethnic community—Rohingya– individuals claim their affiliation and historical belonging to Myanmar (Jilani 1999; Nural Islam 2018). International agencies, in Myanmar as elsewhere, engage in approaches that view citizenship as status but largely circumvent ‘citizenship as identity’ which is viewed as inherently ‘political.’37 For example, these approaches have included naturalisation and the provision of state-issued documents. Yet, at the heart of the pursuit for justice within Rohingya collectives, as this thesis explores is the pursuit of identity citizenship and associated safety and protections.38 Meanwhile, in international approaches to statelessness, whilst the language of belonging has been incorporated into the public face of the UNHCR-led I Belong campaign, the focus of the 10-point action plan remains firmly rooted in securing state recognition of formal citizenship status for more individuals. This emphasis on formal status in statelessness work has been further reflected and consolidated by the clarification of definitions relating to statelessness. A stateless person in international law is anyone ‘not considered a national by any state under the operation of its law’ (Article 1, 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons). The