Subversive Seas: Anticolonial Networks Across the Twentieth-Century Dutch Empire

Description

This revealing portrait of the Dutch Empire repositions our understanding of modern empires from the terrestrial to the oceanic. It highlights the importance of shipping, port cities, and maritime culture to the political struggles of the 1920s and 30s. Port cities such as Jeddah, Shanghai, and Batavia were hotbeds for the spread of nationalism, communism, pan-Islamism, and pan-Asianism, and became important centers of opposition to Dutch imperialism through the circulation of passengers, laborers, and religious pilgrims. In response to growing maritime threats, the Dutch government and shipping companies attempted to secure oceanic spaces and maintain hegemony abroad through a web of control. Techniques included maritime policing networks, close collaboration with British and French surveillance entities ashore, and maintaining segregation on ships, which was meant to 'teach' those on board their position within imperial hierarchies. This innovative study exposes how anti-colonialism was shaped not only within the terrestrial confines of metropole and colony, but across the transoceanic spaces in between. Cover Half-title Title page Copyright information Contents Figures Tables Acknowledgments Abbreviations Maps Introduction: Transoceanic Mobility and Modern Imperialism Understanding Dutch Maritime History Imperial Discourse and Dissent Scope, Sources, and Chapter Outline Part I At Sea 1 Kongsi Tiga: Security and Insecurity on Hajj Ships The Hajj Pilgrim Ordinance of 1922 Containing the ''Arab'' Threat at Sea Race, Class, Consumer Power, and Competition Shipping in Muslim Hands: Penoeloeng Hadji 2 Java-China-Japan Lijn: Asian Shipping and Imperial Representation Transforming Coolies into Classes Chinese Markets: Infiltration and Resistance 3 The Dutch Mails: Passenger Liners as Colonial Classrooms Imperial Learning on Deck Transgression and Indiscretion at Sea Pleasure Cruises and Performativity Part II In Port 4 Pan-Islamism Abroad: Regulation and Resistance in the Middle East Dutch Spy Networks in Jeddah Contamination at Kamaran Quarantine Station Hajji Destitution and Imperial Confusion 5 Policing Communism: Ships, Seamen, and Political Networks in Asia Seamen as Global Communist Liaisons Red Seas: People, Propaganda, and Weapons Anti-Dutch Boycotts in China: The Xiao Case 6 Japanese Penetration: Imperial Upheaval in the 1930s Shipping in a Time of Crisis Pan-Asian Circulation across Maritime Asia The Dutch-Japanese Trade Negotiations of 1934 Watching the Japanese Conclusion: Oceanic Decolonization and Cultural Amnesia in the Twenty-First Century Appendix: Testimony from Communist Informant Kamu, 26 January 1928 Select Bibliography Archival Collections Nationaal Archief, Den Haag Stadsarchief Rotterdam KITLV, Leiden International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam Stadsarchief Amsterdam Digital Archives Newspapers, Magazines, and Journals Published Sources Index