EnglishThe position of children under the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in Sri Lanka has been a hitherto fairly neglected subject in the historiography on the VOC. Recent studies have demonstrated... Show moreEnglishThe position of children under the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in Sri Lanka has been a hitherto fairly neglected subject in the historiography on the VOC. Recent studies have demonstrated the importance of focusing on children in colonial contexts during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, especially when analysing political rationalities of colonial power and religion. While the VOC was an early modern mercantilist company, it sought to impose intellectual, moral and bodily discipline on the local population. The Company wanted to create subjects through education and the introduction of Protestant religion, explicitly targeting children. Why did an early modern mercantilist Company-state attempt to create loyal subjects? How was the Dutch Reformed Church involved in this process of subject-making in Sri Lanka, and what was the importance accorded to children? Using ordinances, visitation reports, minutes from church council meetings and school thombos (parish registers containing school data), I will show why children in eighteenth century Sri Lanka were targets of Dutch colonial subject-making.NederlandsDe positie van kinderen onder de Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC) in Sri Lanka is een tot nog toe weinig verkend perspectief in de historiografie over de VOC. Recente studies over kinderen in de negentiende- en twintigste-eeuwse koloniale context hebben laten zien dat dit een belangrijk uitgangspunt is voor het bestuderen van de politieke visies achter koloniale en religieuze machtsstructuren. Hoewel ze een vroegmoderne, commerciële compagnie was, wilde ook de VOC morele, intellectuele en lichamelijke discipline opleggen aan de lokale bevolking. Door het gebruik van educatie en het invoeren van de protestantse religie wilde de Compagnie hen omvormen tot loyale onderdanen, en zij richtte zich daarbij expliciet op kinderen. Waarom probeerde een vroegmoderne, mercantilistische Compagnie-staat haar bevolking door een proces van ‘subject-making’ aan zich te binden? Hoe was de Nederduits Gereformeerde Kerk betrokken in dit proces in Sri Lanka, en welke rol en welk belang werd hierin aan kinderen toebedeeld? Met behulp van visitatierapporten, minuten van de Kerkenraadvergadering en ‘school thombos’ (kerkelijke dorpsregisters die schooldata bevatten) laat ik zien waarom kinderen in het achttiende-eeuwse Sri Lanka het doelwit waren van een Nederlands, koloniaal disciplineringsbeleid. Show less
This research elucidates various responses of the Yao to the social consequences of civilizing projects historically implemented by a powerful ‘Other’ to them, that is, the successive... Show more This research elucidates various responses of the Yao to the social consequences of civilizing projects historically implemented by a powerful ‘Other’ to them, that is, the successive Chinese imperial and post-imperial states. The Yao are one of the 56 nationalities in today’s China. The research reveals that the Yao’s reactions to the state’s civilizing force are gendered, as manifested in a religious domain. The research shows that Yao men embrace the power of ‘otherness’ that an imperial Daoist cosmology and manuscripts in Chinese entail, while Yao women sustain indigenous culture and belief by ‘singing’. A textual analysis of the probable products of female singing—narratives about goddesses of fertility—points to two types of Yao reaction in the position of women. On the one hand, the narratives embody a symbolic ‘space of negotiation’ in which Yao struggle to claim their agency, but the natural power of female fertility that symbolizes the layer of indigenous culture and belief is eventually domesticated. On the other hand, the narratives convey Yao’s criticisms of the social consequences of imperial Chinese state governance, imposed in the form of patrilineal ideology in marriage and kinship, showing also how different women sought their escape from that. Show less
