Anjar Astuti MA

PhD candidate

Area(s) of interest: Asian History, Colonialism & Postcolonialism, Political History

Cohort/Start PhD: 2024-2025

Representation of Dutch Colonial Wars Before the 20th Century in Indonesian High School History Textbooks

University of Groningen
Supervisors: Prof. Clemens Six, M.M.S. Madbouly, PhD, Dr. S.B. Barnabas
Duration of appointment: 1 August 2024 – 1 August 2028

History textbooks as educational narratives promote official history that supports national unity and cannot be separated from the government’s influence. Analysis of Indonesian History textbooks from the decolonisation period, such as the New Order period showed the flaws in the official version of Indonesian history that tended to portray Indonesian national identity through a militaristic lens and to legitimise the power of the New Order regime. However, the flaws of the history writing in school textbooks are not only limited to the decolonisation period and the post-New Order era demanded more diverse historical narratives.

This research will explore the dynamics of colonial history writing in Indonesian History subjects for senior high school textbooks for class XI. Focusing on the early period of Dutch colonisation in Indonesia through the Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (VOC) arrival as a trading company in the Dutch East Indies in 1602-1799 and continued by the Dutch government in 1816-1942 on the narration of the local war that happened. Based on the objectives of this study which are to analyse how the narratives contribute to the nation-building and identity of Indonesian young generations, and to identify potential flaws in the current narratives, the questions are formulated as follows:

1. How are the narrative structures of the local war that happened from 1602 to 1942 in the History textbooks?
2. Are there any discrepancies in the contents and the narrative structure between textbooks that are published by the Ministry of Education and by the private publisher?
3. What are the visible and hidden historical narratives that contribute to the writing of the History textbooks?