Leiden University Student Repository

Visser, Lennart (2021)

The Imperial Archipelago: Governors, Organisational Identity, and the Dutch East India Company, c. 1700-1750.

Research master thesis | History (research) (MA)

The Dutch East India Company has been ascribed many faces and many colours during its existence, and these still echo throughout the public debate and national discourse. This thesis will contribute to new directions in the historiography of Dutch Empire by focusing on the Dutch East India Company governors and the narratives they communicated in the so-called 'Memories van Overgave', how these changed between 1700-1750, how these differed between three different regions: Bengal, Ambon, and Ceylon, and what the implications are for the organisational identity of the Dutch East India Company. In order to do so, this thesis employs a new analytical framework that positions the governor in the centre of two different relations: the relation he had to the institute he was a part of, and the relation he had with the proverbial 'other' he encountered. Everything combined, this will show the multi-faceted nature of the governors, the Dutch East India Company, and that the identity of the...Show moreThe Dutch East India Company has been ascribed many faces and many colours during its existence, and these still echo throughout the public debate and national discourse. This thesis will contribute to new directions in the historiography of Dutch Empire by focusing on the Dutch East India Company governors and the narratives they communicated in the so-called 'Memories van Overgave', how these changed between 1700-1750, how these differed between three different regions: Bengal, Ambon, and Ceylon, and what the implications are for the organisational identity of the Dutch East India Company. In order to do so, this thesis employs a new analytical framework that positions the governor in the centre of two different relations: the relation he had to the institute he was a part of, and the relation he had with the proverbial 'other' he encountered. Everything combined, this will show the multi-faceted nature of the governors, the Dutch East India Company, and that the identity of the Dutch East India Company was not static, but flexible and ever-changing.Show less

Early Modern

Dutch East India Company

Global History

Colonial History

Memory Culture

Identity

Southeast Asia

Ceylon

Ambon

Bengal

Colonial Governors

Organisational Identity

Author

Visser, Lennart

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Specialisation

Europe 1000-1800

Supervisors

Schrikker, A.F.

ECTS Credits

40

Language

en