The document summarizes a proposed workshop on reframing understandings of the South China Sea. The workshop will examine the South China Sea from perspectives of resources, history, and culture. It will compare the South China Sea to other "mediterranean seas" and look at how it facilitated trade, migration, and cultural exchange in history. The goal is to foster research on cooperation rather than conflict over the South China Sea by providing new cultural and historical perspectives. The workshop will be held at Universiti Brunei Darussalam from November 11-13, 2013 and consist of sessions on the South China Sea's resources, history as a mediterranean sea, and status as a cultural area.

1. 1
Universiti Brunei Darussalam
WORKSHOP Reframing the South China Sea
Towards a Mediterranean Understanding of Culture and Resources‐
Brunei, 11‐13 November 2013.
The South China Sea: Culture, Society, Resources
The South China Sea has attracted considerable attention among politicians, journalists and
scholars since it has become a contested maritime space. While in 1999 noted British
political scientist Michael Leifer could still publish a book chapter about a “stalemate in the
South China Sea”, the tension has accelerated shortly thereafter, leading to armed conflict,
occasional clashes between navy vessels and fishing boats, and diplomatic exchange.
Most research as well as presentations in international conferences has been dedicated to
conflicts and negotiations to resolve the ensuing issues. The current political discourse is
reflected in most of the 16.200 books and papers touching on conflicts the South China Sea
that according to the web portal Google Scholar have been published between 1970 and
2012.
The proposed workshop will look at the South China Sea from a different and novel
perspective. It will look back into history, where the SCS has facilitated trade and cultural
exchange, migration, the spread of languages, and the creation of maritime states. It will
also look at the resources and opportunities of the SCS from fishing, to shipping, mining and
cultural exchange. The South China Sea will be looked at as a “mediterranean sea” and
compared to other landlocked seas in Asia and elsewhere. Lessons will be learned from
adopting a comparative perspective.
This workshop will look at the South China Sea from three perspectives.
1. The political science and economics perspective will discuss various types of
resources, like shipping lanes, territorial claims, fishing rights, oil and other natural
resources.
2. The second approach will take a broad comparative historical view, comparing
“mediterranean seas”. It will be shown that Mediterranean seas share certain

2. 2
properties that give rise to tensions and even armed conflict, but also solutions to its
problems.
3. The third and most important part of the workshop will have to establish that the
South China Sea is a cultural area, a “cultural and social commons”, bound together
by sea faring, migration, language and customs. It will have to utilize macro‐sociology
and cultural anthropology to classify and understand actions of the general
population as well as political leaders when they ascertain property rights to
mediterranean seas. It will
a. look into the linguistic domain,
b. discuss popular culture,
c. emphasize social connections and common cultural traits,
d. study the exchange of knowledge and religion and
e. establish the concept of a maritime mediterranean cultural area.
Fostering research on growing together rather than emphasizing the dividing forces of
conflict will be the agenda of this workshop. Breaking new ground and providing new
perspectives drives the workshop agenda.
Workshop Schedule
Day One
Opening of the Workshop and welcome address
Key Note Address
Session 1 Resources of the South China Sea
a. Claims to the South China Sea territory resources
b. Fishing, shipping, tourism
c. Oil, gas and other natural resources
Session 2 The South China Seas as a mediterranean sea
a. History of trade and shipping in the SCS
b. Imagined communities, sates and empires around the SCS
c. The SCS in comparison: Baltic, Mediterranean, Java Sea, et al
Day Two
Session 3 The South China Sea as a Cultural Area
a. Linguistic domains and the exchange of knowledge and religion
b. Traditional and modern popular culture, migration and contacts.
c. Is there a SCS culture and civilization? (Panel discussion)
Closing Session
Note: The schedule lists subject matters rather than titles of individual papers.
For further details and abstracts access https://sites.google.com/site/iasubd/home Conference date:
11‐13 November 2013. Contact: Prof Hans‐Dieter Evers hdevers@uni‐bonn.de and IAS‐UBD
scs.ias@ubd.edu.bn