Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Kultur-, Sozial- und Bildungswissenschaftliche Fakultät - Institut für Asien- und Afrikawissenschaften

The paper seeks to secure for the river a larger berth in the recent macro-historical turn. Exploring the life-world of the Brahmaputra, Irrawaddy, Salween, Mekong and Yangtze rivers, it suggests that despite different fluvial itinerary and topography, these rivers together formed a connected waterspace. They engendered conversations between multi-agentive mobility and large-scale place-making and were at the heart of inter-Asian engagements until the formal end of empires. Being both a subject and a sponsor of transregional crossings these rivers epitomized the connections across parts of the Zomian uplands to the expansive plain land and the vast coastal rim of the Bay of Bengal and the China Seas. A connection that could be best examined from the vantage point of the concept of Holon.