Relational seas, bounded lands: reframing maritime space in the Spice Islands of eastern Indonesia

This article reconceptualizes the spatial history of the Indonesian archipelago by foregrounding the tension between indigenous maritime spatialities and colonial territorial regimes. It argues that pre-colonial Eastern Indonesia was structured through a sea-oriented spatial logic in which mobility, exchange, and diplomacy constituted authority. Rather than bounded territories, power operated through fluid networks of alliance, tribute, and ritual, approximating a maritime adaptation of the mandala polity. This relational order was progressively reconfigured through colonial intervention, as European powers imposed a territorial logic grounded in cartography, infrastructure intervention, and administrative control. Colonial spatial practices – ranging from the delineation of fortified enclaves to the codification of spice-producing zones – transformed dynamic maritime worlds into fixed and governable units. These interventions not only restructured political authority but also materialized new spatial orders through infrastructure and space reorganization. By bridging critical spatial theory and built form, this study demonstrates that the making of Indonesia’s spatial order was not a linear transition toward modern territoriality, but a contested process shaped by the interaction between enduring indigenous spatial systems and imposed colonial frameworks.