An ‘Indies’ Couple: Colonial Communities and Issues Surrounding Identity in the Dutch East Indies, ca. 1890-1930s

Abstract

The life-stories of two individuals – the married couple Johanna Bezoet de Bie and Alexander MacNeill – provide the context for discussion of segments of the upper strata of the Dutch creole communities in the Dutch East Indies/Colonial Indonesia around the turn of the twentieth century. In particular, it focuses on the characteristic pervasiveness of regular family formation and sociability among people established there, in some cases, over several generations. In addition to its exploitation of recently digitalised materials relating to family history, the reconstruction attempted here also makes extensive use of the visual record, in a context in which the agency of the photograph is much to the fore. The argument turns, however, on the extent to which the couple in question sought to differentiate – even distance – themselves from the extensively referenced Indisch environment in which they were located, and in so doing underscores the complexity and fluidity of diasporic identities.