RUcore: Rutgers University Community Repository
Missionaries of modernity
Descriptive
TitleInfo
Title
Missionaries of modernity
SubTitle
technocratic ideals of colonial engineers in the Netherlands Indies and the Philippines, 1900-1920
Name
(type = personal)
NamePart
(type = family)
Blussé van Oud-Alblas
NamePart
(type = given)
Jan-Jacob
DisplayForm
Jan-Jacob Blussé van Oud-Alblas
Role
RoleTerm
(authority = RULIB)
author
Name
(type = personal)
NamePart
(type = family)
Adas
NamePart
(type = given)
Michael
DisplayForm
Michael Adas
Affiliation
Advisory Committee
Role
RoleTerm
(authority = RULIB)
chair
Name
(type = personal)
NamePart
(type = family)
Smith
NamePart
(type = given)
Bonnie
DisplayForm
Bonnie Smith
Affiliation
Advisory Committee
Role
RoleTerm
(authority = RULIB)
co-chair
Name
(type = personal)
NamePart
(type = family)
Israel
NamePart
(type = given)
Paul
DisplayForm
Paul Israel
Affiliation
Advisory Committee
Role
RoleTerm
(authority = RULIB)
co-chair
Name
(type = corporate)
NamePart
Rutgers University
Role
RoleTerm
(authority = RULIB)
degree grantor
Name
(type = corporate)
NamePart
Graduate School - New Brunswick
Role
RoleTerm
(authority = RULIB)
school
TypeOfResource
Text
Genre
(authority = marcgt)
theses
OriginInfo
DateCreated
(qualifier = exact)
2012
DateOther
(qualifier = exact);
(type = degree)
2012-01
Place
PlaceTerm
(type = code)
xx
Language
LanguageTerm
(authority = ISO639-2b);
(type = code)
eng
Abstract
This study compares the role played by Dutch and American engineers in the colonial governments of the Netherlands Indies and the American-controlled Philippines in the 1900-1920 timeframe. It contends that these colonial engineers extensively influenced the practical implementation of the civilizing missions of that were formulated in the United States and the Netherlands around 1900. Through the use of a sustained comparison between the activities of the engineers in these two Western countries and their tropical colonies the unique aspects of the American policy of “benevolent assimilation” and the Dutch “ethical policy” will be drawn into focus. This study makes use of the technocracy heuristic to analyze the behavior and ambitions of the engineers. Technocracy in this case refers to rule by experts, a goal that many members of the engineering profession that had emerged in both countries in the 1890s strove for. Such a political system could not be implemented in the Dutch and American metropoles, but in the colonies the engineers faced fewer obstacles to their political agenda. The technocratic ambitions of the engineers are reconstructed here by analyzing the rhetoric they used and the discourses they drew upon in their journals. In the first part of this study the emergence of the engineering profession in the Netherlands Indies and the United States is compared. The rhetoric of the engineers on either side of the Atlantic evinces important similarities, as does the receptiveness of politicians and public to their ideas. The new mode of imperialism and the civilizing missions that either country articulated concurrently also bear close resemblance. A series of vignettes in the second part of this study describing the practices and ideology of the colonial engineers working in the Netherlands Indies and the Philippines reveals how the meanings of the technologies they used were socially constructed. They show that the Americans possessed a unique willingness to have the Filipinos participate in their developmental strategy, whereas the Dutch did not cross the ethnographic separation from the Indonesians. This finding to an extent confirms the “exceptionalism” of American empire in this period.
Subject
(authority = RUETD)
Topic
History
RelatedItem
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TitleInfo
Title
Rutgers University Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Identifier
(type = RULIB)
ETD
Identifier
ETD_3751
PhysicalDescription
Form
(authority = gmd)
electronic resource
InternetMediaType
application/pdf
InternetMediaType
text/xml
Extent
viii, 189 p. : ill., maps
Note
(type = degree)
M.A.
Note
(type = bibliography)
Includes bibliographical references
Note
(type = statement of responsibility)
by Jan-Jacob Blussé van Oud-Alblas
Subject
(authority = lcsh/lcnaf)
Geographic
Netherlands--Colonies--Asia--History
Subject
(authority = lcsh/lcnaf)
Geographic
Philippines--Civilization--American influences
Subject
(authority = lcsh/lcnaf)
Geographic
East Indies--History
Subject
(authority = ETD-LCSH)
Topic
Engineers--United States
Subject
(authority = ETD-LCSH)
Topic
Engineers--Netherlands
Identifier
(type = hdl)
http://hdl.rutgers.edu/1782.1/rucore10001600001.ETD.000064048
RelatedItem
(type = host)
TitleInfo
Title
Graduate School - New Brunswick Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Identifier
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rucore19991600001
Location
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(displayLabel = Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey)
NjNbRU
Identifier
(type = doi)
doi:10.7282/T3NZ86NP
Genre
(authority = ExL-Esploro)
ETD graduate
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Rights
RightsDeclaration
(ID = rulibRdec0006)
The author owns the copyright to this work.
RightsHolder
(type = personal)
Name
FamilyName
Blussé van Oud-Alblas
GivenName
Jan-Jacob
Role
Copyright Holder
RightsEvent
Type
Permission or license
DateTime
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(qualifier = exact);
(point = start)
2011-12-22 18:13:52
AssociatedEntity
Name
Jan-Jacob Blussé van Oud-Alblas
Role
Copyright holder
Affiliation
Rutgers University. Graduate School - New Brunswick
AssociatedObject
Type
License
Name
Author Agreement License
Detail
I hereby grant to the Rutgers University Libraries and to my school the non-exclusive right to archive, reproduce and distribute my thesis or dissertation, in whole or in part, and/or my abstract, in whole or in part, in and from an electronic format, subject to the release date subsequently stipulated in this submittal form and approved by my school. I represent and stipulate that the thesis or dissertation and its abstract are my original work, that they do not infringe or violate any rights of others, and that I make these grants as the sole owner of the rights to my thesis or dissertation and its abstract. I represent that I have obtained written permissions, when necessary, from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis or dissertation and will supply copies of such upon request by my school. I acknowledge that RU ETD and my school will not distribute my thesis or dissertation or its abstract if, in their reasonable judgment, they believe all such rights have not been secured. I acknowledge that I retain ownership rights to the copyright of my work. I also retain the right to use all or part of this thesis or dissertation in future works, such as articles or books.
RightsEvent
DateTime
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(qualifier = exact);
(point = start)
2012-01-31
DateTime
(encoding = w3cdtf);
(qualifier = exact);
(point = end)
2013-01-30
Type
Embargo
Detail
Access to this PDF has been restricted at the author's request. It will be publicly available after January 30th, 2013.
Copyright
Status
Copyright protected
Availability
Status
Open
Reason
Permission or license
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Technical
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1484800
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windows xp
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ETD
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application/pdf
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1484800
Checksum
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