Beschreibung:
Concepts of Space and Time in the South-East Asian Archipelago. D. Lombard. Our independent concepts of space and time have been forged by such a long history that we cannot easily imagine their being fused elsewhere in the world. We examine here the case of the South-East Asian archipelago in which "modern" notions of geographic space and linear time appeared only just before the 16th century—primarily in the merchant cities (heavily influenced by Islam) which began to develop at that time. A more ancient system continues to exist (particularly in Java) alongside the "modern " one, in which space and time (like all other notions) are divided amongst five fundamental "poles" which cannot, practically speaking, function as frames of reference like our own. One sees how such a system can but slow down the establishment of an ideology of "development".