TY - JOUR
T1 - The search for sensuous geographies of absence
T2 - Indisch mediation of loss
AU - Dragojlovic, Ana
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© Caroline drieënhuizen, 2014.
PY - 2014/1/1
Y1 - 2014/1/1
N2 - This article explores how the descendants of migrants expelled from their originary homeland engage with geographies of loss, and how travel serves as an active process of mediation. My focus is on Indies (Indonesian-Dutch) migrants and their descendants living in the Netherlands, Australia, Canada, and the United States. Drawing on rich ethnographic material I explore how migrants' descendants associate colonial times and ancestral homelands with narrative strategies of exclusion and containment and tempo doeloe discourses (a nostalgic longing for the 'good old days') as generative of a collective victimhood. I seek to unravel how descendants explore agentic modalities of travel in order to reactivate, re-embody, and thus intervene in their families' and collective histories. The article analyses how affective experiences of places of and far beyond the geographical locations of the Dutch East Indies have a potential to invigorate embodied Indies sensibilities. Thus, I write towards a theory of intergenerational transmission and felt dispositions in relation to old, multiracial diasporas such as the Indies. I argue that searches for sensuous geographies of absence are a specific modality of genealogy work that serves as a vehicle through which to move across and among different times in order to destabilize postcolonial temporalities.
AB - This article explores how the descendants of migrants expelled from their originary homeland engage with geographies of loss, and how travel serves as an active process of mediation. My focus is on Indies (Indonesian-Dutch) migrants and their descendants living in the Netherlands, Australia, Canada, and the United States. Drawing on rich ethnographic material I explore how migrants' descendants associate colonial times and ancestral homelands with narrative strategies of exclusion and containment and tempo doeloe discourses (a nostalgic longing for the 'good old days') as generative of a collective victimhood. I seek to unravel how descendants explore agentic modalities of travel in order to reactivate, re-embody, and thus intervene in their families' and collective histories. The article analyses how affective experiences of places of and far beyond the geographical locations of the Dutch East Indies have a potential to invigorate embodied Indies sensibilities. Thus, I write towards a theory of intergenerational transmission and felt dispositions in relation to old, multiracial diasporas such as the Indies. I argue that searches for sensuous geographies of absence are a specific modality of genealogy work that serves as a vehicle through which to move across and among different times in order to destabilize postcolonial temporalities.
KW - absence
KW - affect
KW - embodied sensibilities
KW - multiracial diaspora
KW - postmemory
KW - sensuous geographies
KW - travel
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84911892864&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1163/22134379-17004015
DO - 10.1163/22134379-17004015
M3 - Article
SN - 0006-2294
VL - 170
SP - 473
EP - 503
JO - Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde
JF - Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde
IS - 4
ER -