Living and Trading: A Dual Approach to Studying Southeast Asian Port Cities

Living and Trading: A Dual Approach to Studying Southeast Asian Port Cities

The historical ports of Southeast Asia were highly active regional mercantile hubs located at the crossroads between the East Asian and Indian Ocean trading networks. These strategically places attracted merchants and sailors from the world over, some of whom stayed on a permanent or semi-permanent basis to carry out their business. By their very nature, Southeast Asian ports are thus both economic spaces dedicated to maritime activities, and cosmopolitan spaces where people from different social and cultural backgrounds came together. This duality is expressed in the built environment, which contains specialised structures to facilitate trade (such as wharves, warehouses, and boatyards) but also communicates people’s identity. This paper proposes studying historical port cities by combining a maritime cultural landscape approach and urban social theory to understand the economic as well as the socio-cultural fabric of Southeast Asian ports.

This approach will be applied to two very different port cities: Hội An in Central Vietnam, and George Town in Malaysia. Whereas Hội An was an informal temporary market place that grew to be one of the region’s biggest entrepôt ports in the 18th century, George Town was founded as a trading outpost for the British East India Company in 1786, before becoming the seat of many mercantile firms and banks in the 19th century.

Charlotte Papillaud Looram

The Museum of Underwater Archaeology

2017

Charlotte Papillaud Looram