Pub Date : 2023-10-31DOI: 10.17510/wacana.v24i3.1677
This article introduces two interconnected approaches to provenance research on anthropological facial plaster-casts taken from living individuals. It focuses on three series of facial casts taken by Dutch anthropologist Johannes Pieter Kleiweg de Zwaan (1875-1971) in the Netherlands East Indies in 1907 and 1910. It suggests that “reading” the facial casts as an archive of faces and an archive of plaster has the potential to reveal information systematically left out in their object biographies. Through this reading process, the colonial networks of control and power asymmetries which made the plaster-casting possible are examined. It seeks out additional information to bring the object closer to the person whose face was appropriated for various colonial ends. This epistemological experiment explores the first steps which can be taken to create a decolonial view of the large anthropological plaster-cast collections in European museums which have been left anonymous for decades.
本文介绍了两种相互关联的方法来研究人类面部石膏模型的来源,这些石膏模型取自活着的个体。它的重点是荷兰人类学家Johannes Pieter Kleiweg de Zwaan(1875-1971)于1907年和1910年在荷属东印度群岛拍摄的三个系列面部模型。这表明,“阅读”面部模型作为面部档案和石膏档案有可能揭示系统地遗漏在其对象传记中的信息。通过这个阅读过程,控制和权力不对称的殖民网络使石膏铸造成为可能。它寻找额外的信息,使物体更接近其面部被用于各种殖民目的的人。这个认识论实验探索了可以采取的第一步,以创建一个非殖民化的观点,大型人类学石膏模型收藏在欧洲博物馆已经匿名了几十年。
{"title":"The archive of faces and the archive of plaster; Reading anthropological facial plaster-casts taken from living individuals from the former Netherlands East Indies","authors":"","doi":"10.17510/wacana.v24i3.1677","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17510/wacana.v24i3.1677","url":null,"abstract":"This article introduces two interconnected approaches to provenance research on anthropological facial plaster-casts taken from living individuals. It focuses on three series of facial casts taken by Dutch anthropologist Johannes Pieter Kleiweg de Zwaan (1875-1971) in the Netherlands East Indies in 1907 and 1910. It suggests that “reading” the facial casts as an archive of faces and an archive of plaster has the potential to reveal information systematically left out in their object biographies. Through this reading process, the colonial networks of control and power asymmetries which made the plaster-casting possible are examined. It seeks out additional information to bring the object closer to the person whose face was appropriated for various colonial ends. This epistemological experiment explores the first steps which can be taken to create a decolonial view of the large anthropological plaster-cast collections in European museums which have been left anonymous for decades.","PeriodicalId":41677,"journal":{"name":"Wacana-Jurnal Ilmu Pengetahuan Budaya-Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia","volume":"362 ","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135929697","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-31DOI: 10.17510/wacana.v24i3.1692
The article discusses the narrative of colonial violence attached to the objects displayed in the National Museum of Indonesia in Jakarta. Taking the colonial military expedition to Banten in 1808 as a case study, this paper analyses the exhibition to show the interplay between museum as a product of colonialism and its focus on regionalism, its role in post-colonial nation-state-formation promoting national identity building, and the complexities of addressing violence. It argues that, as the museum engages with the discourse of coloniality and concurrently emphasizes national identity building, it inadvertently marginalizes the narrative of colonial violence. The findings show that, despite the abundant references to events and processes of direct and structural violence, the phenomenon of violence as an instrumental practice of colonialism has never been discussed or made the object of explicit analysis in the museum. Instead, the museum promotes a belief in a benign and benevolent Dutch imperialism.
