The Postcolonial Present: everyday geographies of the Indo-European diaspora

This research centres around the Indo-European or Indische community in the Netherlands, which encompasses descendants of relations between European men (mainly Dutch) and Indonesian women that occurred in the 350 years of Dutch colonial presence in Indonesia. This community is the largest ‘ethnic minority’ group that has settled in the Netherlands to date. This thesis intends to understand how colonial family histories shape the everyday geographies of three Indo-European generations in the Netherlands, and how these family histories are transmitted intergenerationally.

Life story interviews were conducted to gain insight into the ways personal and familial experiences on a micro level are intertwined with colonial histories on a macro level. Through the notion of everyday geographies, different aspects of mundane life were scrutinized. These ‘microhistories’ revealed how experiences of war violence, racialized violence and displacement remain influential across generations. Thus, influencing different aspects of everyday life, such as conscious and unconscious transmissions of memories; senses of belonging; places and related practices, relations and encounters.

This thesis intends to contribute to contemporary debates on colonial legacies by providing a critical understanding of how contemporary personal and familial ways of being, doing and thinking remain intertwined with colonial pasts across Dutch contexts. Ultimately, critical engagements within and outside the Indo-European community about colonial pasts, its legacies and its place in current society continue to be needed by listening to and representing different voices within Dutch society. These are discussions we need to continue having, even after more than 400 years of colonization.