Families in Austronesian Expansion

Defining Austronesians

“Austronesian” refers not to a people but to a language family consisting of more than 1,200 different languages spoken by more than 400,000,000 people. Being the most widely distributed language family in premodern world history, its speakers are distributed from Madagascar off of the southeast coast of Africa to Rapa Nui (Easter Island) off of the coast of South America and from Formosa (Taiwan) to New Zealand. There is also compelling evidence to support the theory that Austronesians voyaged to South American on numerous occasions. ¹¹ In the contemporary world, there are more than 800 distinct Austronesian societies which are extremely varied, ranging from urban Malays in Kuala Lumpur to subsistence agriculturalists in Vanuatu. Seafaring is often considered to be a “defining feature of the Austronesian cultures,” ¹² but there are also Austronesian speakers who reside so far up river that they never have seen the sea. Linguistics is thus the main justification for the existence of a common heritage, which is easily demonstrable through comparisons of basic subsystems such as numbers and personal pronouns. ¹³ Nevertheless, there also exists a common cultural heritage that includes the widespread occurrence of tattooing, use of botanic metaphors to describe growing from an origin, features of prehistoric and ethnographic art styles, gendered cosmologies emphasizing the complementarity of male and female, widespread use of outriggers on canoes, social concerns for the birth order of siblings and other elder/younger relationships, and founder-focused ideologies. ¹⁴ The last two characteristics in particular merit further consideration here.

Accordingly, importance to the relations between siblings and their birth order is a common feature of Austronesian societies. In contrast to English and other Indo-European languages which categorize siblings according to gender (brother and sister), Austronesian languages generally categorize siblings according to age (older sibling and younger sibling). Hierarchical sibling relationships have not only implications for marriage but also for polities and other forms of social organization. Communities are sometimes considered to be siblings and their respective age or precedence plays a role in political life and can even influence territoriality. Indeed, in some Austronesian societies, the theme of siblingship pervades the organization of the state or polity. ¹⁵

Another common Austronesian cultural characteristic is the widespread occurrence of founder-focused ideologies. A founder-focused ideology consists of a reverence for kin-group founders and, in some instances, the accordance of a higher status to them and their descendants. Desire to improve one’s status could encourage people to emigrate and establish new communities of which they could be the founders. Thus, even in instances where there is no significant consumption pressure, emigration can be a genealogical cultural imperative.

Initial Spread of Austronesians

While the long and heated controversy about accidental colonization versus deliberate navigation of the Pacific has been laid to rest, ¹⁶ there is still no consensus about the geography and social mechanisms of the initial spread of Austronesian speakers. The debate stems in large part from the variety of disciplinary approaches used. The prehistorical movements of Austronesians have been traced according to linguistic, archaeological, ethnobotanical, and genetic evidence, and the different data sets produce varying models. The dominant Out-of-Taiwan paradigm posits the Austronesian homeland is a region covering Taiwan, the Penghu islands, and parts of the southeast coast of China. From here, they spread 6,000, or perhaps as recently as 4,000, years ago to the Philippines, Borneo, and Sulawesi. Migration then split into two main branches, one moving west to Java, Sumatra, Malaya, and eventually Madagascar and the other moving east into Oceania. Whereas there would have been some maritime technological developments on the islands off the coasts of Fujian and Zhejiang provinces, the lack of mutual influence in Chinese and Austronesian maritime technologies suggests that Austronesians made their most significant and distinctive developments in maritime technology after leaving this region. It appears likely that they honed their seafaring abilities in a “voyaging corridor” extending from eastern Indonesia to the Solomon Islands. ¹⁷ From this region, they spread eastward to Tonga and Samoa about 3,000 years ago. They then perfected the double canoe, which enabled them to make longer sea voyages and to reach the islands of the eastern Pacific such as the Marquesas and Hawaii around 800 AD and finally Rapa Nui and New Zealand by the end of the thirteenth century. ¹⁸

