Laborer Identification and Monitoring System: Dactyloscopy on the Plantations of East Sumatra, 1926-1980

Abstract

This study aims to explore and discuss laborer identification and monitoring systems on East Sumatran plantations during 1926-1980. It is focused on the implementation of dactyloscopy, archives that have never been researched it all, which had replaced the anthropometric identification system as the reference to determine the criminal justice system. The data used is the dactyloscopy archive in the office of the Sumatra Plantation Company Cooperation Agency and the Indonesian Plantation Museum in Medan City. Data were analyzed using a historiographic approach. The study found that dactyloscopy was part of the modernization of the administrative and bureaucratic systems in plantations. The novelty of the study that the implementation of dactyloscopy in plantation communities is in line with the high crime of labor against employers. Therefore, there is a major distinction in the implementation of dactyloscopy before and after the independence which has been influenced by the logic of colonialism and independence. During the colonialism period, dactyloscopy was used to identify and monitor taming laborersin plantations, while post-independence and nationalization it was used as a modern labor control system.