In 1946 komt inlichtingendienst Nefis aan op Sumatra. Zij wordt geacht buitenkantoren op te richten met als doel samenwerking tussen inlichtingendiensten in coördinatie van inlichtingenstromen te...Show moreIn 1946 komt inlichtingendienst Nefis aan op Sumatra. Zij wordt geacht buitenkantoren op te richten met als doel samenwerking tussen inlichtingendiensten in coördinatie van inlichtingenstromen te centraliseren en uiteindelijk over te nemen. Aan de hand van drie casestudies wordt de reactie hierop onderzocht in dit onderzoek.Show less
Building on recent scholarly work on anticolonialism in European metropoles, this thesis looks into the activists and initiatives that advanced an anticolonial agenda in the interwar Dutch...Show moreBuilding on recent scholarly work on anticolonialism in European metropoles, this thesis looks into the activists and initiatives that advanced an anticolonial agenda in the interwar Dutch metropole from 1927 to 1935. This thesis places its focus on three main groups: activists from the Netherlands, the Dutch colonies and other parts of the global South and turns towards initiatives like the World Congress against Imperialist War (1932) in Amsterdam. Devoting special attention to the Dutch branch of the League against Imperialism (the LAI-NL), this thesis seeks to carve out an hitherto understudied part of Dutch, colonial and global history.Show less
Over the past few centuries, multiple historiographical traditions have clashed over the study of Kerala history. Epistemological groups proposed here include archetypal historians who created...Show moreOver the past few centuries, multiple historiographical traditions have clashed over the study of Kerala history. Epistemological groups proposed here include archetypal historians who created original written histories with mythological elements, positivist historians who reject the mythological nature of the local histories, and post-structuralist historians who try to reconcile the useful historical data to be found in positivist and archetypal works. What has been lacking in this field has been a comparative study to explore the similarities and differences between these epistemologies, which this modest project seeks to present in the context of the historiographical 'journey' of Kerala's Cheraman Perumal legend. Concluding that there is a need for further post-structuralist study of the Cheraman Perumal, this project seeks to act as a call to action as an outsider to the field, to show why historians specializing in Kerala's history should be exploring the varied historiographical epistemologies to fill in the gaps in Kerala's history through previously ignored sources, specifically those of the Cheraman Perumal story.Show less
In this interdisciplinary thesis, I use history and anthropology to research the influence of migration history on the identity construct of Hindostani people in the Netherlands. The work is...Show moreIn this interdisciplinary thesis, I use history and anthropology to research the influence of migration history on the identity construct of Hindostani people in the Netherlands. The work is anthropological because I created data by interviewing 23 participants about their lives and experiences, and historical because I used a framework of scholars who have researched the complex fields of identity, colonialism, migration, and transnational history or have specifically researched Hindostani people and their history. Combining these datasets, I present a case study that goes in depth to find out what the influence of colonial migration is on Hindostani people in a ‘postcolonial’ society such as the Netherlands. The conclusion is a careful but meaningful one, as it offers insights into both the people I interviewed and the society in which they live. This study shows that identity is so complex and personal that migration history has divergent meaning and effect on the lives of individual Hindostanis, so that even pointers such as age and gender cannot indicate the importance of that history to a Hindostani person. The only exception to this was religion, as religious participants ascribed more meaning to their migration history. Their history played a large part in the constructing of their identity and in the raising of their children. Lastly, I argue that both interdisciplinary and microhistory, even though small-scale, are key to historical research, especially of colonial history, by creating data and writing with the people who are the embodiment of that history.Show less
Between 1943-65, James Puthucheary was caught up in a regional wave of anti-colonial politics. In 1943 he would join Subhas Chandra Bose's Indian National Army before returning to Malaya in 1948...Show moreBetween 1943-65, James Puthucheary was caught up in a regional wave of anti-colonial politics. In 1943 he would join Subhas Chandra Bose's Indian National Army before returning to Malaya in 1948 where he became involved in the Anti-British League, the University Socialist Club and the founding of the People's Action Party. He was detained for a second time between 1956-59 and after his release went on to work within the PAP government on issues of economic development, before leaving politics to turn to the study of Law. After his banishment from Singapore in 1963, he went on to support Malaysia through the Malaysian Afro-Asian Peoples’ Solidarity Organisation. Puthucheary was an anti-colonialist, a socialist, a trade unionist, an economist, an intellectual and a figure who was linked to global anti-colonial networks. Drawing upon a greater focus on global networks of decolonisation and the intellectual history of decolonisation, this thesis uses Puthucheary's political and intellectual trajectory as a lens through which to highlight the more complex ways in which anti-colonialism was being thought out in Malaya. In particular it highlights Puthucheary, and others around him, at the intersection of the rise of Afro-Asianism and of debates on the national question in Malaya which drew upon broader communist and socialist thought. Here questions of decolonisation intersected with questions of class, communalism and economic development. This thesis goes on to highlight how debates on the national question came to shape engagement with Afro-Asian networks.Show less
