The idea of Seapunk is a confluence of:
SEA is not just an assortment of neighboring nation-states, but a region profoundly shaped by its relationship to the sea, monsoons, and global trade routes, and all these entail. For much of its history, including today, a core defining role of the region has been as a bridge and link between South and East, both geographically between India and China, Yemen and Yokohama, but also culturally between the Global South and the Far East.
Despite being actively connected, there has never been a singular SEA empire, unlike many other regions. Initial surveys of SEA lore suggest fragments of a shared SEA sensibility, at least across the world of maritime SEA (sometimes also known as Maritime or Insular / Island SEA, and partially overlapping with Monsoon Asia). Might these shared elements be sufficient to inform a SEA ‘seapunk’ sensibility?
Intensive rice cultivation and water management were the backbone of many SEA kingdoms. But even at their greatest, the reach of rice kingdoms was small compared to the extent of sea exchange. Greatness in SEA was more a function of plugging into the sea ‘game’ than local land conquest. While each kingdom and ruler had its ‘center’, the real ‘meta-center’ of SEA was the sea. No man, no people were as big as the sea.
To SEA, for centuries (at least prior to the 1500s), the sea provided connectivity without colonization. Interoperability without imperialism. Exchange without empire. While there were periods of strong centers and influence, the sea was rarely ever one power’s pond.
The spirit of punk is to embrace new tools or tech while rejecting the technocracy or authority they come with. Interestingly, this has deep resonance with the culture and history of SEA which, adjacent but not subject to the world’s trade routes, has a long and colorful history of adapting and repurposing global ideas and tools to suit local sensibilities – be they foods, textiles, languages, or even gods.
Seapunk has a rich, colorful and sea-centric tradition to draw from. But what future(s) might it draw up?
When we think of South East Asia today, we often think of the ten nations of ASEAN with their lands and flags, states ruled by strongmen, and a ‘developing’ region catching up to the developed world.
But SEA could be so much more. For most of its history, the region was a single hyperworld connected by the sea, sharing trade, food, and religions across peoples, languages, and cultures. SEA was open to the small and decentralized, where refugees from one land could start fresh lives in another, where people could move and assimilate into new ports, cultures, and communities.