Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Java Colonial Encounters

Trustees Of Boston University, Boston

Investigators

Abstract

Food is a biological necessity, but it also assumes important dynamic social functions and cultural symbolic values. To understand the nature of interaction among early cultures, the analysis of archaeologically recovered food remains can reveal important insights into social relationships, power negotiations, and cultural adaptation that complement - and sometimes correct - the often biased and incomplete historical records. The use of food in power negotiations and boundary making can be especially enlightening when examining cultural interaction in colonial settings, where a complex array of political, economic, and social differences must be untangled. In this project, Ms. Kaoru Ueda of Boston University (BU), under the guidance of Dr. Robert Murowchick, will conduct archaeological excavations and analysis of food and food-related remains from one of history's most important colonial encounters, that of the Dutch East India Company (or VOC) in Southeast Asia during the 17th and 18th centuries. As a powerful economic engine, the VOC greatly impacted European international relationships and global empire-building efforts. Importantly, it also left a legacy of colonial and post-colonial politics that still resonates today in one of the most culturally diverse and economically important regions of Asia. This project will focus on the powerful Islamic sultanate located at Banten, Java, Indonesia, and the key Dutch forts and trading centers that were built there to establish and maintain VOC control over this highly lucrative spice trade. Because of the subjectivity of existing historical records, the nature of the cross-cultural interaction between these local elites and the Dutch at Banten has been poorly understood. The archaeological research of sites at Banten will provide an objective and revealing tool with which to evaluate Indonesian-European cultural interactions in this early phase of global trade. Banten is an important and unique colonial case study, different from the Americas, because Europeans were only one of many foreign merchant groups in this prominent cosmopolitan city at the beginning of their encounter. This new data will advance our understanding of early colonialism around the world. The proposed research will have a broad impact beyond its specific research topics. The project will foster collaborative research and training among Indonesian, Singaporean, and American archaeologists and students in one of the most archaeologically under-studied regions of the world. It will improve the practice of historical archaeology in Indonesia by introducing young local archaeologists to new analytical techniques, such as the study of plant silica remains from archaeological soil samples to better understand past diets (a method particularly useful in the tropics, where ancient organic remains rarely survive). These new materials will improve the collections of BU's Environmental Archaeology Laboratory and provide analytical training to BU's undergraduate and graduate students. The project focuses on the evolving relationship between Muslim and European societies in the early modern world, a relationship of obvious importance today. The results of fieldwork at Banten, one of Indonesia's most revered Islamic sites in the world's most populous Muslim-majority country, will be made available to the public through publication in refereed journals, presentations at academic conferences in the US and abroad, and in bilingual exhibitions in Banten's local on-site museum. The results of this research are already fostering international scholarly exchanges in the U.S., Indonesia, Singapore, Taiwan, and Japan through presentation of conference papers, as well as increasing public awareness of early colonial history in this spice trading center through Massachusetts Archaeology Month events each October.