In Being “Dutch” in the Indies, Ulbe Bosma and Remco Raben present an impressively detailed and carefully nuanced study of the flux and the fluidity within the Indische world, the localized community of (partial) European ancestry, in the Dutch East Indies. This is a project ambitious in both temporal and geographical scope, spanning more than four centuries and drawing on case studies from a variety of East Indies provinces. As very few in-depth academic studies have been conducted on creolized communities in Southeast Asia thus far, Bosma and Raben's investigation merits serious attention.
In discussing this important yet underresearched topic, the authors draw heavily on material from Dutch and Indonesian archives, newspapers, and literary works, as well as genealogical studies that trace the fortunes and life histories of individual Indische families over several generations. This allows them to explore the outlook and perspectives of this layered community in vivid detail, as well as the types of engagements, boundaries, and stratifications that existed within their ever-shifting world. They discuss, for instance, the fluctuations within the Indische world as a result of several crucial mechanisms that regulated the lives of these people, such as the presence of the colonial government and civil service, European education, family background and social networks, marriages, and economic opportunity or the lack of it. One recurring topic in the book, too, concerns the articulation of interests and grievances of the Indische people and the way they organized themselves to protect their rights.
Throughout the nine chapters of this volume, Bosma and Raben seem particularly well attuned to the evolvement of the Indische community over time and the subtle differences between localities. Crucially, the authors seek to dismiss the notion that Indische families formed a racially, culturally, and socially homogenous community between European newcomers and the indigenous population, as well as the belief that they were a kind of marginalized Europeans. Instead, they argue that these Indische communities were critically and heavily integrated within the political, economic, and social fabric of the Dutch East Indies up to the highest levels, such as in the plantation industry, commerce, local government and even early anticolonial nationalism. This fascinating conclusion certainly adds a new dimension to our understanding of mixed-blood communities and starkly underlines the differences between Dutch and British colonies in Southeast Asia. In British Malaya, for instance, sharp racial distinctions were often drawn between white Europeans and the Eurasian community, with the Eurasians commonly relegated to an inferior position. However, this highly complex world within the Dutch Indies did come to an end after the First World War, when European-born newcomers began to dominate business and the government and Indonesian nationalism began to reject Creole notions of imperial belonging.
The authors' ample use of nomenclature in their articulation of the staggering diversity within the Indische world suggests that difficulties of terminology accompany their insights. As stated in their book, at least 80 percent of the Europeans living in the Dutch East Indies in the nineteenth century were locally born, and the majority had at least one or more Asian ancestors. In their discussion, the authors have attempted to elucidate the variations within this extensive community by using a bewildering array of labels such as mestizos (lower-class people of Asian-European ancestry), Indo-Europeans (children of Indonesian and European parents), Mardijkers (Christian free men or women of Asian slave descent), and inlandse kinderen (children born in the Indies of a European father). However, as the authors note, the differences among these categories were often fuzzy, as many children were not the offspring of a first-generation mixed marriage but had one or two Indies-born parents from families who had intermarried in the Indies for several generations. Adding to such complexities, the authors also point to a separate category of Indies-born Europeans, creolized Europeans who might or might not have mixed parentage. The confusing profusion of labels in this book suggests an important need for scholars to rethink—and simplify—the terminologies governing these subtle yet crucial differences within creolized Southeast Asian communities.
Bosma and Raben's engaging material is more often recorded than interpreted, however, and readers may benefit from further explanation of the methodology employed. Other readers may lament, too, that theoretical contextualization has been sacrificed in an attempt to piece together a vast and diffuse array of narratives and life histories. For instance, their work avoids extensive engagement with the large extant literature in historical anthropology on race, class, and gender in the colonial context. Equally, the theoretical literature on tensions of colonial empire (such as the work of Frederick Cooper and Ann Laura Stoler in the Dutch East Indies) plays little part in their analysis. This is a pity, as Bosma and Raben's compelling research provides rich potential for them to modify the conclusions of previous scholars.
Despite this, Being “Dutch” in the Indies certainly opens up new dimensions for research on creolized communities in Southeast Asia. The strength of this book lies in its impressive research, as reflected in its bibliographical references and its ability to piece together a coherent picture of a people who have previously been known only in a fragmentary fashion. Ironically, the richness of the material presented in this book, as well as it surfeit of detail, stories, and micro-narratives, may also be responsible for its theoretical and analytical shortcomings. However, Bosco and Raben's volume will nevertheless be of great interest to scholars, specialists, and students of Southeast Asia, particularly those working on the social history of colonial communities.
