Coerced labour and colonial governance in nineteenth and twentieth century Indonesia

ABSTRACT This article discusses the different uses of mandatory labour services, or corvée labour, in nineteenth and twentieth century Indonesia. While slave labour, coerced cultivation and other forms of involuntary colonial labour have been elaborately studied, these much more pervasive and diverse types of mandatory services have not yet received the attention they deserve. The article argues that in Indonesia corvée labour became foundational to the exercise of modern colonial governance and the organization of the colonial state and its fiscal capacity, so foundational, in fact, that it impeded much of the aspirations of colonial civil servants to replace coerced services with monetary taxes. Studying corvée, it shows, elucidates otherwise hidden strategies and practices of the organization of colonial statecraft and governance. As such, corvée labour played a pivotal role in how colonialism unfolded and was experienced.