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Oceans Unbounded: Transversing Asia across “Area Studies”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

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Recent endorsements of maritime history as an integral part of world history should be central in any attempt to transverse the academic divides separating the study of “South”, “East” and “Southeast” Asia (AHA Forum. 2006; Buschmann 2005). Nonetheless, envisaging an interconnected maritime Asia that is not subservient to the boundaries of area studies and modern nations, and yet does not descent to the simplistic and overly general, is a formidable challenge. A number of studies have tracked trading diasporas and economic linkages, but the place of the oceans in the cultures of Asia's littoral societies has received much less attention. It may not be difficult to locate the reasons. Although in simple terms, “maritime history” is the history of human interaction with the sea in all its facets (Finamore 2004, p. 1), most Asianists have reached adulthood located within a nation-state with identifiable territorial borders and carry inherent intellectual biases that privilege a land-based perspective.

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Copyright © The Authors 2007

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