Hierarchies of identity and non-belonging

An oil-rich kingdom in Southeast Asia, Brunei Darussalam is known for its conservative rule based on Malay Islamic Monarchy, a powerful state ideology that constructs desirable Bruneian identities according to the exclusionary and essentializing discourses of race and religion. Written in Black , an Anglophone novel by the diasporic Brunei Chinese male author K. H. Lim, however, challenges and resists the dominant ideology with representations that are not readily associated with prosperous and conservative Brunei, such as abandoned dwellings, poklans (a punk subculture), and black magic. Using phenomenological theories of body and space, my reading of the novel’s representations of the Brunei Chinese reveals the less visible or hidden facets of the kingdom through its unimagined community – a concept used to interrogate the hierarchies of identity and non-belonging. This concept moreover enables us to explore the intricacies of minority identities and their complex articulations of home and belonging, even when marginalized, displaced, or excluded.