The first expansion of Austronesians is commonly considered to be an archetypal example of a global phenomenon of farming and language dispersal, ¹⁹ and it can be compared to the spread of Indo-European speakers which piggybacked on horse-drawn wheeled carriages and cereal agriculture. In contrast to many of the peoples they encountered in Southeast Asia, the Austronesians cultivated crops and herded animals. ²⁰ These pursuits supported population growth and in turn facilitated labor specialization and technological advancements. Linguistic evidence suggests that as they moved through the Philippines and westward, there was a shift away from rice and millet cultivation and toward taro, breadfruit, banana, yam, sago, and coconut, as well as a simultaneous increase in the use of pottery, sailing canoes, and timber houses. ²¹ Expansion may have speeded up along the coast of New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago, and the Solomon Islands as there were already food-producing Papuan speakers there. Then as Austronesian settlements extended to the north and east of the Solomons, they settled in previously uninhabited areas such as the Pacific. This is remarkable because most other places in the world were inhabited before humans developed agricultural practices. The Austronesians, on the other hand, carried parent stocks of taro, yam, breadfruit, banana, coconut, pig, dog, and fowl with them to areas that were comparatively poor in terms of flora and fauna. These were essential to the development of domestic hybrids. Their technology also would have permitted them to carry fire on long-distance oceanic voyages.

Family may very well have played a role in Austronesian expansion from this very early phase. The importance of birth order to status may have inspired younger siblings to migrate and increase their own status (and even that of their descendants) by founding a new community. Geoff Irwin has pointed out that this might have been a motivation for the settlement of the Pacific. ²² While motivations are difficult to ascertain from the evidence available for the remote Pacific, texts from other parts of the Austronesian-speaking world offer insights into this process. Bugis genealogies from South Sulawesi describe the process of expansion on this peninsula. These sources are especially valuable because they are a rare instance of un-Indianized Austronesians recording their history in writing for more than a century before the advent of the Portuguese and for two centuries before formally converting to Islam. Bugis genealogies generally contain only broad outlines of historical processes and do not provide explicit statements about motivations, yet they still offer textual evidence to support the idea of archaeologists that Austronesian expansion was motivated by concerns related to precedence and genealogy, specifically the aspiration of lower ranking kinship lines to establish seniority in new locations. Peter Bellwood, for example, suggests that founder-focused ideologies “still occur so widely in Austronesia that one may suspect them of having a high antiquity and possibly of having played a major role in the Austronesian expansion process itself.” ²³

The very nature of Bugis genealogies underlines the importance of founder-focused ideologies. Bugis genealogies differ from many other genealogies in that they are of a more political nature. They record family relationships over multiple generations, but their central lines trace the succession of rulers of individual polities as opposed to the descent line of a given family. They document how younger siblings migrated and founded new settlements. Significantly, they also illustrate how junior siblings who did not emigrate and establish themselves as new elites in a different location subsequently declined into genealogical obscurity. ²⁴ While such written documentation is not available for the founding phases of most Austronesian-speaking societies, the widespread importance of precedence makes it possible to imagine similar dynamics at work across the Austronesian world.

Written and oral genealogies aside, another familial framework for tracing migration is the use of DNA. While there have been ethical concerns regarding the use of ancient DNA, by the mid-1980s, enough genetic evidence was available to definitively refute the idea that Pacific Islanders has American origins. Shortly thereafter there was conclusive genetic evidence linking the inhabitants of Polynesia and Island Southeast Asia. There have also been commensal genetic studies of chickens and sweet potatoes demonstrating contact between inhabitants of the Pacific Islands and the Americas. ²⁵ Similarly, genetic information from pigs supports the theory that there were various waves of Neolithic expansion into Island Southeast Asia and the Pacific. ²⁶

Continued Expansion and Contact

After the initial expansion of Austronesians, voyaging continued. As global maritime connections developed, Austronesian mariners formed key links in networks spanning across Asia and beyond. ²⁷ With an increase in maritime traffic, came an intensified intermingling of cultures and economics. Southeast Asia, where the majority of Austronesians reside, became a crossroads for mariners from West and East Asia who exerted powerful cultural influences on the region and the nature of subsequent expansions. There was also continued contact over long distances in the more isolated parts of the Austronesian world. Even in eastern Polynesia where the distances between archipelagos were vast, contact appears to have been the rule rather than the exception. ²⁸ There were repeated voyages between points as far apart as Tahiti and Hawaii and New Zealand.

