Tilburg Law Review
Volume 19, Issue 1-2, 2014, Pages 26-34

Statelessness and the lives of the children of migrants in Sabah, East Malaysia (Article)

Allerton C.*
  • a Department of Anthropology, London School of Economics, United Kingdom

Abstract

This article explores issues involved with researching statelessness 'on the ground' during ethnographic fieldwork in Malaysia with the children of migrants and refugees. It argues that many of these children, whose parents or grandparents originate from Indonesia or the Philippines, lack an 'effective nationality'. However, rather than statelessness or illegality per se, what dominates these children's lives is their perpetual 'foreignness'. Even when children might be able to have their citizenship recognised by a parental country of origin, families often prefer to remain undocumented, and to wait (perhaps indefinitely) for the Malaysian citizenship they perceive as rightfully theirs. © 2014 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.

Author Keywords

Migration citizenship Children Sabah statelessness Malaysia

Index Keywords

[No Keywords available]

Link
https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-84893079742&doi=10.1163%2f22112596-01902004&partnerID=40&md5=d93e539a5a89b8c1d193a4cded37ffcc

DOI: 10.1163/22112596-01902004
ISSN: 22110046
Cited by: 12
Original Language: English