Eastern Indonesia and the Writing of History

The present article is a discussion of the proliferation of history-writing about eastern Indonesia (mainly Nusa Tenggara, Maluku and Papua) and Timor-Leste during the last decades. While a substantial corpus of Portuguese historical writings on Timor-Leste appeared up to the 1970s, very little was done in respect to eastern Indonesia, at any rate after decolonization. However, a number of anthropologists have included studies of historical data in their work since the 1970s. The challenges from anthropology have contributed to a new output of historical research since the 1990s. The possibilities of the colonial archive to yield social and cultural data have been tested. Not least, the independence of Timor-Leste in 1999-2002 has been a catalyst for fresh studies. The article presents an overview of the themes and methodologies taken up since the late 20th century in works written in English, Dutch, Portuguese, French, German, and Indonesian. It is emphasized that a historian working in this area must take account of the resources of the colonial archive, as well as to alternative claims to the past – oral tradition, linguistics, heritage objects, and so on. In traditionally non-literate and small-scale societies, analyses of concurrent versions of history will be crucial in the mapping of the past.