Also during this later phase, family continues to have played a role in migration. Mythology reveals the importance of family relations in travel within Polynesia and in the establishment of new communities. The story of ‘Olopana, his wife Lu’ukia, and his brother Mo’ikeha leaving Hawaii for their ancestral lands in Kahiki, presumably the Puna’auia district of Tahiti Nui, as well as how Mo’ikeha, mad with desire for Lu’ukia, returned to Hawaii. Mo’ikeha eventually sent for his Tahitian son La’a who was fetched and reunited with his father in Hawai’i where he became known as La’amaikahiki or La’a from Tahiti. In turn, La’a returned to Tahiti, but a grandson of Mo’ikeha is said to have continued the family tradition of voyaging between Hawaii and Tahiti and introduced breadfruit to Hawaii. Such voyaging apparently ceased around 1400. ²⁹

Ben Finney suggests a pattern of waxing and waning voyages in eastern Polynesia. First, there were voyages to new islands for purposes of discovery, settlement, and supply. This was followed by a period of some long-distance travel for social reasons such as pilgrimages to the Tahitian temple of Taputapuatea, the pursuit of high-ranking Hawaiian brides, and the maintenance of family relationships. Occasional voyaging for social reasons then declined as populations grew and competition increased. Finney is careful to point out, however, that this pattern did not apply to Tonga. ³⁰

Tonga was the center of a maritime political network that has been equated with an empire. There is considerable and justified debate as to whether or not the term “empire” is appropriate, ³¹ but it is clear that Tonga extended its influence over much of western Polynesia. Legends recount wars, alliances, and marriages between the populations of Tonga, Samoa, and Fiji which are echoed in later Europeans accounts of extensive canoe traffic between the archipelagos. Tonga reached its greatest extent during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and may have extracted corvée labor and tribute from its outlying constituents. A similar case is Yap which extended its influence from Gagil eastward over a chain of islands known collectively as Ulithi. There were political, economic, and religious elements to this system which was conceptualized in terms of a parent–child relationship.

Given the marriages between Hawaii and Tahiti and between Tonga, Samoa, and Fiji as well as the conceptualization of Yap’s empirical relations in terms of a parent–child relationship, the potential to use familial relationships as an analytical tool to understand Austronesian expansion appears promising and not only for the Pacific but also for other parts of the Austronesian world. Relations between the states of South Sulawesi were also conceived of in familial terms. ³² Similarly, family connections also served to strengthen the links between the eastern and western kratons of Majapahit. While these connections were insufficient to prevent civil war, it does appear that adoption was used as a strategy to ensure political succession. ³³ Arguably family played a crucial role in the development of societies across the Austronesian world even during the premodern era.

Reconfigurations in the Early Modern and Colonial Eras

Ushering in what is called the early modern era, the fifteenth century witnessed significant changes in maritime technology. This included not only the advent of the Iberians in Melanesia, Micronesia, and Southeast Asia but also changes in Austronesian seafaring. In western Polynesia, there appears to have been a decline in long-distance voyaging to which resource depletion and political competition may have contributed. Meanwhile, across Southeast Asia, travel became segmented and Austronesians began making shorter voyages. This decrease in long-distance voyaging did not diminish the commercial importance of Southeast Asia. Writing of a cosmopolitan entrepôt that was visited by merchants from all over Asia and beyond, the sixteenth-century Portuguese observer Tome Pires declared that “Whoever is lord of Malacca has his hand on the throat of Venice.” ³⁴ While Malacca’s capitulation to the Portuguese was historically, and historiographically, significant, the commercial connections and political loyalties that made the entrepôt so important were in large part transferable, and the sultan and his ministers succeeded in reestablishing themselves in Johor. ³⁵

Similar reconfigurations, to borrow Damon Salesa’s terminology, occurred among many different groups of Austronesians. For example, mobility was an essential feature of Samoan society long before missionaries started writing about it or colonial officials attempted to control it. Customary visits to family members across Samoa and maybe to destinations such as Tonga and Fiji were an essential part of nineteenth-century Samoan life. The advent of Christianity and the labor trade enhanced and expanded, or reconfigured, the existing circuitry of mobility among Samoans, but, as Salesa argues, there was an explicit continuity in this mobility. ³⁶

