Combatting Immorality: The implementation of the anti-trafficking discourse in the Dutch East Indies
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2021-04-28
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en
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This thesis questions the function of the anti-trafficking discourse in the Dutch East Indies’ colonial politics between 1900 and 1940. It follows the Foucauldian notion that deviant sexualities were historically constructed in order to create governable populations, but complexifies this notion by including the axes of gender and race, by an empirical analysis of the practical dimension of implementing categorizations, and by looking at narrative figures. Combined, this gives an insight into how a program of moral aid became a site of socio-political struggles and served several hidden objectives. I highlight three levels at which the trafficking policy in the Dutch East Indies served other objectives: international discussions, cooperation with civil society, and interactions with mobile populations. On each level, sexuality was socially relevant in another way.
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