The Politics of Belonging: How Citizenship and Religious Identity Shape Refugee Policies Against the Rohingya
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: The Rohingya crisis represents one of the 21st century's greatest humanitarian failures. This phenomenon is rooted in a confluence of denied citizenship, religious identity, and state-centric exclusionary policies directed against the Rohingya. The focus of this study is on how the 1982 Citizenship Law of Myanmar enabled and institutionalized the Rohingya through the redefinition of "national belonging" to be synonymous with ethno-religious identity, creating an ongoing situation in which the Rohingya were treated as "outsiders" and as "threats" to the Buddhist-majority state's security. In addition to applying "the politics of belonging" as a holistic framework to examine the ways in which legal exclusion is grounded in religious nationalism and legitimizes discrimination and forced displacement, the study also explores how host countries like Bangladesh, India, and Malaysia utilized locally based and locally focused politics of belonging as well as locally generated and locally focused religious-based arguments to create both refugee policies for the Rohingya and fragmentation and disproportionate levels of treatment of Rohingya refugees. Finally, on an international level, the study illustrates the variability of humanitarian action based on global political forces and the interests these forces represent in creating heterogeneity in the application of humanitarian protections to refugees during the crisis of the Rohingya as compared to other crises such as that in Ukraine. The study utilized qualitative content and discourse analysis of legal texts, policy documents, and international reports, revealing that citizenship denial and religious identity operate as intertwined forms of exclusion across local, regional and global contexts. The study advocates for rights-based, exclusion-free approaches to refugee management, based on universal tenets of equality, protection, and human dignity.
Author: ul Ghani, Naseem
Institution: University of Karachi
Language: English
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7220148306