How did racialized ideas about work and rest change in the Dutch East-Indies towards the end of the nineteenth century? In the Dutch colony, the idea that Javanese worker showed a natural tendency...Show moreHow did racialized ideas about work and rest change in the Dutch East-Indies towards the end of the nineteenth century? In the Dutch colony, the idea that Javanese worker showed a natural tendency for laziness and lacked the urge to improve their material condition was highly influential and repeatedly invoked to justify coercive labor practices. Whereas the Dutch used to consider Javanese’s alleged laziness as a stable and in-built feature of their inferior “race”, this study shows that they increasingly started to treat it as a by-product of their deplorable socio-economic circumstances by the turn of the century. Given that the Cultivation System (1830-1870) robbed the Javanese off the fruits of their own labor, the Dutch asserted that the natives had failed to develop the “natural” materialist urges they associated with industrial capitalism. In attempts to cure Javanese agricultural workers of their supposed indolence, the agents of capital therefore endeavored to inculcate work ethic from above via the so-called Ethical Policy of 1901. This study not only documents this discursive change, but also aims to understand and explain it. To this end, it places the historical transformation of the stereotype against the background of the racial capitalist regime change it emerged from: the shift from a system in which natives were excluded from the White economy to one in which they were demanded to assimilate. My findings fill up the empirical lacuna on the circulation of this racial-economic trope in the late nineteenth century and advances the historiography on the topic by thoroughly embedding it within Black Marxist theorizing.Show less
In de vroegmoderne tijd leefde een deel van de gehuwde vrouwen apart van hun echtgenoot omdat deze van huis was vanwege bijvoorbeeld werk, detentie of een opname in een beter-, gast- of dolhuis....Show moreIn de vroegmoderne tijd leefde een deel van de gehuwde vrouwen apart van hun echtgenoot omdat deze van huis was vanwege bijvoorbeeld werk, detentie of een opname in een beter-, gast- of dolhuis. Deze vrouwen worden ‘onbestorven weduwen’ genoemd. In deze masterscriptie wordt onderzocht met welke problemen Rotterdamse en Delfshavense onbestorven weduwen in de periode 1680-1765 te maken kregen, welke oplossingen hen hierbij uitkomst boden, en of hierin verschillen zijn waar te nemen tussen enerzijds zeemansvrouwen en anderzijds andere onbestorven weduwen.Show less
In this thesis, I examine the interaction between the business strategy of the Amsterdam banking house Hope & Co. from 1756-1780 and the credit crisis of 1772-1773. Hope & Co. played a...Show moreIn this thesis, I examine the interaction between the business strategy of the Amsterdam banking house Hope & Co. from 1756-1780 and the credit crisis of 1772-1773. Hope & Co. played a central role in the unfolding of this historical event, whereas on the other hand, the crisis had a decisive impact on the Hopes’ business strategy. Before the credit crisis, the Hopes operated prudently and consistently, and the firm acted as a market-regulating institution. However, in the runup to the crisis, Hope & Co. became increasingly involved in large-scale financial speculation in London and Amsterdam. Subsequently, in the aftermath of the crisis, the Hopes returned to a strategy of caution. They diversified their business portfolio by investing in the loan sector and gradually shifted from mercantile activities to financial services. Moreover, as the last major family firm in Amsterdam, Hope & Co. affirmed its market-regulating role, henceforth becoming the banker’s banker. This thesis emphasises the importance of credit governance structures for the resilience of markets and merchant communities. The fact that Hope & Co. established itself as a market-regulating institution poses a challenge to new institutional economics. It raises questions on the role of family firms in (the governance of) early modern credit structures.Show less
This thesis analyses missionary reactions to the sleeping sickness epidemic that haunted East and Central Africa in the early 20th century. Sleeping sickness was an inevitably fatal disease endemic...Show moreThis thesis analyses missionary reactions to the sleeping sickness epidemic that haunted East and Central Africa in the early 20th century. Sleeping sickness was an inevitably fatal disease endemic to Sub-Saharan Africa. In focusing on the German protestant Bethel Mission and the French catholic White Fathers mission, this thesis argues that missionaries had distinct approaches towards sleeping sickness and that the disease was less prevalent in the African Great Lakes Region than previously assumed. Past scholarship on sleeping sickness has relied almost exclusively on the Belgian, German, and British colonial states’ archives. Sleeping sickness threatened these states’ claim to power and consequently induced profound colonial anxieties. Missionaries, instead, were less anxious in light of sleeping sickness. Missionary medicine and missionary mobility regimes aided the Bethel Mission and the White Fathers to cope better with the epidemic. Their archives offer an alternative to colonial archives that does not conflate the disease, and also acknowledges that vast areas in the African Great Lakes Region were free of sleeping sickness. The disease was one among many diseases the missionaries and their communities faced. The missionary sources this thesis relies on suggest that scholarship on sleeping sickness reflects a colonial imaginary rather than the lived reality of non-colonial individuals in the African Great Lakes Region.Show less
