Colonial Government Research Articles

Refusing Child-Stealing States: Settler Capitalism and the Ends of Canada's Indigenous Child Removal System

Abstract: This article examines the relationship between Canadian sovereignty and the removal of Indigenous children into non-native foster and adoptive homes. In it, I analyze how colonial child protection regimes following Residential Schools—from the Sixties Scoop (1951–1991) to the present Millennium Scoop—continue Canada's war against Indigenous lives and nations. From Sixties Scoop survivor narratives, ethnographic and archival data, and Indigenous and Black feminist theory, I highlight the gendered character of colonial sovereignty and capitalism. This paper argues that daily practices of refusal and care as an elaboration of Indigenous political orders unmake the grounds of colonial polity.

The making of a ‘narco-state’: Opium consumption, trade and regulations on the northeastern frontier of British India

Opium was one of the highly valued-commodities traded in the northeastern frontier of British India. This article argues that the introduction of opium in the region was in line with the British policy of introducing high-value commodities trade in the colonies. This policy helped extract raw materials and expand exchanges in new territories. Second, this policy of introducing cash crops was subtle. Opium was introduced as a cash crop decades before tea was ‘discovered’ in the region. The acreage remained low as compared to tea plantations. Opium’s value in terms of its revenue-generating capacity was the highest in comparison with tea and salt. Lastly, opium was disposed of through the state-run, monopolistic trade networks. Opium cultivation was discontinued in the British territories in Assam in 1860. All demands for poppy were subsequently met by importing opium from the rest of South Asia. The state-run and state-promoted tea and opium trades sustained the empire’s control over resources and lubricated the state machinery. Monopoly over the opium trade was crucial to control labour/resources and finance the Empire. The colonial regime built the ‘narco-state’ in the northeastern frontier to expand and sustain its trading interests. The exploration of the colonial policies and measures in this regard also interrogates the nature of political economy in the region in the period under study.

Bataviaasch Genootschap Van Wetenschappen and the Institutionalization of Science in the Dutch East Indies 1778-1942

The background of this research is that Science in Indonesia develops through institutions, not ideas, people, or instruments. This research aims to describe the institutionalization of scientific institutions in the Dutch East Indies. The historical method analyzes various resources to aid the reconstruction of the Dutch East Indies’s science institutionalization process. This research uses archives from ANRI (National Archives of the Republic of Indonesia) regarding Bataviaasch Genootschap van Wetenschappen (The Batavia Society of Arts and Science). Archives from other scientific institutions, such as Bogor and Cibodas Botanical Gardens, are also used to illustrate the institutionalization process. The findings of this research include studies on the process and the necessity to pay attention to elements such as rules, norms, cultural benefits, roles, and material resources. Institutionalizing science and technology in the Dutch East Indies underwent at least three stages: the emergence of amateur scientists from Europe, the efforts to build scientific groups, and the establishment of science institutions. This research concludes that the first two stages were outside the bureaucratic channels of the colonial government. However, in the third stage, scientists needed help to escape the role of the colonial bureaucracy in developing these scientific institutions. Bataviaasch Genootschap van Wetenschappen, founded in 1778, was a private organization studying commerce, agriculture, and humanities. It played a significant role in encouraging various other research institutions

The Role of Local Cultural Heritage in Community Empowerment: The Case of Gentur Lantern in Jambudipa Village, Indonesia

ABSTRACT Ngalogat is a type of pesantren tradition in Indonesia that is increasingly recognized as a local cultural heritage. However, there have been limited studies on the local potentials and assets in Jambudipa Village. This paper aims to explore the transformation of the Ngalogat tradition into new commodities, specifically Gentur lantern crafts, as a contribution to heritage studies. The research utilized a phenomenological approach involving observation, in-depth interviews, and documentation. The results indicate that the preservation of Ngalogat as a Gentur lamp commodity is indirectly influenced by religious figures advising students (Santri) living in Jambudipa and promoting the iconic heritage to residents. This has led the local government to initiate One Village One Product program, involving locals in producing Gentur lamps. While the pesantren traditions were once viewed with suspicion during the Dutch colonial regime, the post-independence era has brought hope for preserving local cultural heritage as a national identity and a driver of national development. However, these potentials have not been fully realized as authentic crafts of the people. This study suggests that the government should assist local communities in nominating intangible cultural assets to the World Heritage Committee (WHC) to gain recognition and protection of local identity.

