The Amorphous Nature of Coastal Polities in Insular Southeast Asia: Restricted Centres, Extended Peripheries

摘要: This article surveys epigraphy, Malay literary texts, and the archaeological data to better understand socio-spatial structuration process of western Southeast Asia’s ancient political systems, more specifically, Sriwijaya (7th-13th cent.) its successor, Melaka Sultanate (15th-17th cent.). Representations their polities, as offered by Malays themselves in a variety genres, all allude centre peripheries city-states, well movements fleets, construed metaphors whole social group, which provide graphic illustration centripetal forces that structure them both politically economically. The central places these harbour-based city-states are entities loaded with symbolic values, no marked or spatially extended territorial base. peripheral space such however, forms extending, concentric circles, much farther than limits insular Asia. These vast comprise exchange international trade—each often commands own periphery—and also religious places. model once confirms intimate relationship between power, trade relations, religion