2019 Statelessness & Citizenship Review 1(1) of the country’s constitution. 133 This paper does not contest the state’s rights to determine the parameters of conferring citizenship but it does challenge the misunderstood notion that statelessness is a problem that affects migrants or foreigners only. This research project suggests that turning to the international principle of dominant and effective nationality can help eradicate statelessness for the majority of stateless persons in Malaysia. This study acknowledges that there are various forms of statelessness and different groups of stateless persons. In order to counter public narratives that statelessness is not a problem, 134 the law’s inclusiveness through a nuanced definition of statelessness can help drive public discourse towards recognising statelessness within local communities in Malaysia instead of recognising pockets of ‘exceptionalism’. 135 Secondly, understanding there are categories of statelessness neutralises the discourse that statelessness is equated with foreignness. The denial of citizenship to administratively stateless persons contributes to the misconceived view that all stateless persons are foreigners and more problematically as ‘illegals’, ‘opportunists’, ‘cheats’ or deviants like ‘street children’. 136 As Catherine Allerton in her research on Sabah writes: During my research, I noticed how often Sabahans referred not to stateless people but to ‘so-called stateless people.’ The implication of the ‘so-called’ prefix seemed to be that people who are described as “stateless” are not really stateless and that this issue is a mirage, obscuring other, more important issues; that is, these are ‘so-called’ stateless people because their apparent statelessness is simply a mask, both for illegality and for further demographic and political engineering. 137 A more nuanced understanding of who is stateless may debunk the singular view of stateless persons as illegals or foreigners and therefore tease out sticky notions of who is a legitimate citizen and who is a foreigner. In recognising that stateless persons include administratively stateless, we can view stateless persons not as migrants but as persons with genuine and effective links with the country they are in. There may be evidentiary problems associated with proving one’s statelessness. This is beyond the scope of this paper. In short, however, it should not be a difficult task to substantiate statelessness — a person is stateless if they do not have legal recognition from any other country as a citizen. This fact 133 Appendix Table 3, Interview with 1A. 134 Allerton, ‘Contested Statelessness in Sabah’ (n 2) 260; ‘No Stateless People, Says Zahid’ Daily Express (Kuala Lumpar, 20 April 2015) <http://www.dailyexpress.com.my/news.cfm?NewsID=99073>. 135 Allerton, ‘Contested Statelessness in Sabah’ (n 2) 260; Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, ‘On the Threshold of Statelessness: Palestinian Narratives of Loss and Erasure’ (2016) 39(2) Ethnic and Racial Studies 301, 303. 136 Fadzilah Majid Cooke and Dayang Suria Mulia, ‘Migration and Moral Panic: The Case of Oil Palm in Sabah, East Malaysia’ in Oliver Pye and Jayati Bhattacharya (eds), The Palm Oil Controversy in South East Asia: A Transnational Perspective (ISEAS 2013) 140–63; Allerton ‘Contested Statelessness in Sabah’ (n 2) 264; Eva-Lotta E Hedman, ‘Refuge, Governmentality and Citizenship: Capturing “Illegal Migrants” in Malaysia and Thailand’ (2008) 43(2) Government and Opposition 358; Alice M Nah, ‘Legitimizing Violence: The Impact of Public “Crackdowns” on Migrant Workers and Refugees in Malaysia’ (2011) 17(2) Australian Journal of Human Rights 131. 137 Allerton, ‘Contested Statelessness in Sabah’ (n 2) 261. 124