OA

Van Hollandsdenken tot dekolonisatie

From ‘Hollandsdenken’ to decolonization: science, knowledge and the Dutch Empire

This review discusses recent trends in the historiography of science, knowledge and colonialism, and how they have been applied to the Dutch Empire. It shows how historians have characterized the relation between science and colonialism in the last decades. The review begins by identifying two broad clusters: The first emphasized how science thrived through the networks created by colonialism. More recently, the scientists’ descriptions and discoveries have been critically reinterpreted as forms of knowledge extraction, comparable to resource extraction. The second historiographical cluster highlights how science played a crucial role in the colonization and continued subjugation of the colonies, both technologically and ideologically. The second part of this review essay shifts the focus from science to the more general term ‘knowledge’, as this provides historians with a broader palette for writing about indigenous forms of knowledge. The challenge for future historians of knowledge remains to dismantle colonial frameworks and to make the field more inclusive.