‘This book makes an important contribution to the history of household labour relations in two contrasting societies. It deserves a wide readership.’ —Anne Booth, SOAS University of London, UK ‘By exploring how colonialism affected women’s work in the Dutch Empire this carefully researched book urges us to rethink the momentous implications of colonial exploitation on gender roles both in periphery and metropolis.’ —Ulbe Bosma, the Free University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands ‘In this exciting and original book, Elise van Nederveen Meerkerk exposes how colonial connections helped determine the status and position of women in both the Netherlands and Java. The effects of these connections continue to shape women’s lives in both colony and metropole today.’ —Jane Humphries, University of Oxford, UK Recent postcolonial studies have stressed the importance of the mutual influences of colonialism on both colony and metropole. This book studies such colonial entanglements and their effects by focusing on developments in household labour in the Dutch Empire in the period 1830-1940. The changing role of households’, and particularly women’s, economic activities in the Netherlands and Java, one of the most important Dutch colonies, forms an excellent case study to help understand the connections and disparities between colony and metropole. The author contends that colonial entanglements certainly existed, and influenced developments in women’s economic role to an extent, both in Java and the Netherlands. However, during the nineteenth century, more and more distinctions in the visions and policies towards Dutch working class and Javanese peasant households emerged. Accordingly, a more sophisticated framework is needed to explain how and why such connections were – both intentionally and unintentionally – severed over time.

Woman and the Colonial State deals with the ambiguous relationship between women of both the European and the Indonesian population and the colonial state in the former Netherlands Indies in the first half of the twentieth century. Based on new data from a variety of sources: colonial archives, journals, household manuals, children's literature, and press surveys, it analyses the women-state relationship by presenting five empirical studies on subjects, in which women figured prominently at the time: Indonesian labour, Indonesian servants in colonial homes, Dutch colonial fashion and food, the feminist struggle for the vote and the intense debate about monogamy of and by women at the end of the 1930s. An introductory essay combines the outcomes of the case studies and relates those to debates about Orientalism, the construction of whiteness, and to questions of modernity and the colonial state formation.

The development of the Cultivation System from the years 1840 to 1860 is the focus of this work by the Dutch scholar Cornelis Fasseur. The author presents a general overview of Dutch po y and decision-making, and considers how these policies influenced the evolution of the Cultivation System and how the system itself altered Dutch views of governance in Java.

Like a number of Netherlanders in the post-World War II era, Inez Hollander only gradually became aware of her family's connections with its Dutch colonial past, including a Creole great-grandmother. For the most part, such personal stories have been, if not entirely silenced, at least only whispered about in Holland, where society has remained uncomfortable with many aspects of the country's relationship with its colonial empire. Unlike the majority of memoirs that are soaked in nostalgia for tempo dulu, Hollander's story sets out to come to grips with her family's past by weaving together personal records with historical and literary accounts of the period. She seeks not merely to locate and preserve family memories, but also to test them against a more disinterested historical record. Hers is a complicated and sometimes painful personal journey of realization, unusually mindful of the ways in which past memories and present considerations can be intermingled when we seek to understand a difficult past. Silenced Voices is an important contribution to the literature on how Dutch society has dealt with its recent colonial history.

Debates surrounding rights and freedoms in colonial Java at the turn of the twentieth century have ignited discussions on gender issues. During this period, Java faced dual colonization, first by the Dutch invaders externally and then by the priyayi internally. This study aims to explore women’s quest for identity through an analysis of Pramoedya A. Toer’s two celebrated novels, “This Earth of Mankind” and “The Girl from the Coast.” It specifically delves into their experiences of marginalization and resistance within the framework of colonial and feudal rules in Java. The investigation seeks to illuminate the colonial state’s policies, aristocratic power dynamics, and gender politics that either include or exclude indigenous women. By employing close reading and interpretive analysis, this study observes the circumstances, characters, and gender discourse within the novels. It integrates ideas from postcolonial and feminist lenses proposed by eminent scholars in the field. Through these analytical lenses, the study has identified that both novels portray female protagonists striving to forge new identities. They find themselves under the dominance of higher powers—namely, the white colonizers, the feudal lords, and the male figures. However, within the novels, Pramoedya Ananta Toer presents an unusual female image diverging from prevailing social discourses, one characterized by rebellious fervor that challenges discriminatory social norms. In this context, the marginalization and resistance experienced by indigenous women signify the awakening of female consciousness in the struggle against the oppressive forces of colonialism and feudalism in the pre-independence Indonesia, particularly in Java.

Frances Gouda explores issues related to both Dutch and Indonesian women and their interactions with European men, in an effort to understand the "gendering" practices of colonial governance in the Dutch East Indies. She investigates the ways in which The Netherlands articulated and portrayed its unique colonial style to the outside world and specifically examines its governance of the Dutch East Indies represented at the "Exposition coloniale internationale" in Paris in 1931. Finally, she explores the controversial history of Dutch colonial culture in Indonesia as both "imagined" and "reimagined, " or glorified and vilified, in The Netherlands today.

"Ren van Landsberg stood alone on the deck of the steamer ...there could be no turning back to Europe now. This was Java--the end of his journey--and he was a little frightened at all that the suave, exotic name implied." In search of his future, a young Dutchman travels south of the equator to join his older brother supervising a sugar plantation on Java, circa 1900. From the day he arrives, he struggles to adapt to social, cultural and sexual mores that are alien, even contradictory, to all his previous life experiences. Despite having a "girl back home", Ren soon encounters several young ladies of both his own race and Javanese. There, the complexities begin, not the least of which is Grandmother Dassam..."I have three packages," her whining voice went on to the girl. "This one," holding up a small package, "will kill a healthy person in one hour... This second one will kill more slowly--about a month--and this one will take several years, but he'll suffer much and die in the end." When in Java, expect the unexpected. *** Born in Holland in 1879, author Baron Schwartzenberg also worked on Java as a young man. Three decades later he was driven to enlist journalist Mary Bennett Harrison to help him tell this story. How many vignettes, characters or women he drew from actual experiences is unknown. But as you'll discover, this highly credible colonial romance rings true. After a 90 year hiatus, literary archaeologist Kent Davis revives the Baron's 1931 novel as an expanded modern edition with nearly 300 period photos showing Javanese people and places featured in the text. Plus appendices with publisher's notes; author bios; Davis' article "Javanese Women in Photos: Emerging Technologies and World Views"; excerpts from the 1912 travel guide, Isles of the East, and the 1929 book Malay Poisons and Charm Cures; a glossary of Indonesian terms; and regional maps.