Rethinking Aquapelagos in the Philippines’ Sulu Sea — Perception and visibility of the state: the Ramayan of the Maranao

This study contends that the Maranao people’s induction into the Tausug community of the Sulu aquapelago in the Philippines — an induction supervised by the colonial state — exemplifies a case of dialectical insularity or aquapelagicity in the production of a unique islandic identity that evolves through the deconstruction of Ramayan legends within templates of Darangen mythology. While numerous studies explore the role of myths and cultural narratives in reshaping and reinterpreting the identities of Muslim Filipinos, there is a notable scarcity of research specifically addressing how the Maranao community articulates its desired aquapelagic identity, particularly in the context of the ‘piratical’ movements and global commerce from the 16th to 18th centuries. Employing an interdisciplinary critical methodology, the study investigates how these reimagined myths provide affective sustenance for the Maranao’s imagined community, despite their, arguably, limited awareness of the Ramayan’s Indic, Hindu, and Puranic origins. The Maranao’s distinctive focus on Ravan (who is otherwise typically viewed as the Ramayan’s anti-hero in mainstream Indian interpretations) serves as a prominent index of their political praxis characterised by a unique affective dimension in their identity within Filipino cultures, the Malay Archipelago, and the larger Southeast Asian legacy of the Ramayan. This affective — or what I view as an aquapelagic — reinterpretation of the Ramayan within Maranao culture parallels the Tausug’s self-representation, characterised by ‘piratical’ assertions of their ‘Muslimness’ and their political stance on the Sabah dispute. This occurs within a decolonial framework that unveils the identity of the archipelago as an aquapelago, encompassing the marginal voices that shape its emancipatory future. Eventually, this constitutes a resistance to cultural and psychological erasure by colonial legacies — a resistance that influences the ongoing discourse of preserving unique political identities in the Malay archipelago and the wider Southeast Asian region.