Interpreting practices in a colonial context

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 372-391
Author(s):  
Audrey Heijns
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Work Environment ◽  
East Indies ◽  
Cultural Mediators ◽  
Dutch East Indies ◽  
The Government

Abstract This article investigates the experience of Dutch interpreters of Chinese in the Dutch East Indies (present-day Indonesia) from the mid-nineteenth century until Indonesia’s independence nearly a century later. In the colonial context, the task of interpreters went beyond orally translating speech. They also served as cultural mediators, who prevented conflicts and resolved misunderstandings. Based on theories of interpreting in colonial contexts, the cases in this study will probe the interpreters’ training, their allegiances, and their search for neutrality. The findings reveal that, in the period from 1860 to 1912, the interpreters tried to mediate for the government by resolving problems and misunderstandings, despite their limited authority. However, in the period from 1913 to 1949, the interpreters had less room to maneuver, as a result of changes in training as well as in the work environment of the Dutch East Indies.

The Mestizos of Kisar: An insular racial laboratory in the Malay Archipelago

2018 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 445-463
Author(s):  
Hans Pols ◽  
Warwick Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Mixed Race ◽  
East Timor ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
East Indies ◽  
Malay Archipelago ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Dutch East Indies ◽  
Race Mixing

In the 1920s and 1930s, the Mestizos of Kisar, a dry, almost barren island in the Dutch East Indies off the coast of East Timor, were a model for the study of race mixing or human hybridity. Discovered in the late nineteenth century, these ‘anomalous blondes’ of Dutch and Kisarese ancestry became subjects of intense scrutiny by physical anthropologists. As a German specialist in tropical medicine in search of a convenient empire after 1918, Ernst Rodenwaldt favourably evaluated the physique and mentality of the isolated, fair Mestizos in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). Back in Germany in the 1930s, as professor of hygiene at Heidelberg, his views on race hardened to accord with Nazi doctrine. Yet after the war, Rodenwaldt successfully cited his earlier appreciation of mixed-race peoples in the eastern Malay Archipelago as grounds for rehabilitation. Once a celebrated case study in human hybridity, the Mestizos of Kisar were erased from anthropological discussion in the 1950s, when race mixing ceased to be a biological issue and became instead a sociological interest. Still, Rodenwaldt's work continues to exert some limited influence in the eastern parts of the archipelago and among the Kisarese diaspora, indicating the penetrance and resilience of colonial racialisation projects.

scholarly journals ANALISIS STRUKTUR VISUAL LAMBANG KOTAPRAJA JAMAN HINDIA BELANDA DARI PERSPEKTIF WACANA POSKOLONIAL

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Novian Denny Nugraha ◽  
Sonson Nursholih
Keyword(s):  
Postcolonial Theory ◽  
Theory Approach ◽  
Binary Opposition ◽  
Interesting Phenomenon ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
East Indies ◽  
Dutch East Indies ◽  
Visual Structure ◽  
The Government ◽  
The City

The simbol of municipality (big city) in Indonesia is changing from time to time, as well as changing according to the social and cultural conditions of the city. If in colonial era the simbol of the city is a representation of the power of the government or rule, and then the phenomenon is now beginning to change in the current era, where the simbol of the city functioned also for the needs of tourism. In the late Dutch East Indies colonial era around 1930s, some cities were considered to be self-reliant by government and economy, so that the government at that time made a simbol for the need to run the wheels of his government. The interesting phenomenon of the simbol of the city simbolically is the existence of simbols that are displayed, both simbols affiliated to the ruler (Dutch East Indies) and also the simbol that is a typical simbol of the city's local tradition. Composition and relationship between simbols in the city simbol is interesting to be studied and analyzed. Especially at visual structure area and meaning representation. The analysis is done by qualitative research method which is descriptive interpretative with semiotics theory approach for sign analysis and using postcolonial theory for understanding the meaning of the city simbol. The results of the analysis both in the visual structure and in the meaning shows the existence of different types of simbols that appear, as well as the discovery of the difference of simbol dominance in each simbol of the city. The relation between the simbols generated from the composition of the visual structure results in a new understanding, which in the postcolonial perspective will be interpreted by a binary opposition relationship, or the dominant/hegemonic relationship between the colonial government and the colony state, between “The Other” and “The Occident”, or between colonizing and colonized countries. Furthermore, the simbolic relation on the visual structure and meaning resulted in the ideological significance of the sociocultural conditions of the community at that time.

