(soft music) - [Narrator] The concept of borders and territory has evolved significantly throughout human history.

The understanding of territoriality has been shaped by various factors, including geographical, political, social, and technological changes.

In ancient times, societies often had vague or undefined borders.

The age of exploration, colonialism, and imperialism in the 16th to 19th centuries led to the drawing of borders through conquest, colonization, and treaties imposed by colonial powers.

Areas in Africa and the Middle East were shaped during this era and sometimes did not consider local ethnic, cultural, or tribal divisions.

- What we think of as modern borders were forcibly instituted by the European colonial powers and this kind of post Westphalian system of having these atom thin lines demarcating territory on one side is mine, on the other side is yours, this was totally foreign to Southeast Asia.

Southeast Asia had different ways of demarcating political space, particularly something called the Mandala system, which were kind of concentric circles of radiating authority that moved outward from a particular political center.

And then another model called upstream-downstream, where people living upstream and people living downstream on a particular river had kind of separate political spheres, but were united through the market.

- [Narrator] During colonization, European nations vied for territorial expansion and control over specific regions, often with competing claims among different powers.

Establishing firm borders was crucial for asserting sovereignty and legitimizing their territorial control.

- European colonial state making projects basically wanted to control three things, revenue, power and morality.

Revenue for things like the opium trade, which European powers made 50% of their money into their colonial ex checkers by regulating the opium trade, local Asian peoples traded outside of that.

So this was a threat to the colonial state.

The same thing about power in trading things like guns.

The state wanted a monopoly on the means to violence.

And finally, morality.

The state also wanted to control things like Islamic newspapers that were coming from the Middle East that advocated an ideal of pan Islamism that was very dangerous to European powers as well.

And smuggling transgressed all three of those things.

- [Narrator] European colonial powers imposed strict trade regulations and monopolies over certain goods within their colonies.

These policies restricted access to trade and favored specific companies or individuals, prompting others to engage in clandestine acts to bypass these restrictions and access lucrative markets.

- Smuggling actually figured out ways to kind of unite these worlds that once Europeans came to Southeast Asia around 500 years ago, they gradually tried to have political space mimic what political space was starting to look like in Europe.

And what we see is smuggling developing borders in certain ways.

- [Narrator] Smuggling and piracy often operated in areas where governance was weak or contested, challenging the sovereignty of nations.

Pirates, for instance, might establish bases in remote or ungoverned territories, operating beyond the control of established governments and undermining their authority in those regions.

In some instances, smuggling led to cultural exchanges between regions facilitating the exchange of goods and ideas between different territories.

These clandestine activities underscored the significance of sea travel, which was a conduit for the convergence of diverse societies throughout Southeast Asian history and beyond.

- The sea routes of Asia are really, truly important to the history of this part of the world.

The sea routes have gone back a long, long time in the age of sail, but something that happened in the 19th century was that with the advent of steam on a much larger basis than had previously been possible, we start to see these patterns really becoming more and more important.

And this is particularly true after the digging of the Suez Canal in 1869, which allows steamships to make these transits in much quicker time, both because they're moving faster, they don't have to rely on the wind, and also because the routes themselves have changed.

And as a result of that, people start to move in much, much larger quantities than had previously been possible.

- [Narrator] Also essential was the multifaceted role of religion in the migration of people and the interconnectedness of religious, cultural, and economic factors in shaping historical migration patterns.

The pilgrimage to Mecca known in the Muslim religion as the Hajj, historically played a significant role in the migration of people from Southeast Asia and various other parts of the world.

- Every Muslim, at least once in their lifetime, if they have the financial means to do so, is expected to go on the Hajj.

That's one of the so-called Five Pillars of Islam.

So it's very important.

A lot of people are not able to do it, and some people who are even not wealthy individuals are able to do it multiple times depending on their faith and their desire to go.

So this is a very important part of being a Muslim.

And even though this is the pretty much the furthest place you can go in the Islamic world by around 1900, we have very good records, colonial records that show that sometimes in many years, up to 50% of all pilgrims going to Mecca from around the world, were coming from Southeast Asia, despite that distance.

So you can see how important this becomes.

It's the history of millions of people over hundreds and hundreds of years.

And by now, actually about 3 million people go a year on the pilgrimage to Mecca and still the country with the largest number of pilgrims almost every year going to Mecca is from Indonesia.

- [Narrator] Southeast Asia's migration history continues to be intertwined with the global history of the migration of people, reflecting connections with neighboring regions and the broader world.

This interconnectedness highlights the region's role in global trade, cultural diffusion, and the movement of people over centuries.

- I think history has been really important in thinking through these patterns that the Migration Studies Initiative has foregrounded at Cornell for the past several years.

I think the only way to seriously study migration, which is such a huge planetary phenomenon, is to try to do it in a real interdisciplinary way.

History is one of those disciplines that are in the mix, and that I think are absolutely vital to trying to understand what migration means, not just in the past, but also in the present and in the future.

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