Site Interventions, Knowledge Networks, and Changing Loyalties on Java, 1800–1850s

Cambridge University Press eBooks, pp. 22–60

Abstract

This chapter, set in the first half of the nineteenth century, and starting from Hindu–Buddhist and Islamic sites in Java, focuses on site visits and encounters, between European antiquarian-collectors and Javanese elites in search of knowledge, as they miscommunicate or exchange knowledge at Hindu–Buddhist sites that were being rediscovered, cleaned, and documented between 1800 and the 1850s. The second part of the chapter focuses on the huge restoration of the mosque of Demak in the years 1842–1848, the first to be officially supported by the colonial government. It reveals how various networks of knowledge, interests, and administrative and military power came together at one site, and kept the balance in fragile post-(Java) War times. Throughout, the chapter shows how the hierarchies of knowledge were not fixed, and how heritage and knowledge exchange helped alter old loyalties or forge new ones in the context of the violent regime changes of the early nineteenth century.

Authors 2

1. Marieke Bloembergen Aachen Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-

   Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies

   Affiliation as printed

   Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, Leiden

2. Martijn Eickhoff

   NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies

   Affiliation as printed

   NIOD Instituut voor Oorlogs-, Holocaust- en Genocidestudies