IsisCB Explore

Article ID: CBB316057746

Trading zones in a colony: Transcultural techniques at missionary stations in the Dutch East Indies, 1860 – 1940 (December 2020)

Hård, Mikael (Author)
Mai Lin Tjoa-Bonatz (Author)

Social Studies of Science
Volume: 50
Issue: 6
Pages: 932-955

URI: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0306312720925913

DOI: 10.1177/0306312720925913

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

Academia.edu

Religion Science and technology studies (STS) Knowledge circulation trading zone Missionaries and missions Germany East Indies Netherlands Indonesia

Global histories of technology tend to tell one-sided stories of transfer and exploitation, and they usually analyze the activities of large corporations, nation states or the military. By focusing on missionary societies in the colonial era, this article tells a different story. On the basis of primary sources from German missionaries in the Dutch East Indies, it shows how the application of various techniques at missionary stations was the outcome of transcultural interaction. Although missionaries brought with them tools and materials from home, they remained dependent on the knowledge and skills of local artisans, as well as the material and goods the locals provided. Missionaries’ wives tried to uphold a Western lifestyle but found themselves using local household technologies. The missionary station was a trading zone: Although the abilities of Europeans and Asians to communicate were socially and linguistically limited, they proved able to exchange information and skills in a successful manner. By revisiting the anthropological background to Galison’s trading zone, the authors re-appropriate this concept to improve our understanding of cross-cultural exchange in non-scientific settings.

...More

Citation URI

https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB316057746/

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Thesis Moon, Suzanne M.; (2000)
Constructing “Native development”: Technological change and the politics of colonization in the Netherlands East Indies, 1905--1930 (Indonesia) (/isis/citation/CBB001562686/)

Book Céline Coderey; Pordié, Laurent; (2020)
Circulation and governance of Asian medicine (/isis/citation/CBB427805229/)

Book Moon, Suzanne; (2007)
Technology and Ethical Idealism: A History of Development in the Netherlands East Indies (/isis/citation/CBB000950980/)

Book Goss, Andrew; (2011)
The Floracrats: State-Sponsored Science and the Failure of the Enlightenment in Indonesia (/isis/citation/CBB001023102/)

Thesis Goss, Andrew M.; (2004)
The Floracrats: Civil Science, Bureaucracy, and Institutional Authority in theNetherlands East Indies and Indonesia, 1840--1970 (/isis/citation/CBB001560862/)

Article Junaidi; Pennina Simanjuntak; Junita Setiana Gintig; Maulana Affandi; (2024)
Dutch Colonialism and Role of Zending in Healthcare Services in Nias Island, 1865-1915 (/isis/citation/CBB556689212/)

Article Suzanne Moon; (2020)
A sociotechnical order for the umma: connecting Islam and technology in Suharto’s Indonesia (/isis/citation/CBB275379323/)

Article Jonathan Aylen; (2019)
Stalinism, autarchy, espionage and Marshall Aid: How US strip mill technology came to Europe (/isis/citation/CBB310682480/)

Article Samuel Gicquel; (2019)
Hector Léveillé, missionnaire et botaniste (1863-1918) (/isis/citation/CBB223429106/)

Book Nikolaus Klein; Paul Oberholzer; Esther Schmid Heer; (2019)
Transfer, Begegnung, Skandalon? Neue Perspektiven auf die Jesuitenmissionen in Spanisch-Amerika (/isis/citation/CBB260867782/)

Article Antonella Romano; (2019)
Iberian Missionaries in God’s Vineyard: Enlarging Humankind and Encompassing the Globe in the Renaissance (/isis/citation/CBB494244460/)

Book Andreas Feldtkeller; Uta Zeuge-Buberl; (2018)
Networks of Knowledge: Epistemic Entanglement Initiated by American Protestant Missionary Presence in Nineteenth-century Syria (/isis/citation/CBB793982994/)

Article Jacqueline Holler; (2021)
Inquisitor as Physician: Friars, Inquisitors, Women, and Medical Knowledge in Early Colonial New Spain (1530–1650) (/isis/citation/CBB739428543/)

Thesis Gianamar Giovannetti-Singh; (2023)
Globalising China: Jesuits, Eurasian Exchanges, and the Early Modern Sciences (/isis/citation/CBB279399585/)

Thesis McCoy, William Kent, Jr.; (2015)
Healing the Leper? Mission Christianity, Medicine, and Social Dependence in 20th Century Swaziland (/isis/citation/CBB069674165/)

Article Johanna Alaimo Pacyga; (2023)
A Biography of Place: Thinking between Text, Practice, and Space at the Mission of St. Joseph, Senegal (/isis/citation/CBB231081271/)

Article J. A. Edgington; (2023)
Three botanical watercolours by Richard Bradley (c.1688–1732) including of coffee and cinnamon (/isis/citation/CBB279891342/)

Article Pyenson, Lewis; (2011)
The Enlightened Image of Nature in the Dutch East Indies: Consequences of Postmodernist Doctrine for Broad Structures and Intimate Life (/isis/citation/CBB001022672/)

Article Martine Julia van Ittersum; (2016)
Debating Natural Law in the Banda Islands: A Case Study in Anglo–Dutch Imperial Competition in the East Indies, 1609–1621 (/isis/citation/CBB912163578/)

Article Pieter van Wingerden; (2020)
Science on the Edge of Empire: E. a. Forsten (1811–1843) and the Natural History Committee (1820–1850) in the Netherlands Indies (/isis/citation/CBB848529337/)

Comments

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}