{"title":"Marginalizing colonial violence at the beginning of the 21st century The representation of colonial military expedition to Banten of 1808 in the National Museum of Indonesia","authors":"","doi":"10.17510/wacana.v24i3.1692","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17510/wacana.v24i3.1692","url":null,"abstract":"The article discusses the narrative of colonial violence attached to the objects displayed in the National Museum of Indonesia in Jakarta. Taking the colonial military expedition to Banten in 1808 as a case study, this paper analyses the exhibition to show the interplay between museum as a product of colonialism and its focus on regionalism, its role in post-colonial nation-state-formation promoting national identity building, and the complexities of addressing violence. It argues that, as the museum engages with the discourse of coloniality and concurrently emphasizes national identity building, it inadvertently marginalizes the narrative of colonial violence. The findings show that, despite the abundant references to events and processes of direct and structural violence, the phenomenon of violence as an instrumental practice of colonialism has never been discussed or made the object of explicit analysis in the museum. Instead, the museum promotes a belief in a benign and benevolent Dutch imperialism.","PeriodicalId":41677,"journal":{"name":"Wacana-Jurnal Ilmu Pengetahuan Budaya-Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia","volume":"93 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135928576","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-31DOI: 10.17510/wacana.v24i3.1653
This article focuses on a Bugis nautical chart of Nusantara (the Malay Archipelago) from the early nineteenth century known as the Utrecht Map. There are only a few surviving copies of similar Bugis maps, all confiscated from local “pirates” during the colonial era. While graphical elements of the map undoubtedly point to prototypical European maps, careful analysis of its annotations reveals extensive linguistic modification better to reflect Bugis maritime knowledge. Not only are they completely written in Lontara’, the indigenous script of the Bugis, Euro-centric toponyms from contemporaneous maps are consistently replaced by locally derived toponyms from an oral and written tradition unknown to Europeans. In colonial frameworks, maps could be used as powerful instruments of control which eroded indigenous spatial knowledge. As part of an ongoing efforts to decolonize our understanding of maps, critique of western maps should be complemented by discussions of non-western maps which foreground indigenous knowledge or counter-mapping elements. The use of indigenous elements can be regarded as a fascinating case of counter-mapping and a decolonial effort initiated by the anonymous, everyday people of Nusantara.
{"title":"Islands, maps, and Lontara’; Bugis counter-mapping on a nineteenth-century map of Nusantara","authors":"","doi":"10.17510/wacana.v24i3.1653","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17510/wacana.v24i3.1653","url":null,"abstract":"This article focuses on a Bugis nautical chart of Nusantara (the Malay Archipelago) from the early nineteenth century known as the Utrecht Map. There are only a few surviving copies of similar Bugis maps, all confiscated from local “pirates” during the colonial era. While graphical elements of the map undoubtedly point to prototypical European maps, careful analysis of its annotations reveals extensive linguistic modification better to reflect Bugis maritime knowledge. Not only are they completely written in Lontara’, the indigenous script of the Bugis, Euro-centric toponyms from contemporaneous maps are consistently replaced by locally derived toponyms from an oral and written tradition unknown to Europeans. In colonial frameworks, maps could be used as powerful instruments of control which eroded indigenous spatial knowledge. As part of an ongoing efforts to decolonize our understanding of maps, critique of western maps should be complemented by discussions of non-western maps which foreground indigenous knowledge or counter-mapping elements. The use of indigenous elements can be regarded as a fascinating case of counter-mapping and a decolonial effort initiated by the anonymous, everyday people of Nusantara.","PeriodicalId":41677,"journal":{"name":"Wacana-Jurnal Ilmu Pengetahuan Budaya-Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia","volume":"56 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135929407","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-31DOI: 10.17510/wacana.v24i3.1656
The following personal and poetic inquiry examines Indonesian objects, art, and cultural expressions through the lensing of coloniality (A. Benítez Rojo 1992; A. Quijano and M. Ennis 2000; W.D. Mignolo 2011). The inquiry interacts with the objects, art, and cultural expressions through the creation of ekphrastic poetry – poems which describe works of art. Specifically, this inquiry examines my experiences with Dutch coloniality as a white cisgendered man with a Dutch heritage/inheritance who was born and raised in a predominantly Dutch immigrant community in West Michigan in the United States. Building from the work of Gloria Wekker and given my positionality, I am interested, “in the landscape that underlies the question, the cultural archive, and what it tells us about the continuities of the imperial construction of a dominant white Dutch self”(2016: 74). The personal, poetic aspects of this work engage the practices and experiences which have led me to where I am both in my professional and personal life. These aspects of my life within and beyond the academy allow me to examine histories critically and consider my entanglements with whiteness and within the matrix of coloniality of power through ekphrastic poetry.
