Suchergebnisse

Issues of segregation and difference in early-modern Dutch Batavia prove harder to define once we move beyond the picture presented by colonial authorities and move away geographically from the centre of colonial knowledge production. Ethnic quarters were established in the colonial cities, but religious identities blurred strict racial boundary making. Three case studies demonstrate how new lines of identification and distinction emerged, which cut across formal ethnic classifiers. Colonial societies were extremely complex places, where race, occupation, religion, class, and legal status constantly interplayed and directed the definition of social boundaries. Instead of thinking in terms of ethnic segregation as presented in the colonial records, this contribution proposes to think in terms of 'moral communities'. By so doing, we might be able to balance better between 'Closeness and Proximity' in colonial societies. We can thus try to visualise colonial society not primarily as a hierarchical order with fairly strict or at least distinctive internal boundaries as defined by the colonial authorities, but as a society of different and overlapping socio-cultural spheres and as circles of trust rather than of bounded ethnic communities.

This article discusses the relationship between private business and government during both the late-colonial period and the immediate post-independence era. Special attention is given to the chaotic conditions during the Indonesian Revolution in the second half of the 1940s. The article argues that the relationship was strong in both periods but of a fundamentally different nature after independence as compared to Dutch colonial rule. The colonial system of institutionalized business interests was not taken over by the Indonesian nationalists. The colonial system was replaced by a system in which privilege strongly depended on political connections, favouring some, but not all businessmen. Further research is needed to unveil the specifc nature of relationships between private businessmen and the Indonesian state.

"Net als andere bekende Hollandse bestuurs- en handelscentra was ook de stad Utrecht nauw betrokken bij de slavenhandel en slavernij. Maar hoe zag die verwikkeling - in de schaduw van steden als Amsterdam en Rotterdam - er eigenlijk uit? Hoe profiteerde Utrecht van de slavenhandel en de producten die uit slavenarbeid voortkwamen? Welke invloed had de bovenlaag van stedelijke bestuurders en investeerders op de levens van de vele tot slaaf gemaakten in Oost en West? En hoe zat het met de kerk? Waarom werd Utrecht een centrum van abolitionisme? Welke sporen van het koloniale verleden draagt de stad nu nog? En hoe gaan Utrechters vandaag de dag met de geschiedenis van slavernij om? In korte essays laten de schrijvers van Slavernij en de stad Utrecht vanuit steeds een ander perspectief hun licht schijnen op de Utrechtse betrokkenheid bij het mondiale slavernijverleden."--