scholarly journals Sociological perspective on the elimination of Karanganyar Regency as an impact of the 1930s economic depression

Simulacra ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-94
Author(s):  
Teguh Hindarto ◽  
Chusni Ansori
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Comparative Method ◽  
The United States ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
East Indies ◽  
Government Bureaucracy ◽  
Dutch East Indies ◽  
Economic Depression ◽  
The Government

 The 1930s economic crisis in the United States had spread throughout the world and caused a number of social, economic, political and cultural impacts, including for the Dutch East Indies colonies. Karanganyar Regency, which was in the Bagelen Residency territory since 1901, had experienced the effects of the economic shock as well. Karanganyar was a district in the Kebumen Regency area. Before becoming a sub-district, Karanganyar was an independent regency and had its head of government from 1832 until 1936. Through literature studies, this paper intended to thoroughly analyze the existence of Karanganyar Regency in the colonial era, find out the background of its elimination, and the process of social change that occurred. To obtain the main variables that cause the elimination of Karanganyar Regency, the researcher utilized the historical comparative method. From the analysis, we concluded that the Economic Depression centred in the United States affected the Dutch East Indies colonies, particularly on the management of the government bureaucracy. This situation demanded the Dutch East Indies government to adapt to social change by removing a number of Regency, including Karanganyar Regency.

scholarly journals War of Ngali Toward Dutch Colonialism in Bima

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 128
Author(s):  
Sukarddin Sukarddin ◽  
Akhamad Ari Musaded ◽  
Suryo Ediyono
Keyword(s):  
Islamic Law ◽  
Customary Law ◽  
Dutch Government ◽  
East Indies ◽  
The People ◽  
Dutch East Indies ◽  
The Government ◽  
Dutch Colonial ◽  
Dutch Colonialism

Sultanate of Bima has been bound by government of Dutch colonial with Lange Contract agreement (long contract), occurred in 1908-1909 That the Sultanate of Bima is a very strategic area. These conditions caused the VOC and the government of Dutch to seek intervention through the Lange Contract agreement (long contract) which has led to the entry of the Sultanate of Bima in the Pax Neerlandica neighborhood. War of Ngali occurred for several reasons namely 1) Feelings of dissatisfaction with the actions of the Dutch government which impose various tax rules in the Sultanate of Bima. 2) The Sultanate of Bima as part of the Dutch East Indies sovereignty was seized by a Lange Contract agreement in 1908. 3) Customary law and Islamic law were replaced by Dutch law. 4) The head or belasting duty system is denied and punished for taxing the unbelievers. The conclusion in this study is that people of Ngali against the government of Dutch colonial because they wanted to control the entire Milky, the resistance made by people Ngalisolely to maintain the customs, religions, and independence owned by the people of Bima.

The Opium Question in the Federated Shan States, 1931–36: British Policy Discussions and Scandal

1992 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert B. Maule
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Opium Poppy ◽  
Overseas Chinese ◽  
East Indies ◽  
West Central ◽  
Dutch East Indies ◽  
Opium Use

The earliest known evidence for the existence of the opium poppy has been traced to the Neolithic and Early Bronze Ages in west central Europe. Arab traders introduced opium into Asia, and in the eighth century A.D., it had been used in China. By the nineteenth century, China provided the most lucrative market for traders, primarily British and American, who brought opium to China from India and the Ottoman Empire. Opium use also proved to be popular among the overseas Chinese communities in Siam, Malaya, and the Dutch East Indies. The Chinese demand for opium, the lucrative profits to be gained from the manufacture, transfer, and sale of opium, and official connivance at edicts to prohibit its import into China, served to create a flourishing trade.

