The HSN and the Netherlands Indies: Challenge and Promise

In 2000 Kees Mandemakers and I started a project to trace the life courses of Dutch migrants to the Netherlands Indies. This article describes the process of data collection, the research questions and the project's main findings that have been published in various articles and a monograph. Two conclusions stand out: the first pertains to the heavily urban provenance of this migration and the second emphasizes the relatively educated and skilled background of colonial Dutch migration. This second finding contradicts earlier assumptions about the Dutch colonies as a place where undesirable elem... Mehr ...