I love maps. What especially interests me is the way different maps intersect. There are maps with state boundaries, of course, but there are also maps of economic areas, people flows, ancient kingdoms, identities, or natural features, and sometimes these collide in fascinating ways.

The area we're now living in, and (occasionally) travelling around, is one such collision site.

The ancient kingdom of Johor-Riau-Lingga, the successor to the pre-Portuguese kingdom of Melaka, covered what we now know as the southern bit of peninsula Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia's Riau Archipelago. The geography within that kingdom fluctuated with the waxing and waning of different zones of influence. But this was a fuzzy geography of shades and degrees rather than sharp lines.

The first sharp line came in 1824, when the British and Dutch imperial powers split the region between them across the middle, separating the peninsula and Singapore from the Riau islands. Decolonization entrenched further sharp lines, with the consolidation of the states of Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia.

The Indonesia-Malaysia-Singapore Growth Triangle, which includes Johor, Riau, and -- of course -- Singapore, demonstrates the early 1990s geography of geometric expressions. But such enterprises are dogged not only by difficulties among the nation-states represented in the various sides of the triangles, but also by problems of social dislocation. While people flow towards what they see as wealth and opportunity on the Riau side (and may often be disappointed), the tightening of migration regulations has deepened the lines drawn through Malay families situated on opposite sides of the economic border. Scholars observe that the apparently transnational Growth Triangle has not only, ironically, strengthened the significance of the international borders, but has created a new range of internal boundaries within the border zone.

Then there are the maps of identities. Do the people of Riau connect most strongly with the wider "Malay world", or with the democratizing and Jakarta-centred world of Indonesia, or with their own distinct history?

If we imagine all these maps drawn on top of each other, it is easy to spot the bits of one map that poke out beyond the template of another -- which all makes for a complex and fascinating region.


Sources:

-- Chou, C. (2006a). Borders and Multiple Realities: The Orang Suku Laut of Riau, Indonesia. In A. Horstmann & R. L. Wadley (Eds.), Centering the Margin: Agency and Narrative in Southeast Asian Borderlands (pp. 111-134). New York: Berghahn Books.
-- Chou, C. (2006b). Multiple Realties of the Growth Triangle: Mapping Knowledge and the Politics of Mapping. Asia Pacific Viewpoint, 47(2), 241-256.
-- Faucher, C. (2006). Popular Discourse on Identity Politics and Decentralisation in Tanjung Pinang Public Schools. Asia Pacific Viewpoint, 47(2), 273-285.
-- Ford, M., & Lyons, L. (2006). The Borders Within: Mobility and Enclosure in the Riau Islands. Asia Pacific Viewpoint, 47(2), 257-271.
-- Kumar, S., & Siddique, S. (2008). Southeast Asia: The Diversity Dilemma. Singapore: Select Publishing.
-- Trocki, C. A. (2000). Borders and the Mapping of the Malay World. Paper presented at the The Association of Asian Studies Annual Meeting. Retrieved 15 April 2010, from http://eprints.qut.edu.au/92/1/trockiBorderline.pdf.
-- Trocki, C. A. (2007). Prince of Pirates: The Temenggongs and the Development of Johor and Singapore 1784-1885 (2nd ed.). Singapore: NUS Press.
-- Wee, V. (2002). Ethno-Nationalism in Process: Ethnicity, Atavism and Indigenism in Riau, Indonesia. The Pacific Review, 15(4), 497-516.