The State I Am In

"The State I Am In" explores the distinct ‘in-between’ position of borderlanders in negotiating multiple identities and the meaning of citizenship and state power at a juncture of cultures and political entities. The fate of space in the reality of the modern geopolitical map is an absurdity often taken for granted: we are inevitably born into a certain political state and are granted citizenship to that state. Perceptions of the Malaysian ‘nation-state’ in Limbang’s borderlands in the province of Sarawak are much shaped by its proximity to and reflection on wealthy Brunei, of which it was once part, and the divide in-between that has only materialized in recent history. In the 21st century Sarawak and Brunei stand ideologically, economically and culturally far apart, which results into a lively cross-border trade, illicit flows of goods, peculiar ethnic and family ties and unexpected manifestations of contrasting cultures and state power vernaculars. At the margins of the Malaysian state, ideas of state and nation making are contested, shaped and reshaped through social fantasies about what the state and its power signify. It is in this dialectic process in which the state exists.