Networked Upstream-Downstream and Maritime "Activity Zones" in 16th-19th Century Banjarmasin (Southeast Borneo)

• In Event: Coastal and Maritime Dynamics of Southeast Asia, 5th - 19th Century

Abstract

The paper will frame a multiple "activity zone" and "networked society" analysis of Banjarmasin, a prominent 16th-19th century international pepper port on the southeast Borneo coastline. Consistent with the AAS panel theme, the paper will focus on the evolution of Banjarmasin as an Islamic port-of-trade, where an emerging upstream regional elite established a downstream court reactive to the new trading opportunities afforded by the upper river delta "coastal" port-of-trade that was the variable residency of a mixture of international (e.g., Chinese and European) and regional Indonesian archipelago (e.g, Bugis and Javanese) maritime diaspora and sojourners. What is most significant in this study is the reactive withdrawal of “tribal” populations further upstream to better distance themselves and their cultural traditions and ways of life from the transitional downstream, which was increasingly engaged in court-, Islamic-, and marketplace-centered activities that were focused on accessing material (over cultural) rewards. The local Hikayat Banjar multi-version (pre-Islamic and Islamic) court chronicle recensions provide local views of these events, and pair with various contemporary Western trading company (e.g., British and Dutch) and multi-ethnic travel accounts in documenting Banjarmasin's evolution into an overlapping regional and international port-of-note within a "borderless" but networked eastern Indonesia and intersecting Java and Sulu Sea-centered activity zone.

Author

• Kenneth R. Hall, Ball State University