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oa Een koloniale cultuur langs de Zaan
Rijstpellerijen en de verbeelding van een imperiale ruimte, ca. 1870-1914
- Amsterdam University Press
- Source: Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, Volume 132, Issue 3, 2019, p. 375 - 397
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- 01 Nov 2019
Abstract
A colonial culture along the Zaan. Rice mills and the imagination of an imperial space, c. 1870-1914
This article argues that the extensive rice milling industry that thrived in the Zaan region around 1900 contributed to a Dutch colonial culture, by presenting itself as part of a natural division of labour between colony and metropole that rested on European colonial rule. Processing large amounts of Javanese and Burmese rice, the millers deliberately exploited the colonial origins and exotic associations of this commodity to present themselves and market their product, explicitly relating their factories to the Southeast-Asian production areas in advertisements and anniversaries. In doing so they propagated their role as meaningful places in a transnational trade network that constituted an imperial space.