Cleanliness and Culture: Indonesian HistoriesC. (Kees) van Dijk, Jean Gelman Taylor Recent years have shown an increase in interest in the study of cleanliness from a historical and sociological perspective. Many of such studies on bathing and washing, on keeping the body and the streets clean, and on filth and the combat of dirt, focus on Europe. In Cleanliness and Culture attention shifts to the tropics, to Indonesia, in colonial times as well as in the present. Subjects range from the use of soap and the washing of clothes as a pretext to claim superiority of race and class to how references to being clean played a role in a campaign against European homosexuals in the Netherlands Indies at the end of the 1930s. Other topics are eerie skin diseases and the sanitary measures to eliminate them, and how misconceptions about lack of hygiene as the cause of illness hampered the finding of a cure. Attention is also drawn to differences in attitude towards performing personal body functions outdoors and retreating to the privacy of the bathroom, to traditional bathing ritual and to the modern tropical Spa culture as a manifestation of a New Asian lifestyle. With contributions by Bart Barendregt, Marieke Bloembergen, Kees van Dijk, Mary Somers Heidhues, David Henley, George Quinn, and Jean Gelman Taylor. |
Contents
1 Soap is the onset of civilization Kees van Dijk | 1 |
2 Bathing and hygiene Histories from the KITLV Images Archive Jean Gelman Taylor | 41 |
3 The epidemic that wasnt Beriberi in Bangka and the Netherlands Indies Mary Somers Heidhues | 61 |
4 Hygiene housing and health in colonial Sulawesi David Henley | 95 |
5 Being clean is being strong Policing cleanliness and gay vices in the Netherlands Indies in the 1930s Marieke Bloembergen | 117 |
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Amsterdam ANRI Archief Asia Asian AsiaSpa authorities Bali Balinese Bangka banyu landha Batavia beauty Benge beriberi body Bogor British brown rice Central Sulawesi China Chinese civilization clean cleanliness clothes colonial police coolies day spas diet dirt dirty Drupadi Dutch East eco-chic Eijkman elite epidemic Eurasian European example Eyndthoven Figure Geneeskundig Tijdschrift Geraerts hair houses important India indigenous Indonesian Islamic island Java Javanese jilbab Joyoboyo Kerkhof KITLV kramas Leiden Lifebuoy lifestyle London magazine Malays Medan Memories van Overgave Menado Minahasa missionaries modern moral Muslim native Nederlandsch Nederlandsch-Indië Netherlands Indies nineteenth century North Sulawesi official Palembang Pears personal hygiene photographs police force political population Raffles ritual sexual shampoo sick Singapore skin disease Soap advertisement social society Southeast Asia Southeast Asian spa resorts Sukabumi Tillema tion toilet traditional tropical spa culture University Press Verbaal vice scandal village washing Western white rice women Yogyakarta