This dissertation explores the causation of mass conversions to Islam in Bolaang-Mongondow and to Protestant Christianity in Sangir-Talaud and Minahasa (North Sulawesi, Indonesia) in the eighteenth... Show moreThis dissertation explores the causation of mass conversions to Islam in Bolaang-Mongondow and to Protestant Christianity in Sangir-Talaud and Minahasa (North Sulawesi, Indonesia) in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It demonstrates that despite deviations in particularities, the mass conversions to world religions in these regions broadly shared similar causations. It places emphasis on particular periods in the nineteenth-century when the Dutch colonial state centralized political authority and imposed census-based monetary taxation with the aim of commercializing the economy. It points to these reforms as the immediate triggers that enabled both Dutch apical rulers and especially indigenous apical rulers to weaken the authority of subaltern chiefs. It illustrates that these reforms were weaved into the religious conversion agenda of rulers as a strategy to further consolidate authority by depriving the subaltern chiefs of their functionally undifferentiated and socially embedded authority. As such, this dissertation shows that the apical rulers could expand their political and economic reach while paving the way for their claimed subjects to access prestigious religious identities, which had hitherto been exclusive to the ruling elite. Show less
This dissertation points out the stark inequalities of segregated criminal justice in nineteenth-century Java and analyses this unequal system in practice, shown by an actor-focused approach... Show moreThis dissertation points out the stark inequalities of segregated criminal justice in nineteenth-century Java and analyses this unequal system in practice, shown by an actor-focused approach and through a framework of legal pluralities. Ravensbergen searched for the conflicts occurring around the green table of the 'pluralistic courts'(landraden and ommegaande rechtbanken) where the non-European population was tried by Javanese and Dutch court members, and Islamic and Chinese legal advisors. The pluralistic courts, the only places in Java where all regional power structures met and actively worked together, were courtrooms of many conflicts. The courts were also in interaction, and conflict, with other state institutions, together all furthering the project of colonial state formation. By taking this approach, Ravensbergen shows how it was not only inequality, but also uncertainty and injustice, that were central to colonial criminal justice imposed on the local population. Show less
University of Colour in Amsterdam demonstrated against the neoliberal university and the perpetuation of coloniality in the curricula. Rhodes Must Fall in Cape Town specifically focused on the... Show moreUniversity of Colour in Amsterdam demonstrated against the neoliberal university and the perpetuation of coloniality in the curricula. Rhodes Must Fall in Cape Town specifically focused on the Fanonian concept of ‘putting the last first’. Both Rhodes Must Fall and the University of Colour centred historically marginalised voices as an aim of the decolonised university. The book argues that epistemic justice requires an unlearning and relearning of being/becoming that is the decolonised self; reimagining the relationship between pedagogy and community, theory and lived experience. It attempts to rethink theoretical frames such as Freudian psychoanalysis from a decolonial feminist perspective. This books seeks to share and encourage more dialogue towards achieving decolonised universities. Show less
