Colonial documentary practices failed to capture a racial underclass of mixed-race vagrants

Evidence

In some places district wardens (wijkmeester) were entrusted with the task: in Semarang that worked; in Batavia and Jogjakarta they were un- cooperative. District officials eager to please central authorities provided “written and oral testimony … hoping they could be of help in some way.” House visits were done in Salatiga, duly noted as an exception, and seemed to have been rare elsewhere. In some districts the committees sent forms to household heads, which were to be returned by mail or in person to district bureaus. Sometimes authorities simply completed the forms. — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 911 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Here I linger over unspoken orders of rubric and reference that did more than define plausible evidence. Specific if not unique to the shape of these colonial archives is a racialized com- mon sense about people and places—about Javanese coolies and Acehnese insurgents, about the sensibilities of the Indische population, Indies-born and bred Dutch versus imported, transient, and echte Europeans. Such implicit common sense figured centrally when reporting preceded inquiry, when evidence was spare—or absent. — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 148 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

Related

• Colonial experts framed Javanese workers as requiring constant supervision to justify segregation (similarity 0.82)
• Racialized common sense substituted for evidence in Dutch colonial reporting. (similarity 0.80)
• Jungle encampments held a multiethnic underclass defying neat colonial ethnic categories (similarity 0.80)
• Colonial ethnic categories failed to describe actual mixed refuge communities (similarity 0.80)
• Racialized common sense shaped colonial archival claims when evidence was spare or absent (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Colonial survey data collection was uneven and often fabricated by officials #complicates (0.80) — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 911
• Racialized common sense substituted for evidence in Dutch colonial reporting. #expands (0.75) — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 148
• Jungle encampments held a multiethnic underclass defying neat colonial ethnic categories #corroborates (0.70)
• Colonial critics feared that hybridity produced rootless, useless subjects #corroborates (0.65)
• Colonial commissions relied on hearsay and common knowledge rather than investigation #corroborates (0.60)