Java on the Way Around the World: European Travellers in the Dutch East Indies and the Transnational Politics of Imperial Knowledge Management, 1850-1870

Author(s)

  • Mikko Toivanen

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18352/bmgn-lchr.10742

Abstract

This article examines contemporary Dutch reactions to the travels in the Dutch East Indies of three non-Dutch Europeans and internationally popular midnineteenth- century travel writers: the Austrian Ida Pfeiffer, the German Friedrich Gerstäcker and the French Ludovic de Beauvoir. Their journeys were published in real time by the press both on Java and in the Netherlands, and the subsequent travel books were widely discussed in Dutch newspapers and specialised journals. This article examines this reporting and the ensuing public debates as attempts to control the flow of information from the colony, a process in which both the colonial authorities and opposition parties saw an opportunity to mobilise popular foreign authors in support of their respective political agendas. Building on recent work on imperial knowledge networks and using the example of popular travel writing, this article argues that those circuits often had a more transnational and trans-European character than commonly acknowledged.

In dit artikel worden eigentijdse Nederlandse reacties op de reizen van drie Europese auteurs in Nederlands-Indië bestudeerd. Deze schrijvers van reisverhalen – de Oostenrijkse Ida Pfeiffer, de Duitser Friedrich Gerstäcker en de Fransman Ludovic de Beauvoir – genoten in het midden van de negentiende eeuw internationale faam. Zowel de Javaanse als de Nederlandse pers plaatsten actuele berichten over hun verblijven in de Nederlandse kolonie, en hun reisverslagen werden bediscussieerd in een groot aantal Nederlandse kranten en gespecialiseerde tijdschriften. Deze verslaggeving en de daarop volgende publieke debatten worden in dit artikel benaderd als pogingen om de informatiestromen vanuit de kolonie te controleren. Zowel de koloniale autoriteiten alsook de oppositiepartijen zagen het hierbij mogelijk om populaire buitenlandse auteurs voor hun politieke agenda’s te mobiliseren. Voortbouwend op recent onderzoek naar koloniale kennisnetwerken en gebruikmakend van het voorbeeld van populaire reisverhalen, betoog ik in dit artikel dat deze netwerken vaak een meer transnationaal en Europees karakter hadden dan in het algemeen wordt erkend.

 

This article is part of the special issue ‘The Dutch Empire and Europe. Demands and Opportunities’.

Dit artikel maakt deel uit van het themanummer ‘The Dutch Empire and Europe. Demands and Opportunities’.

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Author Biography

  • Mikko Toivanen

    Mikko Toivanen is currently finishing his PhD in history at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. Previously he has studied at the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom and at Leiden University in the Netherlands. His research focuses on nineteenth-century practices of colonial travel in, and travel writing from, the British and Dutch colonies of South and Southeast Asia, and more widely on the culture of empire in its global context. He is also the author of the book The Travels of Pieter Albert Bik: Writings from the Dutch Colonial World of the Early Nineteenth Century (Leiden 2017). E-mail: mikko.toivanen@eui.eu.

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Published

2019-09-26

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Toivanen, M. (2019). Java on the Way Around the World: European Travellers in the Dutch East Indies and the Transnational Politics of Imperial Knowledge Management, 1850-1870. BMGN - Low Countries Historical Review, 134(3), 47-71. https://doi.org/10.18352/bmgn-lchr.10742