Groet uit Java: Picture Postcards and the Transnational Making of the Colony around 1900

Abstract

This article explores the transnational visual language of picture postcards and the international business networks responsible for producing and disseminating the image of Dutch colonialism around 1900. Following a microhistorical approach, I consider the multilayered representation and transnational production of one particular postcard sent from colonial Indonesia to the Netherlands in 1900. The postcard established, visualised, and catalysed colonialism through its use of a European visual language. Colonialist meaning was attached to the image in Germany and was reinforced through the process of the postcard’s delivery from colony to metropolis. This article moves beyond a nation-based framework and instead analyses the meanings of colonial imagery in transnational contexts.

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