ensuring that their status as outsiders is embedded in the humanitarian response to refugees. • The way in which repatriation takes place can either destabilize a fragile situation or contribute to breaking cycles of violence and displacement. Successful repatriation of refugees reasserts the bond of citizenship between citizen and state, enabling the state to provide protection and the citizen to renegotiate the nature of the protection required (relating to governmental and societal discrimination, restrictions on freedom of movement, denial of property rights, access to justice, and exclusion from governance). Without the opportunity to realize their full rights as citizens, refugees are likely to resist return. Refugees are usually best placed to assess whether this bond can be re-established and to decide when and how to return home (possibly involving many movements back and forth, or the splitting of families across locations). The relationship between repatriation and citizenship may be complicated by local politics of belonging (e.g., localized ethnic forms of belonging and citizenship, and notions of indigeneity). Citizenship, local belonging, and repatriation are also intertwined with land ownership. • Most states in the region restrict access to their citizenship for refugees. In most of the Great Lakes region, citizenship by birth is accessible only based on inheritance (jus sanguinis) and not based on birth in the country (jus soli), so citizenship cannot be extended automatically to the children of refugees, even if several generations are born in exile. While this leaves open the possibility of accessing citizenship through either registration or naturalization, in practice this rarely happens. Policymakers generally view naturalization as the end point of integration, while refugees perceive it as distinct from their “empirical citizenship”. Critically important for establishing empirical citizenship is freedom of movement and residence. • Inclusion within a society needs to take account of local and regional factors, including the arbitrariness and fluidity of colonial borders, increasing forced displacement, migration and mobility, and the ability of citizens to exercise citizenship rights and duties beyond the state of origin. Refugee policies need to view refugees as citizens and rational actors who are best placed to determine what their interests are and how to protect them. Refugee and citizenship policies can be reformed by adopting inclusive criteria already in existence within community value systems or international law and international human rights instruments. 3