Muslim-majority state (Bangladesh). As such, it is easy to see how such xenophobic discourses can maintain staying power, despite significant evidence that Muslim communities have lived in Rakhine state since the region was the Kingdom of Arakan in the early 1400s (Yegar, 2002). Troublingly, in the past few decades, discourses have often transformed into actions. Self-identification as a ‘Rohingya’ was not allowed in the 2014 census, and members of the community were forced to either self-report as ‘Bengali’ or not be counted (Ferguson, 2015). Acts of immense violence have been perpetrated against the Rohingya, including ethnic cleansing and, in recent years, to use the words of the UN fact-finding mission, full-fledged genocide (Council, 2018). While statelessness is not the cause of these acts per se, it is a harbinger and a simultaneous targeted cause and symptom of marginalization (Kingston, 2017). Tracing its roots historically allows us to see which groups are targeted, and, to some extent, better understand why. Sadly, it is difficult to imagine any just resolution to the situation in the near future, and, as highlighted in the introduction, even well-intended efforts from the international community, like the NVC program, often backfire (Brinham, 2018). Clearly, relics of migration patterns, both pre-colonial and colonial—and especially the latter— have played an enormous role in the production of statelessness in Myanmar. Nevertheless, these histories are often overlooked in contemporary discourse on statelessness in the region. Bringing migration back into the fold contextualizes the situation more fully and reveals the inconsistency of the government’s argumentation and the hypocrisy inherent within the application of current citizenship laws. It further illuminates how groups are intentionally targeted by these laws, and how migration and indigeneity are used as ways to frame the exclusions in a seemingly apolitical manner. 4. Further Directions In the case presented, indigeneity is used to construct a particular exclusive national identity, which, when implemented in citizenship law, produces differential inclusion and statelessness for groups left on the outside. An extended version of this working paper, which can be found in the Oxford University Social Science Library, further considers the cases of Malaysia and Thailand in similar depth, shedding even greater light on the extent to which this is true. Three groups are typically excluded: precolonial migrants, colonial migrants, and groups in borderzones. These groups are not necessarily excluded for the same reasons. This section dives into that critical final question—why? Definitive answers prove elusive, but trends illuminate some possibilities. The cases of precolonial migrant communities and colonial-era ‘migrants’ (whose mobilities were governed by the European colonial empire) are relatively clear. Pre-colonial migrants who     24