Transnational Migration and Identity of Stateless Persons

Abstract

  This article uses cases of statelessness to examine the political dynamic of exclusion and inclusion involved in a system of nationality.
  Stateless person means a person with no nationality or one who is not legally a citizen of any nation state. Here, I will pay attention to two cases, one that of ethnic Koreans in Japan, and the other Japanese war orphans coming from China to live in Japan. These two cases are similar in some ways. Firstly, the migrations were forced by the socio-political environment. Secondly, transitions in international relations and the changing policies of nation states resulted in the alteration of their nationalities and even led them to become stateless.
  Issues of stateless persons have been neglected and seldom paid attention to. Here, by analyzing these two cases, especially concerning (1) historical background and clarification of how they became stateless, (2) the gap between identity card designations and real nationality, and (3) the mental effects of being stateless, this paper would like to stress the existence of stateless people by clarifying the political dynamic of nationality which has been excluding them. Also, this paper would like to suggest the importance of studying stateless people in this global era, a group of people with a unique identity free from nationalism and ethnicity.