Undeniably, however, the early modern era and the concomitant increase in globalization created both new opportunities and new urgencies for expansion. In some instances, these resulted in the formation of diasporas. One Southeast Asian example is that of the Bugis diaspora. While there had long been a tradition of migration and settlement among the Bugis, a new sense of exigency developed during the aftermath of the Makassar War when so many people emigrated that the Dutch referred to them as floating cities. ³⁷ They became such an important part of European colonial militaries that the very word “Bugis” was once synonymous with Asian soldier. ³⁸ As is common among diasporas, ³⁹ family played a role in their enterprises and activities. For example, the Bugis pioneer Daéng Maruppa married into the royal family of Inderapura on the western coast of Sumatra and established a veritable dynasty. Marrying prestigious locals is a common assimilation strategy among migrants. In this case, however, Daéng Maruppa’s family became so powerful and influential that the role of marriage with regard to assimilation was reversed, and Daéng Maruppa’s great granddaughters married Madurese princes who wished to establish themselves in the region. ⁴⁰ Another Bugis, group known as the Riau Bugis, became so influential in the western Malay archipelago that scholars refer to the “Bugis period” of Malaysian history. ⁴¹ Within one generation, they established themselves in Johor on the Malay Peninsula and in Sambas and Mempawah on southwestern Borneo. Subsequently, they married into the royal houses of Terengganu, Perak, Kedah, and Siak and founded Selangor, now the richest sultanate in Malaysia. They also established a successful diaspora government at Riau for which they relied extensively upon extended family relationships to create and maintain links with different groups. ⁴²

Family ties were also maintained in less favorable circumstances. One example is that of Gilbertese plantation workers in Samoa. While research pioneered by Deryck Scarr has shown that labor recruiting was generally a complex, two-sided affair, ⁴³ there were instances of dubious recruitment practices such as contracts for Austronesian speakers written in German and not explained to those that signed them. ⁴⁴ Even in such disadvantageous conditions, typical characteristics such as loyalty to one’s kin were still apparent. ⁴⁵ A second example consists of the raids on Polynesian islands for the purpose of obtaining labor to work on plantations in Peru for seven months during 1862 and 1863. It has been suggested that this episode may have been more coercive than others, with Islanders being lured on board under false pretenses and locked in closed rooms below deck while the ship sailed away. ⁴⁶ Be that as it may, the islanders still sent remittances back to their family. At least two Easter Islanders who had married Peruvians and opted for permanent residence on the continent sent gifts such as blankets to their relatives back home. ⁴⁷ Remitting gifts or money was not the preserve of Polynesians, either. The successful muleteer Domingo de Villalobos from Pampanga on Luzon also made provisions for money to be sent to his mother in the Philippines when he died in Mexico in 1618. ⁴⁸

Yet family relations entailed much more than visits and gifts reinforcing sentimental ties between kin. In some cases, family ties also served as the basis of political relations. Historical research has revealed how rulers across Southeast Asia used marriage alliances to extend their influence over other communities. This phenomenon was not limited to the Austronesian-speaking areas of Southeast Asia and occurred in other parts of the world as well, but it may have had particular force in areas like the Malay world where communities were formed on the basis of purported ties of kinship. ⁴⁹ Historical research on southeastern Sumatra has revealed that what European observers perceived of as “kingdoms” were actually “cultural-economic unities comprised of a web of kinship-infused relationship.” ⁵⁰ Similarly, historical texts from Eastern Kalimantan document how entire communities could be implicated into marital relationships. ⁵¹ Clearly, family relations could be of political importance. Arguably family relations are also important to politics in the modern world. It has been asserted that families have not been accorded due to attention in studies of the Philippine state ⁵² and that the contemporary politics of Samoa, Tonga, and Fiji are incomprehensible without an understanding of the lineages that shape them. ⁵³

Austronesian Expansion in the Modern World

In some areas, especially where European presence was minimal, genealogies are among the few indigenous sources for early modern history. It is therefore deceptively easy to assume that family was a key factor in social organization. While all historical sources can be misleading in what they omit, the skeletal form of genealogies makes them particularly prone to mutation. Especially in circumstances where only a few elite members of society have access to genealogies, an embarrassing yet politically important marriage can be deleted from a family tree, potentially obscuring a region’s history. In some cases, it has been possible to elucidate genealogies with other sources from the early modern era. This is often easier, however, for the modern era for which more copious and more varied sources are available.

