The Shadow of Archipelagos: (Un)Identified Identities in Abang Adik and The Stateless

Abstract

This paper examines the representation of statelessness in the Malaysian film Abang Adik (富都青年) and Nakazono Eisuke’s (中薗英助) novel The Stateless (無國籍者), both of which use the imagery of stateless individuals as a focal point for exploring issues of identity and state power. In Abang Adik, two brothers, born and raised in Malaysia, are rendered stateless due to their inability to obtain identification cards, highlighting how the state apparatus exercises power and violence through identity classification. Similarly, the protagonist of Nakazono’s The Stateless is an undocumented immigrant who speaks only Chinese but insists on identifying as Japanese, yet remains unable to secure any definite recognition of his nationality. Both works critique the reduction of identity to rigid, singular classifications, exposing how such simplifications serve to erase historical traumas.

Director Jin Ong’s (王禮霖) experience as a migrant worker in Taiwan, along with Nakazono’s experience during Japan’s occupation of Beijing in the 1940s, prompted both creators to reconsider the complexities and fluidity of being Chinese, Malaysian, or Japanese. While questioning the authentic assumptions underlying rigid identity classifications, this study draws on Nakazono’s postwar critical reflections on war responsibility and memory, seeking to clarify his assertion that “statelessness functions as a medium of negation,” and to explore its potential for unsetting rigid identity constructs. This paper examines Ong and Nakazono’s trans-border experiences and considers (un)identities as an ongoing, unfinished processes rather than fixed categories, opening up possibilities for rethinking belonging beyond rigid singular defined frameworks.