‘The right to fall in love and kiss without consequences’: on racialized Muslim women, ‘mixed’ intimacies, and Dutch sexual exceptionalism

ABSTRACT What does political concern with ‘mixed’ intimacies articulate about the nation? This article unpacks this question by analysing a Dutch poster campaign on self-determination, organized by the Rotterdam municipality and a feminist NGO, that visualized ‘mixed’ couples intimately kissing. It uses a visual analysis of the posters, combined with a post-structural policy analysis of a variety of documents that were essential to the production of this campaign. First, the article argues that the campaign centred on the racialized figure of the Muslim woman, problematizing her self-determination through a framework of liberal-secular notions of freedom and agency. Then, by historicizing the Dutch preoccupation with ‘mixed’ intimacies as a mode of (colonial) governance, the article accounts for how the campaign engages with particular kinds of ‘mixing’ to underscore Dutch sexual exceptionalism. The article argues the campaign can be seen as part of the contemporary configuration of the Dutch ‘Muslim Question’, mobilizing the intimate lives of racialized Muslim women to problematize Muslims as deviant populations. Overall, this article explores how representations of, and discourses on ‘mixed’ intimacies can be used as prisms to study the gendered and racialized state management of population, as well as (shifting) imaginaries of the nation in the Netherlands.

Colonial policy, ecological transformations, and agricultural “improvement”: comparing agricultural yields and expansion in the Spanish and U.S. Philippines, 1870–1925 CE

Burgeoning global trade and colonial policies promoted transformations in land use and agriculture throughout tropical regions in the 19th and 20th centuries, but the local and regional ecological consequences of landscape changes are still being identified and analysed. The Philippine Archipelago, which experienced successive colonial regimes across more than 7100 islands, exemplifies the multiplicity of ecological outcomes produced by these transformations. To better characterise diverse landscape change, we use colonial censuses and datasets to assess land use, production and agricultural yields in the Philippines during the late Spanish and early U.S. colonial periods (ca. 1870–1925). Our novel digital, quantitative analysis indicates that, at the national and provincial scales, agricultural production and land use increased for all major crops in both periods, while agricultural yields were mostly constant. Our results suggest that colonial investments to “improve” Philippine agriculture, specifically their efforts to increase production per hectare, were not effective. Our provincial-scale analysis also confirms the importance of distinct labour patterns, geographies and socio-political arrangements in defining this period’s ecological consequences, and we provide quantified and historically contextualised data in a format amenable to ecologists to promote future, localised historic ecological research.

Ratio Legis Of The Principle Of Sovereignty In The Regulation Of Plantation Business As A Settlement Of Land Disputes/Conflicts

Plantation businesses have existed since the past, especially growing rapidly during the Dutch colonial era. The Dutch Colonial Government then made several laws and regulations regarding the regulation of land . Currently, plantations are under the umbrella of the Plantation Law and UUCK. In terms of Legis ratio, the inclusion of "the principle of sovereignty in the Plantation Law actually increases the legitimacy of Plantation Companies to take MHA Ulayat land by force and arbitrarily. The principle of sovereignty in the Plantation Law is not in line with the state's right to control all natural resources in Indonesia's territorial territory. Land disputes and conflicts leading to plantation land are an indirect implication of the Principle of Sovereignty, which is systematically formalized in the Plantation Law to strengthen the position of Plantation Companies, even though it reduces the sacred value of a nation and State, which is given through the principle of sovereignty to Plantation Companies

Ch’ixi animals in two environmental conflicts: evocations of Humboldt penguins and Huemuls

ABSTRACT The agency of animals in technoscience has been much debated in science and technology studies, animal studies, and environmental collective action studies. In particular, the prominence of animals as mediators in environmental conflict opens avenues for dialogue with perspectives from the Global South, especially in the face of persistent colonial mining-energy regimes. The evocation of human-animal encounters contributed to the closure of two electricity generation projects in Chile and provided an insight into the surprises and complications of the inclusion of animal species – huemuls and Humboldt penguins – in distinct environmental campaigns. Although the influence of such ‘charismatic’ animals stands out as a fruitful approach to understanding the role of animals in environmental conflicts, it is helpful to consider alternative anti-colonial perspectives from the global South. In particular, the ch'ixi metaphor of the Aymara people – representing the politics of beings resulting from the juxtaposition of antagonistic realities, or what is and is not at the same time – creates productive frictions in human-animal encounters that differs from the notion of charismatic animals as mediators, especially when it comes to modes of resistance by local communities. This perspective recognizes the differentiated strength of the semiotic-material mediations of nonhumans that can emerge from human-animal ch'ixi encounters in collective environmental actions.

