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Intense debates emerged in the Dutch East Indies during the course of the third decade of the twentieth century concerning the role of missionaries in the development of the Outer Islands of the Indonesian archipelago. Ostensibly concerning "native welfare", disagreement fundamentally reflected underlying fractures within the Dutch nation, projected through its "colonial mission" concerning the nature of modernity. While the main focus appeared to be a disagreement concerning the goals of mission and government agencies, it would be too simplistic to characterise the debate as one between adherents of a secular versus a religious world view. This paper considers the question of "missions and modernity" in the context of this debate about "native development" in the Dutch East Indies through the prism of the Poso mission in Central Sulawesi, headed by missionary Albert Kruyt, one of the foremost missionaries of his day.

This paper examines Dutch colonial discourse as it was developing at the beginning of the twentieth century. I argue that colonial circumstances were changing at the beginning of the twentieth century in many aspects - economic, political, social - and that these changes required new policy and administrative responses. I take as examples of these changing colonial conditions and responses, two episodes in the history of 'the late colonial state', which I argue are both representative of and formative in shaping, colonial policy in the last decades of Dutch colonial rule in Indonesia.

In the recent debates gripping the Australian national psyche regarding the 'Stolen Children' (the often forcible removal of Aboriginal children of mixed European descent from their Aboriginal mothers practiced for most of the twentieth century under Australian Federal law) little credence is given to now outdated notion of 'half-caste' which inspired the original legislation. Today, self-identification, regardless of colour and heritage, determines Aboriginal ethnicity. But 'half-caste-ness' constituted a powerful concept in the process of nation formation in colonial Australia and in other colonial contexts.

Joost Coté
This article surveys the unpublished correspondence of the four sisters of Kartini, Roekmini, Kardinah, Kartinah and Soematrie, written to Rosa Abendanon-Mandri, in the period 1905 to 1925. The period covered by this correspondence throws some light on the life of women from this stratum of society in Java at the time. At the same time it contributes to a more adequate contextualisation of the life and correspondence of Raden Ajeng Kartini herself, whose correspondence has been the subject of attention for most of this century. Together the correspondence by the five sisters forms a continuous archive of private correspondence, amounting to almost three hundred letters, stretching over a quarter of a century which is probably unique in Indonesian history. Carefully considered, this represents a significant source for the historical investigation of the 'inner domain' of this stratum of Javanese society.
The article represents a preview of the letters currently being translated for publication. The writer argues that these can be read as indicative of an emerging culture of modernity amongst an educated and modernist generation of Javanese elite. The correspondence shows how the strands of feminism and nationalism, apparent in Kartini's writing, are extended in the context of a rapidly changing Java, and how the emerging debates about Indonesian national identity impinged directly on the nascent feminist discourse. While the claims made for the value of this correspondence are modest, and attention is drawn to their focus on continuing the relationship established by Kartini and Roekmini with Rosa Abendanon, the Javanese women writers are shown to inhabit a rapidly changing world within which they continued to negotiate a feminist agenda. At the same time, intrusions into the correspondence by their husbands make clear how an emerging Indonesian nationalism incorporated within it a new patriarchy which demanded that women safeguard the inner domain of the cultural identity upon which the nationalist project was based.

The aim of this paper is to investigate the nature of Dutch colonial policy at the turn of the twentieth century in what was then the Netherlands East Indies.' Referred to in the historiography of this period as 'the ethical policy', it is usually characterized as a welfare or developmentalist government. More recent comparisons have drawn attention to similarities between twentieth-century colony policy and the New Order Indonesian policy with a focus on economic growth and the lack of individual 'development'. 'Ethical policy' is not usually a term applied to the politics of other imperialist powers, which begs the question that somehow Dutch colonialism was different. Recent comparative research by M. Kuitenbrouwer, A. Stoler and J. Breman has questioned this assumption.

"Cars, Conduits and Kampongs offers a wide panorama of the modernization of the cities in Indonesia between 1920 and 1960. The contributions present a case for asserting that Indonesian cities were not merely the backdrop to processes of modernization and rising nationalism, but formed a causal factor. Modernization, urbanization, and decolonization were intrinsically linked. The various chapters deal with such innovations as the provision of medical treatments, fresh water and sanitation, the implementation of town planning and housing designs, and policies for coping with increased motorized traffic and industrialization. The contributors share a broad critique of the economic and political dimensions of colonialism, but remain alert to the agency of colonial subjects who respond, often critically, to a European modernity" --