Project leader: Dr. Alicia Schrikker

PhD Students: Alexander van der Meer and Philip Post

Postdoc: dr. Sanne Ravensbergen

PhD Project 1: Reproducing past, present and future: colonial visions and experience in Asia in the residencies

This project focuses on the regional office of the residenten and assistent-residenten, or governors and commanders, as their eighteenth-century predecessors were called. These men operated like autocrats, carrying executive and judicial powers. They were responsible for collecting taxes, public order and political relations in their regions. Coercion, mediation and diplomacy formed the major means to achieve this. In VOC times it was customary to write down a report about the status quo, with advice for the successors. These memories van overgave are extremely informative about local society, political relations and colonial planning. The second source genre that will be examined cross-sectionally are the local official journals or dagregisters.

Conducted by Philip Post

PhD Project 2: Spirited narratives of purpose and progress: church-society engagement alongside the (Company-) state

This research will look at the creation of institutional memory in the church. While the aims of the church seem obvious, the narrative of purpose developed by the church officials is less evident, but it will surface through a longitudinal reading of the sources. Therefore Phd Project 2 is set up in the same way as Project 1, except that religion takes in a more explicit position. It focuses on perceptions of 'Dutch Sovereignty and the role of Protestantism; Indigenous religions and political culture; Social hierarchies in society; Nature and geography; Local history.

Conducted by Alexander van der Meer 

Postdoc Project 3: Building cultures of legality: lawmaking and anxiety in the office of the Governor General

This postdoc project takes up the complex task of understanding the process of law-making in a colonial society where legal pluralities were the norm. The project focuses on the office of the Governor General or Algemene Secretarie as it started to be called in the nineteenth-century century. It looks at the ordinances that were issued from this office. Such ordinances were sometimes initiated from the Netherlands, but most often they arose out of local issues. The printed ordinances for the VOC period were collected in compendia at the time, and have been published in the nineteenth century by government archivist Van der Chijs. The nineteenth-century ordinances were collected and published each year in the Staatsblad voor Nederlands-Indië. The ordinances are very diverse and range from instructions for tax farming to the issue of travel passes or criminal punishments.

Conducted by Sanne Ravensbergen