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5 - Interracial unions and the Ethical Policy: The representation of the everyday in Indo-European family photo albums
- Edited by Susie Protschky
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- Book:
- Photography, Modernity and the Governed in Late-colonial Indonesia
- Published by:
- Amsterdam University Press
- Published online:
- 11 December 2020
- Print publication:
- 16 March 2015, pp 133-162
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Summary
In 2008 a collection of photographs known as the IWI collection (Indisch Wetenschappelijk Instituut, or Indies Scientific Institute) was donated to the state-sponsored, anthropological Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam. Interweaving private memory and public history, this addition to the large archive already accumulated in Dutch museums connects the colonial past and the postcolonial present and future. The more than 60,000 photographs brought together in about 550 albums were taken in the Netherlands Indies (now Indonesia) and belonged to families who lived during the period of the Ethical Policy. The majority of the collection consists of amateur snapshots and captures so-called Indo-European families, that is, families of mixed Indonesian and European descent, posing in and outside colonial homes or on outings.
After Indonesia's declaration of independence in 1945, many photograph albums travelled as personal belongings in the luggage of their owners who “repatriated” to new homes in the Netherlands. In the first chaotic years of arrival and settlement, such albums were kept as souvenirs and personal memories in private domestic spaces. Other albums were found by Dutch military forces in houses abandoned by Europeans and in Japanese army depots during the Indonesian war of independence (1945-49), which broke out immediately after the Japanese occupation of the Indies (1942-45). For unknown reasons, the Japanese had kept photographs and albums in their storehouses, where they were later discovered, and shipped to the Netherlands as reclaimed Dutch possessions. After a number of the albums were returned to their owners, the collection expanded rapidly thanks to many donations by elderly migrants and their children, who wanted these depictions of their family history safeguarded.
The collected photographs shifted from personal to social memory domains when, from the 1950s onwards, they were shared and used by Indies migrants as a public archive. Initiated by Indo journalist and spokesman Tjalie Robinson, this archival process involved a conscious effort to encourage pride in Indo(-European) heritage and identity. Eventually, the photographs, termed the IWI collection, were widely disseminated in various publications and have now become a visual part of the Dutch cultural landscape and national memory. After being digitised the IWI photographic collection was donated to the Amsterdam Tropenmuseum between 2006 and 2008. Unfortunately, the names of many photographers and first owners of the IWI albums are no longer known to us.
9 - Cultural Memory and Indo-Dutch Identity Formations
- Edited by Ulbe Bosma
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- Book:
- Post-colonial Immigrants and Identity Formations in the Netherlands
- Published by:
- Amsterdam University Press
- Published online:
- 02 February 2021
- Print publication:
- 15 April 2013, pp 175-192
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Introduction
In his well-known Culture and imperialism (1993), Said argued that imperialism and colonialism are constructed not only on the basis of military or economic force, but on culture as well (Said 1994). Culture and politics, he states, produce a system of control that goes beyond military power, as it works through representations and images. Such representations and images not only provide the underpinning and justification of colonialism and imperialism, but they have also continuously dominated the imaginations and memories of both colonisers and colonised. Said's emphasis on the ongoing influence of imperialism upon people and the cultures they live in relates to the continuing interdependent dialogue between peoples and the legacies of colonialism and imperialism: imperialism did not end with colonial rule and cannot be limited to a specific moment in history. Traces of Said's ideas about the continuing cultural influence of the colonial past are present in Dutch discourses on the critical appraisal of Dutch colonial rule in South-East Asia and the Caribbean. In 2000, Paul Scheffer published ‘Het multiculturele drama’ (‘The multicultural tragedy’) in the prominent Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad, which provoked heated discussions on the integration of newcomers into post-colonial Netherlands. In a later book, he wrote:
If we don't reconsider our image of the past and if we don't grant our colonial history a definite space in our collective memory, we violate the truth and distort the historical record. (Scheffer in Boehmer & Gouda 2009: 37)
In this chapter, I wish to take up the notion that although colonialism is often thought of as a phenomenon of the past, it continues in fact in new shapes and forms in our present-day post-colonial societies. I would like to extend this idea by underscoring the imaginative processes of post-colonial memory-making. These will serve to underline my argument regarding the significance of a systematic analysis of cultural memory in order to understand post-colonial migrant identity formations. Central in my argument is the notion of ‘memory community’, which will be used to refine the reductionist notion of identity politics. In contemporary discussions regarding the social and cultural integration of newcomers, a lack of social cohesion is often defined as the underlying cause of what Scheffer (2000) termed the ‘multicultural tragedy’.
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