Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-08T07:27:02.831Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Modernity and cultural citizenship in the Netherlands Indies: An illustrated hypothesis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 September 2011

Henk Schulte Nordholt
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Conventional historiography presumes a linear development from urbanisation, the rise of indigenous middle classes and the spread of modernity towards nationalism as the logical outcome of this process. This article aims to disconnect modernity from nationalism by focusing on the role of cultural citizens in the late colonial period for whom modernity was a desirable lifestyle. The extent to which their desires and the interests of the colonial regime coincided is illustrated by a variety of advertisements and school posters, which invited members of the indigenous urban middle class to become cultural citizens of the colony.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies , Volume 42 , Issue 3 , October 2011 , pp. 435 - 457
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Nordholt, Henk Schulte, ‘A genealogy of violence’, in Roots of violence in Indonesia: Contemporary violence in historical perspective, ed. Colombijn, Freek and Lindblad, Thomas (Leiden: KITLV Press, 2002), pp. 33–61Google Scholar.

2 Statistisch jaaroverzicht van Nederlandsch-Indië 1928 (Weltevreden: Landsdrukkerij, 1929), pp. 368–83Google Scholar.

3 Sutherland, Heather, The making of a bureaucratic elite: The colonial transformation of the Javanese priyayi (Singapore: Heinemann, 1979)Google Scholar.

4 van Doorn, J.A.A., De laatste eeuw van Indië: Ontwikkeling en ondergang van een koloniaal project (Amsterdam: Bert Bakker, 1994)Google Scholar. See, for an account of the way engineers changed the Netherlands at that time, van der Woud, Auke, Een nieuwe wereld. Het ontstaan van het moderne Nederland (Amsterdam: Bert Bakker, 2006)Google Scholar.

5 Baal, Jan van, ‘Tussen kolonie en nationale staat: De koloniale staat’, in Dekolonisatie en vrijheid: Een sociaal-wetenschappelijke discussie over emancipatieprocessen in de Derde Wereld, ed. Claessen, H. J. M., Kaayk, J. and Lambregts, R. J. A. (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1976), pp. 92–108Google Scholar; Anderson, Benedict, Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism, 2nd rev. edn (London/New York: Verso, 1991)Google Scholar.

6 Wertheim, Willem Frederik, Indonesian society in transition: A study of social change (Den Haag/Bandung: Van Hoeve, 1956)Google Scholar; Vickers, Adrian, A history of modern Indonesia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Miert, Hans van, Een koel hoofd en een warm hart: Nationalisme, Javanisme en jeugdbeweging in Nederlands-Indië 1918–1930 (Amsterdam: De Bataafsche Leeuw, 1995)Google Scholar.

8 O'Malley, William, ‘Second thoughts on Indonesian nationalism’, in Indonesia: Australian perspectives, ed. Fox, J. J., Garnaut, A. G., McCawley, P. T. and Mackie, J. A. C. (Canberra: ANU, 1980), pp. 601–13Google Scholar.

9 Anderson, Imagined communities, was first published in 1983.

10 Elson, Robert, The idea of Indonesia: A history (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), p. 88Google Scholar.

11 Groeneboer, Kees, Weg tot het Westen: Het Nederlands voor Indië 1660–1950 (Leiden: KITLV Press, 1993)Google Scholar; Departement van Landbouw, en Handel, Nijverheid, Volkstelling 1930, vol. VIII: Overzicht voor Nederlandsch-Indië (Batavia: Landsdrukkerij, 1936)Google Scholar.

12 Gupta, Akhil, ‘Blurred boundaries: The discourse of corruption, the culture of politics, and the imagined state’, in The anthropology of the state: A reader, ed. Sharma, Aradhana and Gupta, Akhil (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006), pp. 211–42Google Scholar.

13 Cooper, Frederick, Colonialism in question: Theory, knowledge, history (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), pp. 113–49Google Scholar.

14 Locher-Scholten, Elsbeth, Women and the colonial state: Essays on gender and modernity in the Netherlands Indies 1900–1942 (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2000), pp. 32–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Silverberg, Miriam, ‘Constructing the Japanese ethnography of modernity’, Journal of Asian Studies, 51, 1 (1992): 30–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Harootunian, Harry, History's disquiet: Modernity, cultural practice, and the question of everyday life (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000)Google Scholar.

15 Locher-Scholten, Women and the colonial state, p. 38.

16 Rosaldo, Renato, ‘Introduction: The borders of belonging. Nation and citizen in the hinterlands’, in Cultural citizenship in island Southeast Asia: Nation and belonging in the hinterlands, ed. Rosaldo, Renato (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), pp. 1–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 For a critique on Rosaldo, see Ong, Aihwa, ‘Cultural citizenship as subject-making. Immigrants negotiate racial and cultural boundaries in the United States’, Current Anthropology, 37, 5 (1996): 737–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a critical discussion of citizenship and cultural diversity, see Delanty, Gerard, ‘Two conceptions of cultural citizenship: A review of recent literature on culture and citizenship’, Global Review of Ethnopolitics, 1, 3 (2002): 60–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 Stoler, Ann Laura, Race and the education of desire: Foucault's history of sexuality and the colonial order of things (Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 1995), pp. 165–95Google Scholar.