scholarly journals BUMIPUTRA AUTHOR’S RESISTANCE TOWARD POLITICAL HEGEMONY AND CANONIZATION OF BALAI PUSTAKA IN THE NOVEL HIKAYAT KADIROEN AND STUDENT HIDJO

LITERA ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hary Sulistyo ◽  
Endang Sartika
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
Qualitative Approach ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Novel ◽  
East Indies ◽  
Literary Politics ◽  
Dutch East Indies ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Colonial Government

The ideological and aesthetic contestation of Balai Pustaka, forcing writer‟s resistance particularly Bumiputra writers. The ideological contestation occurs because Balai Pustaka as the apparatus of the Colonial government suppress the resistance attitudes of the indigenous authors. The authors, who ideologically contradicted with the government, resisted the politics of literature through their works. This research is intended to reveal the canonization of Balai Pustaka which governs the aesthetic and ideological standards of literary works and the resistance of Bumiputra authors toward the hegemony of the Dutch East Indies. The method used in this research is descriptive qualitative approach by seeing the text as the representation of hegemony and resistance as well as linking textual and contextual issues to describe literary politics and the reflection of general politics. The objects of this research are the text and historical context represented in the novel Hikayat Kadiroen and Student Hidjo. The results show that Hikayat Kadiroen presents exemplary attitudes of fair leaders in solving peoples‟ problems and representing the identity of Indonesian literature. Whereas Student Hidjo portrayed concern for the Indigenous people by criticisizing the political hegemony on racial basic. The resistance of Bumiputra authors was shown by raising resistance theme toward colonialism in the Dutch East Indies, as a form of resistance toward political hegemony and canonization of Balai Pustaka.Keywords: hegemony and resistance, Dutch East Indies, cultural identity.RESISTENSI PENGARANG BUMIPUTERA TERHADAP HEGEMONI POLITIK DAN KANONISASI BALAI PUSTAKA DALAM NOVEL HIKAYAT KADIROEN DAN STUDENT HIDJOAbstrakKontestasi ideologis dan estetis Balai Pustaka, menghadirkan sikap-sikap perlawanan khususnya para penulis Bumiputra. Pertarungan ideologis terjadi karena Balai Pustaka sebagai apparatus pemerintah Kolonial, menekan sikap-sikap perlawanan pengarang Pribumi. Para pengarang yang secara ideologi berseberangan dengan pemerintah, melakukan resistensi atas politik kesusastraan melalui karya-karyanya. Tujuan penelitian ini mengungkapkan kanonisasi Balai Pustaka yang mengatur standar estetis dan idelogis karya sastra dan perlawanan kelompok Bumiputra terhadap hegemoni yang diterapkan di Hindia Belanda. Metode penelitian ini diawali dengan melihat teks sebagai representasi hegemoni dan resistensi dalam novel Hikayat Kadiroen dan Student Hidjo. Menghubungkan persoalan tekstual dan kontekstual untuk menjabarkan politik sastra dan cerminan politik general. Hasil penelitian menunjukan Hikayat Kadiroen menghadirkan sikap keteladanan pemimpin yang adil terhadap rakyat dalam menyeselaikan persoalan dan merepresentasikan identitas kultural kesusastraan Indonesia. Sedangkan Student Hidjo, menunjukkan sikap kepedulian terhadap Pribumi dengan kritik terhadap hegemoni politik atas dasar rasialis. Resistensi pengarang Bumiputra terhadap Balai Pustaka, ditunjukkan dengan mengangkat tema perlawanan terhadap kolonialisme di Hindia Belanda, sebagai bentuk resistensi terhadap hegemoni dan kanonisasi Balai Pustaka.Kata kunci: hegemoni dan resistensi, Hindia Belanda, identitas kultural.

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