Given the variety of sources available for the modern era in addition to genealogies, it is noteworthy that family still appears to be an important organizing feature of Austronesian expansion. Arguably kinship is an important organizing principle for economic and social organization among Austronesian societies in general. This is well illustrated by the Samoan concept of ‘aiga. ‘Aiga literally means family, ⁵⁴ but conceptually it refers to a sort of multiple, historical, contextually responsive genealogy that links an individual to a community and serves as the basis of identity. ⁵⁵ Undeniably kinship is an important organizing principle in societies across the world. However, it might be especially interesting for the study of Austronesian expansion because of the botanical metaphors for family describing growing from an origin that are a common characteristic of societies in the Austronesian world. ⁵⁶

As exemplified by the voyage made to Tahiti in search of Mo’ikeha’s son La’a, and the blankets Polynesians in Peru sent back to their families, the maintenance of family connections has long been a feature of Austronesian diasporas. In some instances, they had a surprising emotional intensity. For example, soldiers from Sulawesi in the service of the United Dutch East India Company in Sumatra complained daily to their superiors about how much they missed their families and requested furloughs to visit them. ⁵⁷ Arguably, however, these connections became more frequent during the modern era. This era witnessed the introduction of a wide variety of new mechanisms such as jet travel, telephones, and social media that served to strengthen family ties and, in some cases, changed the way that migrant families function. Meanwhile, political changes concomitant to decolonization and the resulting immigration policies created new opportunities for various Austronesian societies to migrate overseas. These developments have resulted in not only changes to the roles of family in migration but also changes to the roles of migrants in families.

One of the Austronesian diasporas to grow most dramatically in the twentieth century is that of the Filipinos. After the Galleon trade and Spanish colonialism came to an end, American colonialism created new avenues for Filipinos to migrate to the United States. One of these was labor jobs in industries such as the agriculture in Hawaii and fishing in the Pacific Northwest. Another avenue was military service. General Order Number 40 allowed for the recruitment of as many as 500 Filipinos in 1901. After independence, an agreement was made between the United States and the Philippines allowing Filipinos to enlist voluntarily in the US military. By the early twenty-first century, more than 80,000 Filipinos had served in the US military. These recruits and their families have created vibrant Filipino American communities in San Diego and Virginia Beach among other places. But Filipinos migrate much further afield than just the United States. Of the estimated more than 10,000,000 Filipinos living abroad, approximately two-thirds live in other countries such as the United Arab Emirates, Italy, and Malaysia. ⁵⁸ More than a million also reside in Saudi Arabia and the profits sent home are commonly referred to as khatas ng Saudi or “Saudi sap.” ⁵⁹ The metaphor to wealth acquired overseas resonates with the aforementioned Hawaiian chant about what could be purchased with the wages of a laborer on Howland atoll.

Research on Filipinos migrants has shown that the family often plays a large role in their experiences overseas, even if they travel alone. For example, extended families often play a role in determining which member goes overseas. In some cases, families prefer to send their daughters as opposed to their sons overseas. While daughters working as clerks and domestic servants may earn less than sons working in construction or maritime industries, they are likely to remit a larger percentage of this income to the family than their brothers. In such cases, short-term family interests rather than long-term individual interests prevail. ⁶⁰ In the case of mothers, extended family might also enable them to migrate by taking care of their children during their absence. Once overseas, the overseas Filipina worker can see themselves as instruments of their family rather than (or in addition to) as individuals and the experience of being overseas can actually strengthen their ties to their family of origin. This is especially often so in the case of Filipina women working as domestic helpers in societies where they do not speak the language well because they have limited contact with the host society. ⁶¹

Another Austronesian group to have made use of postcolonial connections is the Samoan diaspora. After World War II, contemporary migration from Samoa began in earnest. New Zealand actively began recruiting labor from the Pacific to work in its agricultural and industrial sectors. American Samoans also had employment opportunities in the United States because of the territory’s special status and significant numbers joined the US armed forces. By the mid-1960s, 8 percent of Samoan’s lived abroad, and this percentage doubled during the decade that followed. By 1980, a third of all Samoan’s resided overseas, and during the first decade of the twenty-first century, this portion had increased to half. ⁶² Through chain migration, in which one early migrants pave the way for other family members, kin has played an important role in Samoan migration. Meanwhile, transnationalism has had a transformative effect on Samoan families.

