This thesis deals with the Dutch governmental plans for re-establishment of the Dutch colonial army in the Netherlands East Indies, the Koninklijk Nederlands-Indisch Leger (KNIL) after the Second...Show moreThis thesis deals with the Dutch governmental plans for re-establishment of the Dutch colonial army in the Netherlands East Indies, the Koninklijk Nederlands-Indisch Leger (KNIL) after the Second World War would have ended. These plans were made between 1942 and 1945, when Japan occupied the Netherlands East Indies. After the Japanese surrender on 15 August 1945, Dutch preparations turned out to be insufficient, because of the different expectations the Dutch government had about the possibilities of the colonial soldiers than what they were capable of in reality. These colonial soldiers, both Dutch, Indo-Dutch and Indonesian, had been captured and used as forced labourers by the Japanese during the war years. They were unable to fight against Indonesian nationalists and therefore the Dutch government was forced to also call other armed forces from the Netherlands to Asia. Several plans that were made during the Second World War were the establishment of the Mariniersbrigade (Marine Corps), recruitment of war volunteers and from 1946, a call for Dutch conscript soldiers was also made. Especially the period between 15 August 1945 and March 1946, when the British occupational forces allowed Dutch forces to re-enter the colony for the first time, is rarely investigated in historiography. This thesis fills in that gap, both in time and in topic.Show less
In the historiography about education for Indonesian children in the Netherlands Indies, a legislative approach predominates. This causes a disregard for non-governmental educational initiatives,...Show moreIn the historiography about education for Indonesian children in the Netherlands Indies, a legislative approach predominates. This causes a disregard for non-governmental educational initiatives, and for those that that occurred outside Java. In this thesis, through in-dept analysis of schools in Java, the Minahasa and South New Guinea, educational ideologies and practices are researched while focusing on the question of how, and why, native childhoods were constructed in these contexts. 'Age' is a leading category of analysis here. This thesis shows that educational projects were not about 'uplifiting' children in the sense of social mobility. On the contrary, educators aimed at maintaining social hierarchies. This conclusion opens up space for a revision of the meaning of the Dutch 'civilizing mission' in the Netherlands Indies.Show less
This thesis exposes ambivalences in Dutch approaches to psychiatric practice and discourse in the late colonial state of the Netherlands Indies. In addition to historical studies on psychoanalytic...Show moreThis thesis exposes ambivalences in Dutch approaches to psychiatric practice and discourse in the late colonial state of the Netherlands Indies. In addition to historical studies on psychoanalytic definitions of the normal Javanese psyche and subaltern resistance in the colony, this thesis also elaborates on the actual methods of diagnosis and treatment that were offered, subsequently exposing a syntheses between European and Javanese healing traditions.Show less
Research master thesis | History: Societies and Institutions (research) (MA)
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This study compares the role played by Dutch and American engineers in the colonial governments of the Netherlands Indies and the American-controlled Philippines in the 1900-1920 timeframe. It...Show moreThis study compares the role played by Dutch and American engineers in the colonial governments of the Netherlands Indies and the American-controlled Philippines in the 1900-1920 timeframe. It contends that these colonial engineers extensively influenced the practical implementation of the civilizing missions of that were formulated in the United States and the Netherlands around 1900. Through the use of a sustained comparison between the activities of the engineers in these two Western countries and their tropical colonies the unique aspects of the American policy of “benevolent assimilation” and the Dutch “ethical policy” will be drawn into focus. This study makes use of the technocracy heuristic to analyze the behavior and ambitions of the engineers. Technocracy in this case refers to rule by experts, a goal that many members of the engineering profession that had emerged in both countries in the 1890s strove for. Such a political system could not be implemented in the Dutch and American metropoles, but in the colonies the engineers faced fewer obstacles to their political agenda. The technocratic ambitions of the engineers are reconstructed here by analyzing the rhetoric they used and the discourses they drew upon in their journals. In the first part of this study the emergence of the engineering profession in the Netherlands Indies and the United States is compared. The rhetoric of the engineers on either side of the Atlantic evinces important similarities, as does the receptiveness of politicians and public to their ideas. The new mode of imperialism and the civilizing missions that either country articulated concurrently also bear close resemblance. A series of vignettes in the second part of this study describing the practices and ideology of the colonial engineers working in the Netherlands Indies and the Philippines reveals how the meanings of the technologies they used were socially constructed. They show that the Americans possessed a unique willingness to have the Filipinos participate in their developmental strategy, whereas the Dutch did not cross the ethnographic separation from the Indonesians. This finding to an extent confirms the “exceptionalism” of American empire in this period.Show less
