AN ARCHIPELAGO EMERGES: FAMILIES, GOODS, AND MATERIAL CONTINUITIES ACROSS RIAU ISLANDS

Abstract

This honours thesis demonstrates how the Riau Archipelago materialises in the everyday lives of its people. Stretching from the southernmost tip of the Malay peninsula and spilling into the South China Sea, this thesis explores how regional family ties and commerce animate this area in tandem with national configurations of the region. It follows the lives of people in the Riau Archipelago who have to navigate the realities of an archipelago which straddles at least three nation-states; Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore. For people with relatives and ongoing work across the region, an increasingly bureaucratic process of moving between places has led them to question the ways their society has been ordered. An ethnographic work with sustained engagement with history, this thesis delves into family histories, microhistories, histories of commerce, myths, marketplaces, homes, and travels through everyday explorations by people in the Riau Archipelago. With a sustained curiosity on what makes a region a region, and a consciousness of an archipelagic community, this thesis suggests other ways of imagining this expanse of sea sprinkled with islands, beyond the more familiar and hegemonic contours of the region as drawn up by the nation-state.