Violent episodes from the early history of the Dutch East India Company, including its violent depopulation of the Banda Islands in 1609-1621 in order to gain exclusive control over nutmeg, have... Show moreViolent episodes from the early history of the Dutch East India Company, including its violent depopulation of the Banda Islands in 1609-1621 in order to gain exclusive control over nutmeg, have received increasing public and scholarly attention. However, the wider conflicts in the region over cloves, which continued for decades afterwards and were mainly centred around Ambon, received less attention as yet. In this dissertation, Tristan Mostert examines these seventeenth-century spice wars, and the influence of both environmental factors and the political dynamics of the region, from the arrival of the first Dutch ships in the area to the establishment of colonial control over Ambon, Hoamoal and the surrounding islands around 1656. The dissertation explores how the escalating conflict triggered wider regional power dynamics in which Gowa (Makassar) and Ternate were heavily involved. It also shows how the VOC turned to increasingly extreme tactics in its attempts to achieve its monopoly: deliberate environmental destruction, driving out and deporting the population, dismantling existing political and social structures. It contents that in order to understand how the VOC eventually established its monopoly, one should not look for traditional military explanations, but rather to this policy of environmental warfare and colonial control, through which it transformed the landscape of the region. Show less
This book is about postcolonial memory in the Netherlands. This term refers to conflicts in contemporary society about how the colonial past should be remembered. The question is often: who has the... Show moreThis book is about postcolonial memory in the Netherlands. This term refers to conflicts in contemporary society about how the colonial past should be remembered. The question is often: who has the right or ability to tell their stories and who do not? In other words: who has a voice, and who is silenced? As such, these conflicts represent a wider tendency in cultural theory and activism to use voice as a metaphor for empowerment and silence as voice’s negative counterpart, signifying powerlessness. And yet, there are voices that do not liberate us from, but rather subject us to power. Meanwhile, silence can be powerful: it can protect, disrupt and reconfigure. Throughout this book, it will become clear how voice and silence function not as each other’s opposites, but as each other’s continuation, and that postcolonial memory is articulated through the interplay of meaningful voices and meaningful silences. Show less
Adat is originally an Arabic term meaning “custom” or “habit”, and was introduced by Islamic merchants in Maluku and throughout the Indonesian archipelago from the 1200s onward. The term was used... Show moreAdat is originally an Arabic term meaning “custom” or “habit”, and was introduced by Islamic merchants in Maluku and throughout the Indonesian archipelago from the 1200s onward. The term was used as a way to refer to indigenous customs that could not be incorporated into Islamic law. Therefore, rather than referring to a particular system of customs or laws, adat denoted Islamic law’s indeterminate opposite: i.e. the wide variety of indigenous practices which, other than this generalizing label of “custom”, remained undefined. Throughout the chapter, I will trace the development of this term from its original usage to its current-day reinterpretation as a form of diasporic cultural heritage by the Moluccan postcolonial migrant community in the Netherlands. As will become clear, the contemporary Moluccan application can be understood as a strategic reappropriation of the term for the construction of their collective identity, which leaves intact the term’s original capacity of having no fixed definition. By placing the Moluccan application of adat within the historical context of their separatist ideology vis-à-vis Indonesia, and their migration to the Netherlands in the early 1950s, I will argue that their reappropriation of adat as a deliberately indefinable form of Moluccan cultural heritage can be understood as a way for them to protect their collective identity as a separatist people from becoming a matter of wider contestation. Show less
This dissertation revolves around a long struggle of Malukan and Papuan rebels led by Prince Nuku of Tidore against the Dutch East India Company (Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, VOC) and its... Show moreThis dissertation revolves around a long struggle of Malukan and Papuan rebels led by Prince Nuku of Tidore against the Dutch East India Company (Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, VOC) and its indigenous allies c.a. 1780-1810. Assisted by the English, his Malukan-Papuan troops managed to conquer the Dutch-protected Sultanates of Bacan and Tidore in 1797 and the Dutch fort on Ternate in 1801. Widjojo elaborates the dynamics of alliance-making, the interests involved, and the actors (grandees of Tidorans, East Seramese traders, Papuans of Raja Ampat, and the fighters of Gamrange). This dissertation also shows intensity of the English involvement in the rebellion which was not discussed before in previous studies. Among others, the dissertation concludes that the success of the rebellion was not driven by prominent Malukan ideological constructs supposedly shared among Nuku and his adherents. The success was mainly because Nuku to a maximum extent successfully combined the strength of Papuan and Gamrange raiders as his warriors and East Seramese traders as the sources of the logistics for his campaign. Moreover Nuku also managed to keep attached to the English and exploit the presence of its country traders. Show less
Focus of the study is the potential role of local institutions in fisheries management. As world-wide marine resources deteriorate, the call for better management urges national governments to... Show moreFocus of the study is the potential role of local institutions in fisheries management. As world-wide marine resources deteriorate, the call for better management urges national governments to decentralise management authority to local and lower government levels. Ownership and long-term access to resources are important incentives to manage resources for sustainability, while proximity to the resource, relevant local knowledge and local management institutions allow for effective and more equitable management that is both adaptive and resilient. Sasi in Maluku, Indonesia, is such an institution and has often been heralded as an example of successful local resource management. The extent to which it was still active and functional, however, was not known. This thesis contains an inventory of sasi and an analysis of its performance in terms of equity, efficiency, biological and social sustainability, and is illustrated by an elaborate description of sasi in Nolloth village. The study of sasi has been put in the wider context of decentralisation in Indonesia which is compared to the process in the Philippines. The results have also been used to identify the factors that enhance success of co-management in Southeast Asia. Finally a methodology is proposed to measure this success in an appropriate way. Show less
