Who are the sea-nomads? Of disciplinary uses and interpretations of the term "sea-nomad" in Southeast-Asian studies

Roundtable Convenor(s)

• MB

  Maxime Boutry

  Centre Asie du Sud-Est (CASE) - French National Centre for Scientific Research, France

Roundtable Chair(s)

• GB

  Geoffrey Benjamin

  Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Roundtable Participant(s)

• MB

  Maxime Boutry

  Centre Asie du Sud-Est (CASE) - French National Centre for Scientific Research, France
• GB

  Geoffrey Benjamin

  Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
• CC

  Cynthia Chou

  Center for Asian and Pacific Studies - University of Iowa, United States
• VW

  Vivienne Wee

  Ethnographica, Singapore
• NA

  Narumon Arunotai

  Chulalongkorn University, Thailand

Roundtable Abstract: As the role of populations of the ‘margins’ in the constitution of insular Southeast Asian polities has been increasingly acknowledged through the past decades, « sea-nomadic » populations (Moken, Suku Laut, Sama Dilaut, etc.) have drawn a lot of interest from archeologists, historians, linguists and anthropologists alike. There have been however few inter-disciplinary discussions about what may ‘define’ these populations as sea-nomads. Can the Western-born term of sea-nomads be equated to the term ‘Orang Laut’ (literally « People of the Sea ») widely used throughout insular Southeast Asia ? In the lack of such discussions, archeological or linguistic findings about the history, migrations and role of these populations in shaping regional polities may sometimes contradict other findings regarding these populations’ ethnogenesis, identity traits, oral history, and even their own perception of relationships with dominant polities. Can these views be reconciled? This roundtable aims to foster discussions on this topic and possibly set the first stone of an inter-displinary working group on Austronesian sea-oriented populations.