Racial Science And Human Diversity In Colonial Indonesia Paperback 1

Fenneke Sysling

Indonesia is home to diverse peoples who differ from one another in terms of physical appearance as well as social and cultural practices. The way such matters are understood is partly rooted in ideas developed by racial scientists working in the Netherlands Indies beginning in the late nineteenth century, who tried to develop systematic ways to define and identify distinctive races. Their work helped spread the idea that race had a scientific basis in anthropometry and craniology, and was central to people's identity, but their encounters in the archipelago also challenged their ideas about race.

9789814722070

English

National University of Singapore Press

360

Dr. Fenneke Sysling is a historian of science and colonialism. She holds a PhD from the VU University of Amsterdam, Netherlands and has publishedon the history of museum collections, environmental history and the making of race. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Utrecht, Netherlands.

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