Title: Colonial Policing in the Dutch East Indies: The Case of the
Ambonese in the Armed Police
Speaker: Martin Thiry, Visiting Project Researcher, CSEAS
Date: May 12th（Thurs.), 2011, 12:00 - 13:30
Place: Tonan-tei (Room No. 201), on the 2nd floor of Inamori Foundation Memorial Building, Kyoto University
Abstract:
The role of ethnic minorities in colonial policing is integral
to the rise of the nation-state and an expression of agency on the part
of minority groups in the development of the nation-state. During the
late colonial period in the Dutch East Indies an amalgamation of ethnic
minorities, referred to collectively as the Ambonese, served as policing
agents. In this capacity the Ambonese have been understood as subject
forces and less as actors, obscuring a fuller history of the Ambonese as
colonial police. The introduction of armed police units allowed the the
so-called pacification of the archipelago, particularly in the Outer
Islands where no more than nominal colonial control had been exercised.
The Ambonese would serve prominently in the marechausse and later in the
much more robust armed police, critically in their own home areas. The
ways in which they served in the years 1890-1946 helped lay foundations
for the Indonesian nation-state. The Dutch and, later the Japanese,
were trying to form and keep together the colonial state; with the help
of the Ambonese they served to cohere Indonesia.
Bio Info: Martin Thiry is a PhD candidate at the University of Hawaii.
After graduating from Harvard in 2000 he worked for the New Orleans
Police Department as a patrolman and robbery detective. Currently, he
is a Foreign Researcher in Residence at Kyoto University.
Contact: Satoru KOBAYASHI, CSEAS