Faces and Places: Group Portraits and Topographical Photographs in the Photo Albums of the Sugar Industry in Colonial Java in the Early Twentieth Century

This thesis is a case study of photographic representations found in the photo albums of Java's sugar industry. The photographs constitute evidence of the colony‘s industrialization as much as of the development of non-Western photography practice, which both legitimize colonialism by the application of science and technology. By looking at the material I explore the connection between the sugar industry and photography in order to shed new light in both areas.

In chapter 1 and 2, I introduce the historical context of the colonial sugar industry and the colonial photography practice in Java. In chapter 3, the historical analysis of several group portraits in the photo albums explores the continuation or discontinuation of race issues in the colonial Java sugar world. The topographical photographs of bridges in chapter 4 demonstrate both the domestication of the imagined geographies of the colony and the new mobility of people generated by the industry. The last chapter is a reflection on how the historical analysis of the photographs of the sugar industry may provide ground for further studies in the history of Indonesian photography