Colonialism, Unfinished

Rethinking Histories of Indonesia: Experiencing, Resisting, and Renegotiating Coloniality is not only a mouthful of a title but also a deep and rich exploration of Indonesian history and historiography. Published in August 2025 by the Australian National University (ANU) Press, the book is a collaborative work by over a dozen contributors and editors. 

Rethinking Histories of Indonesia tackles a variety of subjects and time periods, ranging from the economic exploitation of the Chinese by colonial authorities to the experiences of the Sri Lankan Malays; it also considers other topics such as the debate regarding the return of cultural objects, as well as contemporary issues such as the ongoing struggles experienced by Papuans. These are just a few of the many areas covered by this text. While ambitious in its scope and academic in its approach, the book remains extremely accessible throughout.

The concept of “coloniality” is what ties the chapters together. Early on, the book quotes President Sukarno’s speech at the Bandung Conference of 1955: “I beg of you, do not think of colonialism in the classic form, which we of Indonesia, and our brothers in different parts of Asia and Africa, knew. Colonialism also has its modern dress, in the form of economic control, intellectual control, and actual physical control by a small but alien community within a nation. It is a skillful and determined enemy, and it appears in many guises.”

Through this speech and his anti-West ideology, Sukarno is often remembered for contributing to the conceptualization of “neocolonialism.” The concept provided a framework for understanding global developments as the world entered the Cold War, which, at some level, was a contest over how economic exploitation would continue in the aftermath of formal decolonization. The fight against “neocolonialism,” whether in the classroom or the boardroom, would give rise to adjacent concepts such as “postcolonialism” and “decolonialism.” However, as a person who is both American and Indonesian, I have always found these terms unsettling. “Neocolonialism” implies an evolution, while “postcolonialism” and “decolonialism” imply some break with the past. However, having grown up between the United States, a superpower and settler colony, and Indonesia, a former colony and a country still soul-searching, it has always seemed to me that colonialism neither stopped, changed, nor evolved. At its core, it remained the same, and Rethinking Histories of Indonesia explores and explains this through investigating “coloniality.” 

The book references Anibal Quijano’s distinction between colonialism and coloniality: “colonialism refers to the Western imperial/colonial expansion that ‘laid the foundation for modern/colonial globalization’ and the economic system we today call capitalism. Coloniality, by contrast, refers to the structures of power and control underpinning colonization that persist to the present.” Coloniality is therefore the legacy of imperialism which undergirds our cultural, social, economic, and political systems, both in the past and the present: “In many cases, the local elites who gained control of the government failed to fully overthrow (or overcome) ‘coloniality’ and continued to replicate what the colonizers did, but in the name of national sovereignty.” It is this succinct yet nuanced difference that unlocks the hidden connections among the topics covered in this book. 

The list of authors is as extensive as the matters considered by this text itself. The editors of this work are Sadiah Boonstra, Bronwyn Anne Beech Jones, Katharine McGregor, Ken M.P Setiawan, and Abdul Wahid. The other contributors are Ajeng Ayu Arainikasih, F.X. Harsono, Brigitta Isabella, Michael Karabinos, Abidin Kusno, Grace T. Leksana, Susie Protschky, Ravando, Ronit Ricci, I Ngurah Suryawan, and Rika Theo. The group comprises curators, academics, researchers, lecturers, archivists, librarians, and more. The editors and contributors are based in Indonesia, Australia, the Netherlands, and elsewhere.

Rethinking Histories of Indonesia is broken into two parts, with the first being “Colonial categories across and beyond the colony, and the next being “Colonial legacies: The persistence of and attempts to dismantle coloniality.” The book comprises fifteen chapters in total, and while each section can be read in isolation, I recommend reading them in order, as some conceptual ties build on each other as you go through the text. 

If coloniality is the framework that underpins colonialism, whether under foreign subjugation or domestic oppression, then understanding coloniality is a precursor to decolonizing our world as we reimagine a postcolonial society.

Ultimately, Rethinking Histories of Indonesia provides an accessible academic work that can be utilized as a jumping-off point for a variety of readers—whether one is simply a curious individual, a professional seeking to investigate a specific area further, or an artist looking to build on the narratives uncovered—this is a work of Indonesian history and historiography that provides multitudes.