2026-06-27 –, Room 302 (Seats 48)
This paper examines the definition and evolution of the term “subject of the Sultan” in the British-protected Malay States up to the Second World War. Far from being a straightforward legal and discursive category, it proved a highly complex, ambiguous and changeable concept which affected the lives of hundreds of thousands of migrants who made their homes in the Malay States in this period. The central dilemma revolved around whether non-Malay migrants to the Malay States were considered subjects of the Sultan in the state where they lived, and if so, how did they obtain this status and what did it entail. Determining this required a consideration of the status of British Protectorates and Protected States and therefore invited a reevaluation of the nature of nationality law across the Empire. Since the question of nationality also affected the status of these individuals abroad, it was an inherently transnational problem, and one which arose specifically out of disputes with neighboring states and the migrants’ country of origin. As different constituent communities of the Malay States began clamoring for greater rights, the meaning of “subject of the Sultan” became a matter of increasing importance to the future of the country. I suggest that Britain’s evolving attitude on this subject and the shifting interpretation of subjecthood reveals a great deal about how nationality, race, and citizenship were conceived in Malaya which had significant consequences for Malayan decolonization and independence.
Christian Jones is a doctoral candidate at Freie Universität Berlin working on the history of race, citizenship and decolonisation in colonial Malaya. He has been a visiting researcher at the National University of Singapore and the University of Malaya as well as a Lee Kong Chian Research Fellow at the National Library of Singapore. More broadly, he is interested in the history of race, migration, empires and nationalism. Additionally, Christian was a researcher on the project “Patchwork Cities: Urban Ethnic Clusters in the Global South During the Age of Steam” led by Prof. Michael Goebel.