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This paper will try to explain how the Bajo people, which widely known as a sea foragers and also part of Austronesian speaking people, begin to leave their traditional way of life. In order to explain this transformation process, this paper will start with the history and the traditional way of living of the Bajo people to its present condition, specifically in the islands of Wakatobi, Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia. Furthermore, I will try to explore and analyze certain factors which conditioning the transformation, along with historical materialism approachment. This paper founds that there are certain factors that forcing the Bajo people to the land, which is: biological prerequisite of human adaptation, territorialization, inherent capital expansion, and a constructed alternatives from the land.

Keywords: Bajo, adaptation, territorialization, capital, alternatives