example. This was based partly on historical precedent and partly based on demographic size. Those
groups had largely been in power before European colonialism (though their territories had been
smaller and more fluid), and they comprised the majority population of each new state territory. Now
holding political power, they were able to reify and reinforce their position through the construction of
law, often simultaneously precluding others from doing the same. This has led to some contradictions.
For example, in states like Myanmar, indigeneity is enshrined in the Constitution (denoting the primacy
of the Bamar and other officially recognized groups) yet denied as a tool of articulation for other
minority group claims (for example, the Karen National Union).
The next section examines how exclusive indigeneity clauses were constructed from the immediate
post-colonial moment, when colonies became independent nation-states, and demonstrates the ways
they are deeply rooted in the patterns of migration and governance discussed here. It specifically focuses
on how those clauses regulate access to the full rights and benefits of citizenship on the basis of
numerous intersectional positionalities—differentially including some groups while excluding others
entirely. Though this paper will specifically focus on ethnicity as a marker of exclusion, each law
examined also has significant exclusions in other ways which are no less important, and which interact
with ethnicity to create matrixes of exclusion (Crenshaw, 1989; Crenshaw, 1991; Collins, 2015;
O’Connell Davidson, 2013). The section thus feeds into to the body of literature on intersectional
positionalities and citizenship law, with a specific eye on ethnicity, in line with a range of previous
authors (Byrne, 2017; Christensen, 2009; Coutin, 2000; Lomsky‐Feder and Sasson‐Levy, 2015; Moreau,
2015; Ogawa, 2017; Ramtohul, 2015; Rottmann and Ferree, 2008; Manby, 2009; Gutierrez Garza, 2019;
Pailey, 2016).
3. Exclusion Clauses and the Production of Statelessness
Theoretical Underpinnings
Demonstrating that exclusion clauses exist is nothing new. All polities include and exclude; there is
no such thing as universal inclusion, and citizenship is definitionally a formation of exclusion (Dzenovska,
2018). However, the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion diverge on a state-by-state basis as well as on
different scales for individuals within states, based on the specific configurations of citizenship. This
paper examines those configurations seeking to determine who is excluded, why, and how those
differential inclusions are carried out.
Oddly, the bodies of literature on citizenship are often siloed from those on statelessness. I
argue they are better read together, given that statelessness is produced through exclusions in
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