Infrastructuring Labour Migration in Colonial Sumatra

You are cordially invited to attend the research seminar by Robin Hartanto Honggare:

Date: 13 Sept 2024

Time: 2:30 PM – 3:30 PM

Venue: SDE3 Level 4 LT 425

Infrastructuring Labour Migration in Colonial Sumatra

Plantations were central to the economic and territorial expansion of the Dutch East Indies in the late nineteenth century. Yet their thriving operation depended on not only the technical innovation introduced by European enterprises but also the work provided by hundreds of thousands of indentured workers, most of whom migrated from inside and outside of the Dutch colony to commodity frontiers.

This research seminar discusses the spatial network that enabled labour migration in the East Coast of Sumatra, a constellation of buildings in more than one hundred locations, including in Semarang, Medan, and Hong Kong, that facilitated the systematic registration and transportation of migrants. Photographs, drawings, and other primary materials are used to reveal the coloniality behind the migration network that transformed this region into a global exporter of cash crops such as tobacco and rubber. I characterize the construction of those spaces as infrastructuring to emphasize both its functioning to maintain labour flow and its constant reworking in response to different kinds of disruption.

Robin Hartanto Honggare is a historian working at the intersection of architecture, environmental humanities, and commodity histories. His current project investigates the extensive network of buildings that enabled commodity production in the Dutch East Indies. Honggare received his PhD in Architectural History from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation.

 He also holds a BArch from Universitas Indonesia and a master’s degree in critical and curatorial practices in architecture from Columbia University. His research has been supported by the Graham Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, the American-Indonesian Cultural & Educational Foundation, and Nieuwe Instituut.