Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Objects Of Belonging And Displacement; Artefacts And European Migrants From Colonial Indonesia In Colonial And Post-Colonial Times, Caroline Drieënhuizen

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

As colonial Indonesia never was intended to be a “settler colony”, many Dutch citizens spent only a certain period of their lives there before returning to the Netherlands. However, there were also Europeans, many with Asian-European roots, who had called the colony home for generations and were forced to leave that home after 1945.

All these different types of colonial migrants were displaced and maintained, built and reinforced their relations with the country (whether it was the colony or the “motherland”) they had left. This transnationalism (or, as I argue here, imperial orientation) took shape not only legally or relationally …

Transnational Connections; Diasporic (Re)Turns To Indonesia, Jorien Van Beukering

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

In the twentieth century, decolonization sparked mass migration movements across the globe as former settlers left newly independent colonies for the former imperial metropole or a new country altogether. In the following decades, postcolonial migrants made new homes and created communities in their hostlands. Eventually, some travelled back to their country of origin, the former colony. Indisch Dutch returns to Indonesia are not uncommon and, although some members of the first generation visited Indonesia as tourists, accounts of (re)turns by the second and third generation are rare. To form a clearer picture of the transnational connections between Indonesia and the …