The Kingdom of Loloda: The Dynamics of Economic, Political, and Military in North Maluku During the Dutch Collonial Power (1817-1942)

This research was conducted based on the fact that the Loloda Kingdom had been lost in history since 1322. The remark that in that year, Loloda did not attend the meeting of the Maluku kings who succeeded in forming the Moti Alliance (<i>Motir Verbond</i> [1322-1343]) which was initiated by the King of Ternate VII, Sida Arif Malamo (1322-1331). Since that year also Loloda, considered not part of the "world of Maluku". Furthermore, <i>de jure</i>, during the VOC period (1627-1800), all Loloda was declared to have disappeared, because Ternate was annexed during the reign of Sultan Amir Hamzah (1627-1648). But <i>de facto</i>, the political structure of the Loloda kingdom actually still existed during that period in the Northwest Coast of Halmahera. The results showed that the cooperation between Ternate and the Dutch colonial government since 1817 through political contracts on the grounds of mutually beneficial cooperation and friendship, actually caused all of Loloda's economic, political and military power to be weakened and taken over by Ternate to Dutch interests. Although Loloda was in the shadow of the power of Ternate and the Netherlands, the kingdom was still able to carry out its economic, political and military functions during the period 1817-1942, even though it was under the control of Ternate with the consent of the Dutch. This study aims to explain the existence of the presence of the Loloda Kingdom in the economic, political, and military dynamics that occurred in North Maluku until the collapse of the power of the Dutch Colonial Government in Indonesia in 1942. This study uses historical research methods, with the following stages: 1) tracing and collecting sources historical sources from literature, archives, field, and documentation (heuristics); 2) analysis and synthesis (criticism, verification, and validation of data; 3) interpretation of the results of analysis and data synthesis; and 4) writing history (historiography).

Towards Agricultural Development: A Study of the Americas Public School System in Bukidnon 1901-1940

The resettlement of Bukidnon following its separation from the Misamis province in 1907 was formalized under the Special Provincial Governmental Act, also known as Act 1693. This transition sparked various resistance movements within the province, including the Tauidis outlaws and the Tungud movement, both formed to oppose America's resettlement campaign in Bukidnon. After its suppression by the constabulary the American administration introduced an education system aimed at pacifying the Bukidnon population while fostering economic self-sufficiency in the province. This paper aims to analyze and evaluate the role of the education system in Bukidnon as a crucial component of America's pacification and integration campaign in the province. It addresses key questions such as: How did the America introduce education in Bukidnon? What were the education policies implemented by America in the region? And what impact did education have on the economic and political integration of Bukidnon? The study uses an archival approach, relying on primary sources including the Reports of the Director of Education from 1906 to 1938, as well as the Annual Reports of the Philippine Commission, the Report of the Auditor of the Philippines, and the Annual Report of the Governor General of the Philippine Islands. These sources offer a descriptive and narrative account of education in Bukidnon within the broader context of America's campaign of pacification and integration. This research is significant as it rationalizes the impact of America's education on the agricultural systems and food production in the province. By examining the development of the education system, this study contributes to a deeper understanding of the dynamics of colonial governance and its impact on local communities.

Mining versus Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas: Traditional Land Uses of the Anisininew in the Red Sucker Lake First Nation, Manitoba, Canada

Indigenous traditional land uses, including hunting, fishing, sacred activities, and land-based education at the Red Sucker Lake First Nation (RSLFN) in Manitoba, Canada, are impacted by mining. The Red Sucker Lake First Nation (RSLFN) people want their territories’ land and water to be protected for traditional uses, culture, and ecological integrity. Towards this goal, their Island Lake Tribal Council sought support for an Indigenous-protected and conserved area (IPCA) in their territory, outside of existing mining claims, but without success. The two-eyed seeing approach was adopted in this study. Traditional land use mapping and interviews were undertaken with 21 Indigenous people from the RSLFN, showing that many traditional land uses are concentrated on greenstone belts. The interviews revealed that mining exploration has resulted in large petroleum spills, noise distress, private property destruction, wildlife die-offs, and animal population declines. These issues negatively impact RSLFN’s traditional land use practices, ecosystem integrity, and community health. Governments need to partner with Indigenous communities to reach their biodiversity targets, particularly considering northern Canada’s peatlands, including those in the RSLFN territory, surpassing Amazon forests for carbon storage. The role of critical minerals in renewable energy and geopolitics has colonial governments undermining Indigenous rights, climate stabilization, and biodiversity to prioritize extractivism. Mining at the RSLFN has environmental impacts from exploration to decommissioning and after, as well as the massive infrastructure required that includes roads, hydro, and massive energy supplies, with a proposed multimedia national Northern Corridor to export RSLFN’s resources and other resources to six ports.

