22-05-2026

In this episode of the Talking Indonesia podcast series, Clara Siagian talks with Wengki Ariando (KITLV) about his research on sea nomads in Southeast Asia and the future of our ocean. This episode centers around the discussion leading up to "World Ocean Day” on 8 June 2026.

Drawing from more than a decade of working with and learning from sea nomadic communities in Indonesia, Wengki unpacks who the Orang Suku Laut and Sama-Bajau are, the nature of their relationship with the sea, and the very real threats they face today.

Crucially, Wengki also introduces the concepts of fluid or rhizomatic territory and Aquapelagos to challenge the dominant, land-based notion of territory as fixed and bounded, in which the ocean and the land are separate entities. For sea nomads, whose lives and identities are organised around movement in water and between water and land, such conventional territorial frameworks render them invisible and rightless. A rhizomatic understanding of territory, by contrast, opens space for recognising the legitimacy of Sea Nomads’ claims to their waters, and with it, the political recognition they are long overdue.

Talking Indonesia is a podcast series produced by the Asia Institute at the University of Melbourne. It features extended interviews with experts exploring Indonesian politics, foreign policy, culture, language, and social issues.

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