Urban Diaspora and the Question of Community

The Bandanese are a community with a distinct language and tradition which point to their origin in Banda, an early base of Dutch colonization in Indonesia. Presently focused in two villages in the Kei Islands, the community has been transforming into a regional, urban diaspora since the 1960s. Field research from March until August 2009 focused on the question of how this community distributes itself regionally and to what extent its ethnic relations are informed  by its previous history of travel, migration and displacement. The study reveals that urbanized Bandanese occupy political and economic niches  marked by a privileged access to fishing and trade, the backbones of the provincial economy. At the same time, their shared ancestry with local land-owning  groups legitimizes their presence in new locations. Differential access to maritime wealth and land give new meaning to the classification of immigrant and  autochthonous people, ubiquitous in each island society of Maluku, in which the Bandanese are placed in a mediating position. Keywords: diaspora, migrations, Indonesia, Maluku Island