Lecture | China Seminar
Chinese Labor Migration to the Dutch East Indies
- Date
- Wednesday 24 September 2025
- Time
- Serie
- LIAS China Seminar
- Address
-
Lipsius
Cleveringaplaats 1
2311 BD Leiden - Room
- 2.28
Abstract
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, hundreds of thousands of Chinese migrated to the Dutch East Indies to work on the tobacco plantations of Northeastern Sumatra and the tin mines of Bangka-Belitung. This large-scale movement of labor was sustained through a web of cooperation between Dutch consuls, Chinese migration networks, colonial employers, and a handful of Leiden-trained sinologists. Drawing on visual depictions of Chinese labor in photo albums from the Rijksmuseum collections, this talk examines the complex system that underpinned Chinese labor migration to the Dutch East Indies and explores how its terms were shaped, enforced, and negotiated.
Biography
Koen van der Lijn is currently a PhD Candidate at Leiden University, where he examines the history of Chinese labor migration to the Dutch East Indies. Previously, he held the Johan Huizinga Fellowship at the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, where he studied visual representations of Chinese labor in colonial photo albums. His research interests lie at the intersection of Chinese migration and Dutch colonial history.
