Abstract. Ratu Kalinyamat is frequently remembered as a courageous ruler, yet the political meaning of her authority is often reduced to heroic biography. This article examines her leadership, anti-Portuguese campaigns, and maritime economy through postcolonial feminist analysis. It uses a qualitative historical-literature design. The corpus comprised academic studies and historical syntheses. It also included published reconstructions of Portuguese and local records. Sources were selected through relevance, credibility, and bibliographic traceability. They were examined through heuristics, internal and external criticism, interpretation, and historiographical synthesis. Spivak’s politics of representation, Mohanty’s account of transnational solidarity, and Yuval-Davis’s analysis of gender and nation guide the interpretation. The study finds that Ratu Kalinyamat exercised recognized dynastic authority in a male-dominated political field. Her campaigns against Portuguese Malacca depended on regional coalitions and a substantial maritime economy. They did not end Portuguese rule in Malacca. Conflicting figures for ships and troops therefore require critical comparison. The article does not label this sixteenth-century ruler a self-identified feminist or a subaltern subject. Instead, it argues that postcolonial feminism clarifies how her authority was represented, how collective resistance was organized, and how economic capacity sustained political sovereignty. Abstrak. Ratu Kalinyamat kerap dikenang sebagai penguasa pemberani. Namun, makna politik kepemimpinannya sering berhenti pada biografi kepahlawanan. Artikel ini mengkaji kekuasaan politik, ekspedisi anti-Portugis, dan ekonomi maritim Ratu Kalinyamat melalui perspektif feminisme postkolonial. Penelitian menggunakan desain kualitatif historis-kepustakaan. Korpus mencakup artikel ilmiah dan sintesis sejarah. Korpus juga mencakup rekonstruksi terbitan atas catatan Portugis serta sumber lokal. Sumber dipilih berdasarkan relevansi, kredibilitas, dan keterlacakan bibliografis. Analisis dilakukan melalui heuristik, kritik eksternal dan internal, interpretasi, serta sintesis historiografis. Pembacaan teoretis memakai politik representasi Spivak, solidaritas lintas batas Mohanty, dan hubungan gender-bangsa Yuval-Davis. Hasil kajian menunjukkan bahwa Ratu Kalinyamat menjalankan otoritas dinastik yang diakui dalam ruang politik yang didominasi laki-laki. Perlawanan terhadap Portugis bertumpu pada koalisi antarkerajaan dan basis ekonomi maritim. Ekspedisi tersebut tidak mengakhiri kekuasaan Portugis di Malaka. Karena itu, perbedaan angka kapal dan pasukan harus dibaca secara kritis. Artikel ini tidak menyebut Ratu Kalinyamat sebagai feminis yang menyatakan identitasnya sendiri atau sebagai subjek subaltern. Feminisme postkolonial digunakan untuk menjelaskan politik representasi, watak kolektif perlawanan, dan hubungan antara kapasitas ekonomi dengan kedaulatan politik.
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