Beyond recognition: Memory, desire and the hellish zone of nonbeing in encounters with otherness

AbstractThis paper is an exploration of possible journeys towards freedom from colonial states of mind. These inner worlds are the distorting forms of self‐observation brought about by living under oppressive conditions, and includes those associated with colonialism itself, and also coloniality, the enduring legacy left behind by colonial regimes. Fanon describes the effect of colonialism on subjectivity as creating “a zone of nonbeing” and suggests freedom from it requires internally “an authentic upheaval.” This paper draws the parallels between Fanon's zone of nonbeing and states of mind untethered from the shackles of colonial definition. These states, akin to reverie are potentially the place from which the quest for a new authenticity of being might be found.

Carla Lonzi och krisens kritik 1969-1970

Departing from the Italian critic, art historian, and feminist Carla Lonzi’s essay ”La critica è potere” (Critique is power) from 1970, this article discusses a crisis immanent to the concepts of art and history that dominated the late 1960s Italy. In line with Lonzi’s argumentation, this crisis resulted in what the communist Massimo Cacciari described as ”negative thinking” in 1969, and what Lonzi in her essay describes as a ”critique of the crisis”. Beyond a universal consciousness and its presupposed identities, as they were reproduced within the party form and at academic institutions during this period, artists, workers, and intellectuals turned away from formal organization, and to informal, collective practices. The separatist, decentralized and anti-authoritarian network Rivolta Femminile, founded by Lonzi in 1970, show how the subjects of crisis and critique emerge from a patriarchal and colonial regime of sexual repression.

'Microcosm of the Pacific': Colonial encounters at the Central Medical School in Fiji.

While larger British colonies in Africa and Asia generally had their own medical services, the British took a different approach in the South Pacific by working with other colonial administrations. Together, colonial administrations of the South Pacific operated a centralised medical service based on the existing system of Native Medical Practitioners in Fiji. The cornerstone of this system was the Central Medical School, established in 1928. Various actors converged on the school despite its apparent isolation from global centres of power. It was run by the colonial government of Fiji, staffed by British-trained tutors, attended by students from twelve colonies, funded and supervised by the Rockefeller Foundation, and jointly managed by the colonial administrations of Britain, Australia, New Zealand, France and the United States. At the time of its establishment, it was seen as an experiment in international cooperation, to the point that the High Commissioner for the Western Pacific called it a 'microcosm of the Pacific'. Why did the British establish an intercolonial medical school in Oceania, so far from the imperial metropole? How did the medical curriculum at the Central Medical School standardise to meet the imperial norm? And in what ways did colonial encounters occur at the Central Medical School? This article provides answers to these questions by comparing archival documents acquired from five countries. In doing so, this article will pay special attention to the ways in which this medical training institution enabled enduring intercolonial encounters in the Pacific Islands.

Techniques in Drafting Contracts

At this time, it appears that there is a lack of discussion of various basic laws, such as civil law, commercial law, criminal law, constitutional law, contract law, and others. Our contract law still uses the regulations of the Dutch Colonial Government contained in Book III of the Civil Code. Book III of the Civil Code adheres to an open system, meaning that parties are free to enter into contracts with anyone, determine the terms, implementation and form of the contract, whether oral or written. This research aims to find out the principles and Pre-Drafting in contract design and the technical stages in contract design. The research specifications are descriptive in nature using normative juridical research. The approach method used is a statutory approach. Data obtained through document study and analyzed using qualitative methods. Based on the research results, the first is related to the principles in designing contracts, namely there are two legal principles that must be considered, namely: beginsselen der contrachtsvrijheid or party autonomy, and pacta sunt servanda. Beginselen der contrachtsvrijheid or party autonomy, namely that the parties are free to agree on what they want, provided that it does not conflict with the law, public order and morality. Regarding pre-preparation of contracts, there are four things that must be considered by the parties, namely. Identity of the parties, initial research on related aspects, creation of an MOU, and negotiations. The second research result is that there must be stages in contract design, contract title, opening, related parties, racital, contents of the contract and closing.

