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Chinese "Taukeh", Labourer, And State Control; Case Study Of "Panglong" In Eastern Region Of Sumatra (1890-1930), Erwiza Erman

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

Recently the flow of labour from China to Indonesia has fuelled many discussions but is not a new phenomenon. It can be traced back to the eighteenth century and continued until the twentieth century. In colonial Indonesia, the Chinese labour force was recruited to work in the economic sectors of mining, plantations, fisheries and forestry. Unfortunately, previous studies about Chinese society in Indonesia more focused on economic and political elites rather than the social history of the Chinese contract coolies. This article attempts to look at the labour history of the Chinese coolie in the forest exploitation companies, known as …