'The past should not affect the children': Lecture by Julia Doornbos

On May 10th Julia Doornbos, PhD-candidate at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, will hold a lecture at the IISH entitled 'The past should not affect the children’: intergenerational hauntings in the homes of Indo-European families'

Abstract: This article examines how the traumatic experiences of previous Indo-European or Indische generations shape future generations’ intergenerational family dynamics and practices within home environments. By analysing life story interviews with Indo-Europeans from the first, second and third generation within twenty-one families, we illustrate how intergenerational hauntings are embodied, expressed and negotiated among various generations within home environments. The Indo-European diaspora has multi-generational ‘mixed’ Dutch-Indonesian ancestry and collective memories of the colonial Dutch East Indies, the Japanese occupation of Indonesia during the Second World War, the Indonesian National Revolution, and families’ subsequent repatriation to the Netherlands. Shaped by their alleged success in having silently assimilated in the Netherlands, public narratives often neglect Indo-Europeans’ daily realities and histories. We argue that personal and collective histories of war violence, racialized violence and displacement are deeply ingrained in Indo-European intergenerational and gendered family dynamics and practices in home environments. These intergenerational hauntings are imbued in both presence and absence in the various atmospheres and social and physical spaces of home.

Bio: Julia Doornbos is a PhD candidate at the Department of Cultural Geography of the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen. Her PhD-research The Postcolonial Present explores how colonial family histories shape the everyday lives of three generations of Indo-Europeans in the Netherlands. A collection of stories from her dissertation were recently published in Dutch in Geworteld: een alledaagse geschiedenis van Indische generaties in Nederland.

IISH Seminar: This lecture is part of the monthly IISH Seminar series.

In principle, seminars take place every first Tuesday of the month. The seminar is open to the public, but with regard to accommodation, we would like you to register, secretar@iisg.nl, under mention of 'Generational hauntings lecture'.