As with many societies, both Austronesian and not, kinship is an important organizing principle in Samoan society. The family constitutes important channels for the flow of goods, ideas, cash, services, and people. As Samoans relocated overseas, they reproduced their traditional dependence upon kin and maintained their preference for dealing with relatives as opposed to strangers. Family became the basis of Samoan transnationalism. During the 1950s and 1960s, the absence of elders, ceremonial mats, and Samoan-controlled venues in the diaspora encouraged many overseas Samoans to celebrate their life events with family in the homeland. These events and the concomitant exchanges reaffirmed commitment to kin groups and created a codependent relationship between the two nodes: home and diaspora. As the numbers of overseas Samoans grew, it became possible to hold traditional ceremonies overseas. Meanwhile, kin groups in the diaspora sought to improve their status through demonstrations of human resources and material wealth. This resulted in a sort of ceremonial inflation in which traditional ceremonies were exponentially elaborated and new ceremonies were invented. To conform to this trend, overseas Samoans increasingly accrued debts, financial and other, which proved difficult to repay and ultimately resulted in reduced participation in ceremonial life. While extended family still offered moral and logistical support as well as assistance to individuals during times of crisis, certain links between the overseas and home nodes declined as a result. ⁶³ In this case, it appears that fundamental family relationships and values change as a result of migration. Nor is this uncommon. It has been observed that “In all areas affected by migration, families changed.” ⁶⁴

These changes took on a new dimension with the advent of the Internet. Whereas ceremonial participation and financial contributions may have declined, new forms of computer-mediated communication have intensified the links between many Austronesian migrants and their families at home. Previously migrants used time-consuming postal services to mail recorded cassettes of their voices to their loved ones and made expensive telephone calls on special occasions. Since the 1990s, however, more immediate, cheaper methods such as e-mail, Skype, and Facebook have replaced these practices. The immediacy of these technologies also generates deeper feelings of attachment. ⁶⁵ Furthermore, it enables absent family members to play a larger role in the lives of their loved ones at home and even parent children from a distance. ⁶⁶ Yet, as exemplified by the aforementioned case of decreased participation in ceremonial life among Samoans, the modern era and its concomitant technologies do not always intensify contacts between dispersed family members. It behooves historians to consider not only how family motivates and facilitates migration but also how the familial relationships change over time.

Family as an Analytical Tool

As a, or perhaps the, fundamental institution of human societies, the family has not received the attention it merits in world historiography. One prominent world historian has laments that “something is missing in an interpretation of world history that avoids placing families on center stage.” ⁶⁷ There are several reasons why families have not figured prominently into world historiography. One is that families are seen as an implicit part of other, more common frameworks such as empires and civilizations. Another explanation for the unpopularity of family history relates to the popularity of economic history. The interest in economics and the influence of economic theory on history has resulted in historians largely ignoring activities within the family that are generally not measurable in pecuniary terms. In recent years, there have been efforts to numerous efforts to redress this lacuna. The majority of the work, however, examines families in a particular region but with a global point of departure, such as the role of families in the construction of an overseas empire. One notable exception to this trend is The Family: A World History by Mary Jo Maynes and Ann Beth Waltner. ⁶⁸ Thus, even though almost everyone in world history has one, family remains a specialized topic of study.

Despite their peripheral position in world historiography, families are very significant to cultural, political, social, and economic history. In monarchies, power is generally transferred along dynastic lines, and even in liberal democracies, prominent families often play significant political roles. On a more general but equally significant level, families are the sites of socialization, where parents and grandparents transmit religious values and cultural capital to subsequent generations. Furthermore, decisions made within and by families, such as marital and educational choices and property inheritance, strongly influence social stability or change, sometimes even more strongly than governments or economics. ⁶⁹