19 Van der Putten has argued that during the Great Depression in Malaya an increase in advertisements for cheap Western products, intended to persuade consumers to adopt a western lifestyle, stimulated the expansion of indigenous mass media considerably. It would be interesting to see whether a similar development took place in the Netherlands Indies. See van der Putten, Jan, ‘Negotiating the Great Depression: The rise of popular culture and consumerism in early-1930s Malaya’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 41, 1 (2010): 21–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20 Pandji Poestaka (Batavia: Balai Poestaka), Jan.–Mar. 1940Google Scholar.

21 See Goudsblom, Johan, ‘The worm and the clock: On the genesis of a global time regime’, in Time matters: Global and local time in Asian societies, ed. van Schendel, Willem and Schulte Nordholt, Henk (Amsterdam: VU University Press, 2001), pp. 19–36Google Scholar.

22 For an analysis of this advertisement, see Maier, Henk, ‘Maelstrom and electricity’, in Outward appearances: Dressing state and society in Indonesia, ed. Nordholt, Henk Schulte (Leiden: KITLV Press, 1997), pp. 181–98Google Scholar.

23 Pikat: Pameran iklan cetak generasi ke-2, ed. Hermanu, (Yogyakarta/Jakarta: Bentara Budaya, 2006)Google Scholar.

24 Hatley, Barbara and Blackburn, Susan, ‘Representations of women's roles in household and society in Indonesian women's writing of the 1930s’, in Women and households in Indonesia: Cultural notions and social practices, ed. Koning, Juliette, Nolten, Marleen, Rodenburg, Janet and Saptari, Ratna (Richmond: Curzon, 2000), pp. 45–67Google Scholar. On the modern girl, see The modern girl around the world: Consumption, modernity, and globalization, ed. Weinbaum, Alys Eve, Thomas, Lynn M., Ramamurthy, Priti, Poiger, Uta G. and Ding, Madeleine Yue [Modern Girl around the World Research Group] (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. There are clear traces of the modern girl in various advertisements for toothpaste and soap in the Netherlands Indies; see Hermanu, Pikat.

25 I would like to thank Abdul Wahid for his assistance in investigating the content of several women's magazines and Willem van der Molen for translating the text of Illustration 8.

26 Bale Warti Wanito Oetomo (Jogjakarta: Pangreh Hageng Wanito Oetomo, 1936–41)Google Scholar.

27 Soeara ‘Aisjijah: Madjallah woelanan (Djokjakarta: Moehammadijah, 1927–)Google Scholar.

28 See Weinbaum, Modern girl around the world, p. 22.

29 Haasse, Hella, Bij de les: Schoolplaten van Nederlands-Indië (Amsterdam/Antwerp: Uitgeverij Contact, 2004), pp. 7–8Google Scholar.

30 Mrazek, Rudolf, A certain age: Colonial Jakarta through the memories of its intellectuals (Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 2010), p. xiiCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31 van der Laak, H.P., Djalan ke Barat/Weg tot het Westen (Groningen/Weltevreden: J.B. Wolters, 1923), vol. 2Google Scholar.

32 Stavast, W. and Kok, G., Ons eigen boek (Groningen/Den Haag/Weltevreden: J.B. Wolters, 1930), vol. 3Google Scholar.

33 Batavia was the name for Jakarta during the colonial period prior to 1942.

34 Niel, Robert van, The emergence of the modern Indonesian elite (The Hague/Bandung: W. van Hoeve, 1960), pp. 246–50Google Scholar.

35 Met ons alles goed: Brieven en films uit Nederlands Indië van de familie Kuyck, ed. Steijlen, Fridus and Willems, Erik (Zutphen/Leiden: Walburgpers/KITLV, 2008), p. 124 (my translation)Google Scholar.

36 Bale Warti Wanito Oetomo, 3 Sept. 1938.

37 Pané, Armijn, Belenggu (Djakarta: Pustaka Rakjat, 1949 [1st edn 1940])Google Scholar.

38 Maier, Henk, Monsieur d'Amour: Maar geluk duurt nooit lang: Maleise verhalen vol bitterheid (Leiden: KITLV Press, 2002)Google Scholar.

39 Adrienne Huijzer, ‘Escaping Kartini: Indonesian women as agents in a changing colonial society, 1900–1942’ (M.A. thesis, Department of History, VU University, Amsterdam, 2010).

40 Ikeya, Chie, ‘The modern Burmese woman and the politics of fashion in colonial Burma’, Journal of Asian Studies, 67, 4 (2008): 1277–308CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

41 When mentioning ‘Europeans’ I refer to white immigrants from Europe. Indo-Europeans, or Eurasians, and, for that matter, (Indo) Chinese are usually seen as the core groups of the colonial middle classes. I have left them out in this preliminary exploration because I wanted to highlight the role of the indigenous middle classes as cultural citizens. It is, however, important to investigate relationships between these groups and the extent to which the indigenous middle classes were influenced by Indo-European and (Indo-) Chinese styles.

42 National identity and its defenders: Thailand today, ed. Reynolds, Craig (Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 2002), pp. 6–9Google Scholar; Loos, Tamara, Subject Siam: Family, law, and colonial modernity in Thailand (Ithaca/London: Cornell University Press, 2006)Google Scholar.

43 Agus Suwignyo, ‘Education and the transition of regimes in Indonesia, 1900s–1960s’, paper presented at the Encompass Pilot Conference (Jakarta, 15–17 Jan. 2008).

44 Strassler, Karen, Refracted visions: Popular photography and national modernity in Indonesia (Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 2010), pp. 3–4, 79CrossRefGoogle Scholar.