{"title":"A personal and poetic inquiry into Dutch coloniality","authors":"","doi":"10.17510/wacana.v24i3.1656","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17510/wacana.v24i3.1656","url":null,"abstract":"The following personal and poetic inquiry examines Indonesian objects, art, and cultural expressions through the lensing of coloniality (A. Benítez Rojo 1992; A. Quijano and M. Ennis 2000; W.D. Mignolo 2011). The inquiry interacts with the objects, art, and cultural expressions through the creation of ekphrastic poetry – poems which describe works of art. Specifically, this inquiry examines my experiences with Dutch coloniality as a white cisgendered man with a Dutch heritage/inheritance who was born and raised in a predominantly Dutch immigrant community in West Michigan in the United States. Building from the work of Gloria Wekker and given my positionality, I am interested, “in the landscape that underlies the question, the cultural archive, and what it tells us about the continuities of the imperial construction of a dominant white Dutch self”(2016: 74). The personal, poetic aspects of this work engage the practices and experiences which have led me to where I am both in my professional and personal life. These aspects of my life within and beyond the academy allow me to examine histories critically and consider my entanglements with whiteness and within the matrix of coloniality of power through ekphrastic poetry.","PeriodicalId":41677,"journal":{"name":"Wacana-Jurnal Ilmu Pengetahuan Budaya-Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia","volume":"355 ","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135929542","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-31DOI: 10.17510/wacana.v24i3.1660
As a foreign exchange earner for the Indonesian government, the tourism industry has currently prioritized ten tourist destinations. Problematically, this promotion of the beauty and diversity of nature and ethnicty marginalizes and exoticizes a number of ethnic group and their areas. This promotion, which can be traced back to colonial times, still reflects the Dutch colonial legacy, particularly Darwinian social evolution. To clarify this situation, this article illustrates tourism promotion in the historical and socio-cultural contexts of Borobodur in Java and the megalith villages of the Ngadha and Manggarai people of Flores. It investigates the representation and articulation of colonial perceptions which influence tourist promotion programmes, and their impact on the perceptions of tourists and local residents. An examination of the formation of the Indonesian tourist industry also reveals between the Dutch colonial control of knowledge, the vision of the Indonesian government, tourists desires, and local stakeholder expectation of this promotion. It ends with an outline of the efforts of local residents in the megalithic villages in Flores to decolonize the tourism promotion narratives of the Indonesian government.
{"title":"Borobudur temple and the megalith villages of the Ngadha and Manggarai in the light of Indonesia’s tourist promotion; A legacy of colonial representation","authors":"","doi":"10.17510/wacana.v24i3.1660","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17510/wacana.v24i3.1660","url":null,"abstract":"As a foreign exchange earner for the Indonesian government, the tourism industry has currently prioritized ten tourist destinations. Problematically, this promotion of the beauty and diversity of nature and ethnicty marginalizes and exoticizes a number of ethnic group and their areas. This promotion, which can be traced back to colonial times, still reflects the Dutch colonial legacy, particularly Darwinian social evolution. To clarify this situation, this article illustrates tourism promotion in the historical and socio-cultural contexts of Borobodur in Java and the megalith villages of the Ngadha and Manggarai people of Flores. It investigates the representation and articulation of colonial perceptions which influence tourist promotion programmes, and their impact on the perceptions of tourists and local residents. An examination of the formation of the Indonesian tourist industry also reveals between the Dutch colonial control of knowledge, the vision of the Indonesian government, tourists desires, and local stakeholder expectation of this promotion. It ends with an outline of the efforts of local residents in the megalithic villages in Flores to decolonize the tourism promotion narratives of the Indonesian government.","PeriodicalId":41677,"journal":{"name":"Wacana-Jurnal Ilmu Pengetahuan Budaya-Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia","volume":"191 ","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135928132","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-31DOI: 10.17510/wacana.v24i3.1688
{"title":"Stuart Robson (editor and translator), \"Kidung Pañji Margasmara; A Middle Javanese Romance (by Kĕmuling Rat Dyah Atapêng Raje)\"","authors":"","doi":"10.17510/wacana.v24i3.1688","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17510/wacana.v24i3.1688","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41677,"journal":{"name":"Wacana-Jurnal Ilmu Pengetahuan Budaya-Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia","volume":"63 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135929994","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-31DOI: 10.17510/wacana.v24i3.1655
Discussions on post-coloniality are often situated either in the centre of the colonizer or colonial metropole or the centre of the former colonized. The local perspective, especially in Indonesia, seems overlooked in existing literature, whereas it could be regarded as the cultural archive of the colonial era to post-independence Indonesia. Edward Said (1994) has said that cultural archives are a storehouse of a particular knowledge and structures of attitude and a reference to and structure of feelings. Gloria Wekker (2016) elaborates on the cultural archive; it has influenced historical cultural configurations as well as current dominant, cherished self-representations and culture. This paper examines the role of two provincial museums in Indonesia: Mpu Tantular Museum Surabaya and the Sonobudoyo Museum Yogyakarta, as cultural archives for each region. Since their foundation in the colonial era by the Europeans and local elite figures, these museums have seen many political changes. This paper delves into the archives and exhibitions of the museums to assess how they deal with their exhibition narratives as a colonial legacy, and to what extent these provincial museums have been involved in decolonization discourse. It proposes another way of looking at the post-colonial situation in Indonesian museums, not at the centre but more on the periphery.