Removing a colonial anachronism - The decolonization of heritage in the 1970s Hong Kong

Abstract This article explores the decolonization of heritage politics in 1970s Hong Kong. It firstly revisits recent scholars’ work on Hong Kong heritage politics and the transformation of Hong Kong’s cultural identity. It shows how people’s perceptions of their colonial heritage and history in Hong Kong have changed since the 1970s. Secondly, it outlines the city’s cultural heritage policy framework after the 1967 Riots, inspired by the Cultural Revolution. It analyses how the colonial government intentionally rebranded the city’s colonial heritage as an anachronism to justify its new narrative of Hong Kong and its cultural identity in the 1970s. It also employs the demolition of the former Kowloon Railway Station building in the 1970s as a case study to discuss how the colonial government decolonized local colonial structures through its new cultural heritage policy approach after the Riots. Finally, by employing the case study of the demolished Central Star Ferry Pier in the 2000s, this article argues there was a change in people’s perceptions of the city’s colonial history in the early postcolonial period of Hong Kong. A more active notion of Hong Kong’s cultural identity is also being articulated in the uncertain future due to the city’s recent rapid political and social changes influenced by the mainland authority.

Bordered welfare in Australia: Income management as a bordering technology of neoliberal and colonial governance

In this article we investigate the imposition of compulsory income management on racialised categories of welfare recipient in Australia, identify the contribution made by neoliberalism and settler colonialism in shaping that policy, and characterise income management as a form of ‘bordered welfare’. We begin by acknowledging that key features of neoliberal governance include an ideological aversion to the provision of welfare and the shifting of responsibility onto individuals to promote their own financial security and wellbeing. This has been accompanied by punitive approaches to welfare provision for those perceived to be deficient neoliberal citizens and a commitment to using financial levers, including the welfare system, to shape all manner of human behaviour. We trace the contours of the income management system and report the views of Aboriginal organisations and community leaders about their differential treatment as welfare recipients, noting that restrictions on financial autonomy are a well-documented form of surveillance and control historically directed towards Aboriginal Peoples in Australia. We conclude that this system operates as a form of bordered welfare that classifies certain categories of Aboriginal people as deficient citizens, subjecting them to differential, and detrimental, treatment driven by the ideologies and technologies of both neoliberalism and settler colonialism.

Kekeringan: Kelangkaan Pangan dan Kriminalitas di Lamongan, 1892-1940

This paper aims to explain the natural disaster of drought which influenced the decline in the economy and high crime in Lamongan. This paper uses historical research methods which include the stages of topic selection, heuristics, verification, interpretation, and historiography by paying attention to the focus of the study on urban issues, especially environmental and social history. Based on research results, it is known that the drought in Lamongan was caused by climate anomalies and erratic climate change. This drought has had various impacts, ranging from a lack of water supply for agriculture, scarcity of food to the rise of crime such as theft. The efforts to overcome drought were carried out by the colonial government with the cooperation of local residents, such as carrying out repairs to reservoirs, holding prayer events, and joint celebrations to ask God for help. Even though this drought disaster cannot be avoided, its impact can be minimized with mitigation efforts.

Eksil Banten dan Terbentuknya Komunitas Muslim di Minahasa Abad XIX

This article discusses the socio-cultural life and development of the exiled Muslim community from Banten in the Minahasa Residency, which was a location for exile in line with the Dutch colonial government's policy of placing exiles from Banten in the Manado (Minahasa) Residency throughout the 19th century. The historical method used in this research is by using the 19th century Colonial Archives stored in the National Archives of the Republic of Indonesia, travel reports, and local sources, especially manuscripts kept by their descendants in Tomohon and Minahasa. The findings in this research are: First, who are the figures from Banten who were exiled in Minahasa. Second, the reason Minahasa was chosen as the location of exile for the Dutch Colonial Government. Third, the form of adaptation carried out by the exiled community in Sarongsong village, Minahasa, Java. fourth, what is the relationship between Islam and Christianity after the arrival of exiles from Banten in Manado and Minahasa.

Sekolah Radja "Kweekschool Fort de Kock": Exploring History and Role in Teacher Education in the Netherlands East-Indies

This research aims to analyze the background and history of establishment, contributions, and educational impacts of the presence of the "School Radja," Kweekschool Fort de Kock, on indigenous students in the Dutch East Indies. The method employed is historical methodology, involving the collection, analysis, and interpretation of various historical sources related to the Kweekschool Fort de Kock school with new perspectives on methodology, methods, theories, and themes in historical research, social sciences, and particularly education. The findings indicate that the establishment of Kweekschool Fort de Kock was part of Dutch colonial efforts to educate and control the indigenous population in the Dutch East Indies. This school provided teacher education for indigenous students with the aim of creating educators loyal to the colonial government. In conclusion, the existence of Kweekschool Fort de Kock played a significant role in the history of education in the Dutch East Indies, aiming to educate the nation's children but also reflecting the dynamics of colonial power influencing the education process and cultural identity of indigenous students. This study underscores the importance of understanding the historical context of colonial education in evaluating the educational legacy left behind and its impact on indigenous communities.