Mapping the Politics of Diplomacy in Southeast Asia, 1600-1950
Type
Single PanelSchedule
Session 6Wed 12:00-13:30 Sala de Juntas
Convener
- Maarten Manse Linnaeus University
Discussant
- Stefan Amirell Linnaeus University
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Gender and diplomacy in the Malay- Indonesian World during the 19th century
Isak Kronberg Linnaeus University
This paper will bind gender, diplomacy and imperialism together, focusing on how non-male
actors and transgender practices shaped the colonial world of 19th century maritime
Southeast Asia. -
In the shadow of the VOC: The Danish East India Company and its relations with Sultan Ageng of Banten, 1650-1682
Mathias Karlsmose Stockholm University
During the latter half of the 17th century, Sultan Ageng of the Sultanate of Banten in Western
Java faced increasing pressure from the ascendant Dutch East India Company, and found an
ally in the Danish East India Company. This company could employ neutral shipping to
bypass Dutch blockades and extend this protection to Bantenese shipping. This paper will
explore the understudied nature of Danish-Banten relations during this era, in light of
Banten’s increasing competition with the VOC. -
“Nothing is forgotten”: Ternate, the VOC and the shift from co-dependent alliance to colonial relationship, c. 1648-1683
Tristan Mostert Leiden University
The 1607 treaty of alliance between the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and the North-
Malukan Sultanate of Ternate – of great interest to outside powers as it was the main
producer of cloves in the world – was highly determining for all subsequent relations
between the Sultanate and Dutch colonial power. Whereas Sultan Hamzah (r. 1627-1648)
was able to extend Ternaten power and influence under the terms of this treaty, under
subsequent rulers, the VOC was able to use the same treaty regime to steadily
disenfranchise the Ternaten leadership – ultimately resulting in the complete eradication of
cloves in North-Maluku and a political relationship that Leonard Andaya, in his foundational
The world of Maluku, has characterized as one between “father Company and the Malukan
children.” This paper explores the interplay between the successive Ternate-VOC treaties,
internal Malukan politics and (often still largely unknown) episodes of colonial violence to
examine this process in detail.
Abstract
Over the past decade, the history of diplomacy has gradually shed its Eurocentric orientations. The emergence of the Westphalian system, the rise of the modern nation-state, and the diffusion of European legal thought, including ideas of sovereignty and territorial boundaries, were long regarded as the foundations of the modern international order and its diplomatic practices. More recently, however, these assumptions have come under renewed scrutiny, as scholars have shown how such concepts emerged through encounters between distinct political traditions and were repeatedly reinterpreted and adapted across the globe. Yet, studies that systematically integrate such alternative diplomatic traditions into the context of extra-European regional, or broader global diplomatic histories, remain limited.
This panel turns to Southeast Asia to explore inter-polity relations and modes of negotiation from the late sixteenth to the nineteenth century, bringing early modern and modern foreign relations into dialogue. Through case studies ranging from the Moluccas and Java to Thailand and beyond, the papers examine diverse diplomatic actors, idioms, and practices, including gift exchange, embassies, tribute payment and treaty-making, in search of comparisons and connections. Together, they aim (1) to enrich and complicate prevailing frameworks for understanding diplomatic agency in Southeast Asia, and (2) to question and juxtapose the norms and mechanisms of foreign relations in the region.