<![CDATA[Sea-oriented communities known as Orang Laut or Sama-Bajau are often portrayed as static, yet their settlement, livelihoods, and identity have changed markedly since the nineteenth century. Earlier studies mostly examine single sites or single periods. This article synthesizes published ethnographic and historical studies to compare these changes in Sabah and the Sulu Sea, in Sulawesi (Wakatobi), and, as a comparison case, among the Duano of Jambi, from the nineteenth to the early twenty-first century. It applies the historical method (heuristics, verification, interpretation, and historiography) in a comparative case-study design based on secondary sources and one supplementary field observation made in June 2022. Four processes are identified. First, sedentarization, driven by government resettlement programs in the Philippines and by shifts in lifestyle and livelihood among the Duano, whose language was mastered by only two people in June 2022. Second, diversification of livelihoods into fishing, farming, craft, and port labor, although farming remained marginal: on Sanga-Sanga Island only two of about fifty Tungkalang families held farmland in a study published in 1962. Third, acculturation, shown by intermarriage, religious syncretism, and cooperation with Iranun and Balangingi raiders at the bases of Pandassan and Tempasuk; direct evidence of Iranun–Bajau intermarriage is thin. Fourth, identity revival among the Bajo of Wakatobi. Change was not uniform, and it reflects both external pressure and community agency. The findings rest on secondary literature and should be tested against archival and field data.]]>
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