Statecraft needed Zomia, so did Zomia : an interactive perspective

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to explore the interactions between statecraft and border zone in maritime Southeast Asia. Taking Sarawak (East Malaysia)/West Kalimantan (Indonesia) frontier as a case in point, I look at the nature of spatial geography and its relationship to the state making and unmaking. I do so from the perspective of geo-ecological materialism to uncover some of the base structures of the region and socio-economic arrangements. This paper first examines proto-typical binary oppositions between upland and lowland and the general socio-cultural features attached to the two geo-ecological niches. The paper aims to deconstruct the epistemological fixity derived from the static juxtaposition of social characteristics attributed to the two opposing niches, and then proposes alternative epistemology to better comprehend the dynamics of interactions between the state and zomia; the effect of the organizational power of the territorial state and the structural power of mercantilism and capitalism, which penetrate and connect hills and plains, and eventually destroy the structural binary between the two niches.