{"title":"Looking back from the periphery; Situating Indonesian provincial museums as cultural archives in the late-colonial to post-colonial era","authors":"","doi":"10.17510/wacana.v24i3.1655","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17510/wacana.v24i3.1655","url":null,"abstract":"Discussions on post-coloniality are often situated either in the centre of the colonizer or colonial metropole or the centre of the former colonized. The local perspective, especially in Indonesia, seems overlooked in existing literature, whereas it could be regarded as the cultural archive of the colonial era to post-independence Indonesia. Edward Said (1994) has said that cultural archives are a storehouse of a particular knowledge and structures of attitude and a reference to and structure of feelings. Gloria Wekker (2016) elaborates on the cultural archive; it has influenced historical cultural configurations as well as current dominant, cherished self-representations and culture. This paper examines the role of two provincial museums in Indonesia: Mpu Tantular Museum Surabaya and the Sonobudoyo Museum Yogyakarta, as cultural archives for each region. Since their foundation in the colonial era by the Europeans and local elite figures, these museums have seen many political changes. This paper delves into the archives and exhibitions of the museums to assess how they deal with their exhibition narratives as a colonial legacy, and to what extent these provincial museums have been involved in decolonization discourse. It proposes another way of looking at the post-colonial situation in Indonesian museums, not at the centre but more on the periphery.","PeriodicalId":41677,"journal":{"name":"Wacana-Jurnal Ilmu Pengetahuan Budaya-Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia","volume":"30 ","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135928581","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-31DOI: 10.17510/wacana.v24i3.1684
{"title":"Wim van den Doel, \"SNOUCK; Biografi ilmuwan Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje\"","authors":"","doi":"10.17510/wacana.v24i3.1684","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17510/wacana.v24i3.1684","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41677,"journal":{"name":"Wacana-Jurnal Ilmu Pengetahuan Budaya-Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia","volume":"13 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135930002","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-31DOI: 10.17510/wacana.v24i3.1661
The article analyses early European knowledge about Belu, a historical region in Central Timor which, although “belonging” mostly to the Dutch colonial sphere, still had a position of cultural-ritual centrality on a Timor-wide level. Before the mid-nineteenth century, the region was, from a Dutch point of view, largely unknown in terms of political hierarchies, social structure, and economic opportunities. However, three officially commissioned authors, A.G. Brouwer, W.L. Rogge, and H.J. Grijzen, wrote extensive reports about Belu in 1849, 1865, and 1904, in which they attempted to understand local society and the opportunities they offered the colonial state. The article explores history at the interstices, looking at spaces between colonial realms and the realities which blurred European preconceptions, and the local Belunese agency which can be gleaned through a critical reading of the three authors.
{"title":"Exemplary centre and \"terra incognita\"; Excursions, diplomacy, and appropriation of colonial knowledge in Belu, Timor","authors":"","doi":"10.17510/wacana.v24i3.1661","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17510/wacana.v24i3.1661","url":null,"abstract":"The article analyses early European knowledge about Belu, a historical region in Central Timor which, although “belonging” mostly to the Dutch colonial sphere, still had a position of cultural-ritual centrality on a Timor-wide level. Before the mid-nineteenth century, the region was, from a Dutch point of view, largely unknown in terms of political hierarchies, social structure, and economic opportunities. However, three officially commissioned authors, A.G. Brouwer, W.L. Rogge, and H.J. Grijzen, wrote extensive reports about Belu in 1849, 1865, and 1904, in which they attempted to understand local society and the opportunities they offered the colonial state. The article explores history at the interstices, looking at spaces between colonial realms and the realities which blurred European preconceptions, and the local Belunese agency which can be gleaned through a critical reading of the three authors.","PeriodicalId":41677,"journal":{"name":"Wacana-Jurnal Ilmu Pengetahuan Budaya-Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia","volume":"87 ","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135929567","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-31DOI: 10.17510/wacana.v24i3.1687
{"title":"\"In memoriam\", Victoria Maria Clara van Groenendael","authors":"","doi":"10.17510/wacana.v24i3.1687","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17510/wacana.v24i3.1687","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41677,"journal":{"name":"Wacana-Jurnal Ilmu Pengetahuan Budaya-Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia","volume":"310 ","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135928730","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}