As important as families are, they are a double-edged sword for their participants. On the participatory level, families provide individuals with support and affection, but they are also arenas of pride and competition which can generate feelings of jealousy and hatred, and when the emotional attachment is strong, these feelings can be very intense. At the top of the social ladder, the stakes grew even higher, and historically speaking, entire societies could be implicated in elite family disputes. With specific reference to migration, it appears that people who migrate with kin or to locations where they already have family receive support with problems pertaining to settlement and adjustment. On the other hand, migrants without kin sometimes find jobs more readily and enjoy higher morale than their counterparts with family connections. ⁷⁰

The paradoxical nature of families is reflected in their analytical potential as well. In comparison with friendships and other alliances, family relationships are often more easily traceable through birth and marriage records. This ease can be deceptive. For example, family networks were long perceived of as the mainstay of early modern commerce. ⁷¹ Upon closer scrutiny, however, it appears that early modern merchant networks and kin networks did not always coincide. While family relationships were not unimportant, early modern merchants tended to choose their business associates on the basis of commercial interests such as reputation and investment capabilities. ⁷² Meanwhile, other research has revealed that families were important underlying structures in empires that have often been studied in terms of political and economic, as opposed to cultural, history. ⁷³

Yet, even when families are accorded attention in comparative studies, the Austronesian cases are commonly marginalized. With specific reference to migration, Jan Kok’s chapter “The Family Factor in Migration Decisions” offers only one example from the Austronesian-speaking areas. ⁷⁴ In a volume on migration in world history, this paucity is striking because Austronesian speakers inhabit more than half of the globe, from Madagascar to Hawaii and, since the early modern era, beyond. A chapter in the Cambridge World History entitled “The Family in Modern World History” similarly excludes Austronesian speakers. It postulates that “Probably the most significant changes in family life in the later eighteenth century occurred in Western Europe.” Thereafter, it uses the lens of European expansion to examine how changes in Europe “spill[ed] over into other societies.” ⁷⁵ What would happen if families, migration, and world systems were studied using an Austronesian lens?

Why Do We Need the History?

The role of Austronesians in globalization is often under recognized. Arguably, their dispersal from their homelands on or near Taiwan across the Indian Ocean to Madagascar and the Pacific Ocean to Hawaii and New Zealand is the most complete globalization of the premodern era. As such, it deserves further study as part of world history which has devoted inordinate attention to European expansion. If, as it has been argued, the central challenge of world history “is to narrate the world’s pasts in an age of globality,” ⁷⁶ then Austronesian expansion cannot be ignored.

Yet the risk of ignoring Austronesian expansion is greater than mere Eurocentrism. Austronesian expansion is also of analytical importance. Without an understanding of Austronesian systems, there is a larger risk of misunderstanding systems in general. A case in point is a recent study of the Indian Ocean in world systems before 1500. While he notes the integration of different regions of Asia using cinnamon in Greece as an example, ⁷⁷ he omits that the Greek word for cinnamon is an Austronesian loan word. Of course, the emphasis of this scholar’s admirable study is not on entomology, but this omission exemplifies the almost invisibility of Austronesians in the analysis.

The study of Austronesian expansion is also important for understanding the human condition in the modern world. It helps challenge the idea that contemporary migration is quantitatively and qualitatively different from migration in the past. Such conventional wisdom is exemplified by Vijay Mishra’s statement that diaspora is “the exemplary condition of late modernity” ⁷⁸ and by the United Nations’ statement that the “scale and diversity of today’s migrations are beyond any previous experience.” ⁷⁹ Such images are readily enforced by images of modern migrants on the evening news, but history offers us equally compelling images, such as the aforementioned floating cities of late seventeenth-century refugees from South Sulawesi. Whereas it is sometimes assumed that modern globalism is without precedent, ⁸⁰ it might be more accurate to say that it has multiple precedents.

The challenges of such a broad field of inquiry are numerous and undeniable. Including Neolithic sailors, early modern soldiers, and modern climate refugees, the approachable angles are endless. Similarly, including literature, archaeology, linguistics, ethnobotany, and history, the disciplines that could be employed for such a study are dauntingly numerous. Using family as an analytical tool offers the possibility of systematically advancing this field of inquiry that could otherwise only be approached as a megaproject. Further study may reveal that what Bertram and Watters call the “transnational corporation of kin” ⁸¹ is not a new institution.