Marieke Bloembergen

Martijn Eickhoff

Presents a new approach to heritage formation in Asia, conveying the power of the material remains of the past.

A Cultural History

The Politics of Heritage in Indonesia

Dutch colonial presentations at the world exhibitions in the period 1880-1931 served to legitimize the Dutch imperialist project and highlight the problem of Dutch identity and the Netherlands' place in the world. At these exhibitions, the Netherlands showed off its colonies by erecting models of schools, sugar-factories, bridges, and railways exhibits, which were meant to give proof of the good works of modern colonial administration and enterprise. Not only were there displays of ethnographic objects, life-size temples and villages inhabited by authentic Javanese and Sumatrans were brought to Europe specifically for these expositions. Their presence took the viewer into an "Other" world that provided an "immediacy" for visitors to the exhibition. While these colonial spectacles helped legitimize Dutch imperialism project, they also provided lenses for understanding the colonial world as it was constructed according to the prevailing evolutionist worldview at the time.

The Netherlands and the Dutch East Indies at the World Exhibitions, 1880-1931

Colonial Spectacles

Marianne Sommer

Felix Wiedemann

Gisela Eberhardt

Fabian Link

Irina Podgorny

Amara Thornton

Géraldine Delley

Ulrich Veit

Historiographical Approaches to Past Archaeological Research

Marieke Bloembergen

Books

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