In Search of Identity: The Hadhrami Arabs in the Netherlands East Indies and Indonesia (1900-1950)

In In Search of Identity: The Hadhrami Arabs in the Netherlands East Indies and Indonesia (1900-1950) Huub de Jonge discusses changes in social, economic, cultural and national identity of Arabs originating from Hadhramaut (Yemen) in the Netherlands East Indies and Indonesia. Within the relatively isolated and traditionally oriented Hadhrami community, all sorts of rifts and divisions arose under the influence of segregating colonial policies, the rise of Indonesian nationalism, the Japanese occupation, and the colonial war. The internal turmoil, hardly noticed by the outside world, led to the flourishing of new ideas, orientations, loyalties and ambitions, while traditional values, customs, and beliefs were called into question.

Huub de Jonge, Ph.D. (1984), taught economic anthropology at Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands. He mainly published books and articles on the Madurese in Indonesia. Together with Nico Kaptein, he co-edited Transcending Borders: Arabs, Politics, Trade and Islam in Southeast Asia (KITLV Press, 2002).