Global trajectories of racial knowledge. Physical anthropology and the Netherlands Indies

IIAS Lunch Lecture by Dr Fenneke Sysling. She will discuss the practices of physical anthropologists in the Netherlands East Indies.

The Netherlands East Indies became a favourite destination for Dutch scientists in the late nineteenth and twentieth century. Among them were several generations of Dutch physical anthropologists, who were interested in the racial make-up of its ('original') population and saw the Indies as a testing ground for the new techniques of anthropology. Dr Sysling's PhD thesis investigated the practices of Dutch anthropologists, the strategies they used to make racial knowledge and the connections of their work with the colonial state and the lives of indigenous Indonesians. This paper shares some of its conclusions and looks specifically at the global trajectories of racial knowledge about the Indies.

Lunch is provided. Please register at iias@iias.nl