So far away from home : engaging the silenced colonial : the Netherlands-Indies diaspora in North America

Beaulieu-Boon, H.H.

In order to enhance our understanding of the making of colonial identities, the bond to natal land fundamental to the formation of __self,__ its impact on immigration/repatriation, and the hegemonic application of the paradigm of Colonialism to highly diverse colonial encounters, this research engages the voice of North American peoples from Indonesia that were resident in the Dutch East Indies at the end of the colonial era. Participants in a __political order that inscribes in the social world a new conception of space, new forms of personhood, and a new means of manufacturing the experience of the real,__ they encountered the Japanese invasion and Occupation from unique perspectives. In all cases, narrators are peripheral to the ongoing dialogues in the Netherlands and Indonesia that constrain or mobilize what ex-colonial subjects in those countries share. Hence, they utilize divergent schemata to frame __how,__ __what,__ and __why__ they remember. These North American life story...Show moreIn order to enhance our understanding of the making of colonial identities, the bond to natal land fundamental to the formation of __self,__ its impact on immigration/repatriation, and the hegemonic application of the paradigm of Colonialism to highly diverse colonial encounters, this research engages the voice of North American peoples from Indonesia that were resident in the Dutch East Indies at the end of the colonial era. Participants in a __political order that inscribes in the social world a new conception of space, new forms of personhood, and a new means of manufacturing the experience of the real,__ they encountered the Japanese invasion and Occupation from unique perspectives. In all cases, narrators are peripheral to the ongoing dialogues in the Netherlands and Indonesia that constrain or mobilize what ex-colonial subjects in those countries share. Hence, they utilize divergent schemata to frame __how,__ __what,__ and __why__ they remember. These North American life story narratives represent a critical addition to expatriate and academic accounts of colonial and occupied Indonesia, challenging, confronting, affirming, and elaborating other life histories and scholarly investigations. The textual differences expose variations in operative memory; North American life histories, contrasted with those collected from expatriates living in Holland and Belgium, or Indonesians residing in Indonesia, demonstrate the powerful impact a narrator__s current environment exerts on an individual__s perceptions of his/her personal past. That certain themes receive elaboration, and others marginalization, sheds light on how societies and bodies remember, but equally important, how they forget and go on to forge viable practical models to help them endure.__Show less

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So far away from home : engaging the silenced colonial : the Netherlands-Indies diaspora in North America

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