How to Cite
License (Chapter)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Identifiers (Book)
Published
Constitution of Space through Law—A Study on the Question of Property of the Sea in Pre-Colonial and Colonial Law in the Strait of Malacca
Abstract In the last few years, international researchers have discussed the concept of spatial turn, concerning the development of spaces and questions about the constitution of spaces. The focus has been placed on how spaces were culturally constituted and have to be seen as historically variable. However, spaces resulting from an implementation of law and their perception as representing a culturally different understanding of law in non-governed and governed territories, and as a common, monopolized and sole property have not yet been analyzed. The following study assumes that written law, which was globally accepted, constructed symbolic spaces surpassing geographical distances, or created spaces as territories and thereby created a new semantics of spatial distance and order. It focusses on the Strait of Malacca in a pre-colonial and colonial context. The Strait of Malacca was not constituted and structured as a closed, but rather an open space, available for everyone. The sea and Strait were not controllable from a pre-colonial perspective, but this changed after the conquest of Malacca by the Portuguese. The enforcement of
their commercial monopoly was aimed at creating the Strait as a manageable space in order to own parts of the sea. This study will show that this plan could not be implemented completely, and therefore created simultaneously existing spaces of law in the Straits of Malacca.
