Multiracial "Outsiders Within" and the Dutch Indies

By Andreas Chenvainu

Studio Portrait of an Indo-European Family, Dutch East Indies (ca. 1900)

Source: Tropenmuseum via Wikipedia

Patricia Hill Collins posits that Black female sociologists operate as “outsiders within” the predominantly White and male sociology discipline. Creating a specific variant of the “Stranger” archetype by Georg Simmel, Collins’ paper argues that Black women, due to their gendered and racialized social position, can offer a more objective view of sociological theory in some areas than the dominant social group. The “outsider within” can be applied more broadly to other groups of people, though, not just Black women. For instance, colonial subjects in proximity to dominating group would be such outsiders within, privy to both imperial workings and the colonized population. One example case would be mixed race family groups, such as the ones in the Dutch colonies in Indonesia.

Maria Dermoût

Source: Unknown Photographer via Wikipedia

Indo-Dutch families like the one in the photo above had members of Indonesian descent, ones who were exposed to Indonesian culture growing up, but also in the position to observe European colonial circles. An example of one such person was Maria Dermoût, a Dutch-Indonesian writer considered a great Dutch-language writer, who grew up in a household like the one pictured above. Her novels have been noted to often depict a more honest view of both Colonists' less-admirable sides as well as an honest and humanized image of the Indonesian peoples, which critics have argued reflects her position in Dutch Indonesia’s society. Applying  Collins’ model of the “outsider within,” Dermoût’s insights are a result of her unique position as an educated mixed-race woman, part of the imperial establishment but partially Indonesian, which by her proximity to multiple groups allowed her to understand them beyond the imposed stereotypes. It can be assumed mixed-race individuals in a partially assimilated society are more likely to serve as their own form of outsiders within. Using Collins’ theory as a predictive model, the photo with a Dutch father, Indonesian mother, and mixed-race children can be seen as representing a mixed social position as well, one that produces this “outsider within” viewpoint in individuals located between the colonized and colonizing group.