“We have a shared history”: roots travel to Indonesia across Indo-European generations

Abstract

This article explores senses of belonging of three Indo-European generations and examines how these are influenced by roots travel to contemporary Indonesia. We use the notion of roots tourism to refer to tourism to ancestral homelands to ‘experience heritage at the personal level’. While the notion of roots tourism has gained scholarly attention, multiple diasporic generations are often studied as a single phenomenon. By analysing life story interviews with Indo-Europeans from the first, second and third generation within twenty-one families, this article examines the motivations, expectations, lived experiences and meanings of their travels. The multigenerational nature of the empirical data enables differentiation across diasporic generations, and highlights generational nuances and interlinkages in Indo-Europeans’ senses of belonging, positions within larger colonial family histories and travel experiences. We argue that ancestries, and personal and collective memories of the colonial Dutch East Indies connect various Indo-European generations to contemporary Indonesia. The accounts reveal both personal and familial transformations, as travels potentially fostered engagements with own or familial traumatic pasts, disrupted familial practices of silences or sparked interests to travel or (re)discover one’s Indonesian heritage.

摘要

本文探讨了三个世代印尼裔欧洲人的归属感, 并研究了这些跨世代的归属感是如何受现今赴印度尼西亚寻根旅行影响的(Higginbotham, 2012, p. 196)。我们使用寻根旅游的概念是指对先祖母国的旅游, 以“在个人层面上感受遗迹”(Higginbotham, 2012, 第196页)。虽然寻树根旅游的概念得到了学者的关注, 但多代移民往往被视为一个单一的现象来研究。本文通过对21个家庭中第一代、第二代和第三代印裔欧洲人的生活故事采访, 考察他们旅行的动机、期望、生活经历和意义。经验数据多世代的特点使得各代移民之间存在差异, 并凸显印裔欧洲人在归属感、在更大的殖民家族历史的地位和旅行体验方面的代际细微差别和相互联系。我们认为, 祖先以及殖民地荷属东印度群岛的个人和集体记忆, 将印裔欧洲人各世代与当代印度尼西亚联系在一起。这些记录揭示了个人和家庭的转变, 因为旅行促进了与自己或家族的痛苦过往的接触, 可能打破了沉默的家庭惯例, 或激发了旅行的兴趣, 甚至(重新)发现一个人的印度尼西亚遗产。

Keywords:

• Roots tourism
• diaspora
• senses of belonging
• family
• memory
• homeland
• Indonesia

关键词:

• 寻根旅游;离散；归属感
• 家族
• 记忆
• 祖国
• 印度尼西亚

Introduction

The notion of a ‘remembered, lost, imagined or yet to be achieved’ homeland is widely understood as significant for people living in diaspora, encompassing emotional, imaginative and material terrains (Blunt & Bonnerjee, 2019, p. 267). Rather than solely territorial connections, transmissions of collective memories and traditions can connect dispersed populations and evoke senses of home and belonging. Blunt and Bonnerjee (2019) distinguish between diasporic ‘residence’ and ‘belonging’ to highlight the significance of places prior to resettlement across diasporic generations.

Basu (2004, p. 160, emphasis in original) infers, that ‘[…] whilst this homeland is undoubtedly an imagining of the mind, it is also “rooted” in a particular geographical territory which may be visited by the body, touched, photographed, driven across and walked upon’. Such visits can be a ‘performative act of belonging’ (Ioiro & Corsale, 2013, p. 200), as diasporic individuals may travel to perceived homelands in search of their ancestry, families or extended communities to reaffirm their identities. Experiencing these localities enable individuals to engage with their origins and consolidate a specific (sometimes chosen) sense of belonging (Marschall, 2015). Thus, genealogy work ‘may provide resources for a historically and geographically situated sense of self’ (Nash, 2002, p. 48).

We use the notion of roots tourism to refer to tourism to ancestral homelands to ‘experience heritage at the personal level’ (Higginbotham, 2012, p. 196). It is ‘an umbrella term covering many overlapping types of travel in search of origins and identity’ (Marschall, 2015, p. 878). These travels can be ‘a route (i.e. a reversal of diasporic routes) towards the roots (Clifford, 1997) of an original ancestral homeland’ (Higginbotham, 2012, p. 196, emphasis in original). While these ‘diasporic homecomings’ can strengthen senses of belonging, they may also foster feelings of difference and exclusion (Maruyama & Stronza, 2010; Tsuda, 2009).

This article explores senses of belonging of three Indo-European generations and examines how these are influenced by roots travel to contemporary Indonesia. By analysing life story interviews, this article uncovers the motivations, expectations, lived experiences and meanings of roots tourism to Indonesia by first-, second- and third-generation Indo-Europeans within twenty-one families. The Indo-European or Indische diaspora in the Netherlands originates from the colonial Dutch East Indies, contemporary Indonesia. They have a multigenerational ‘mixed’ Dutch-Indonesian ancestry, as they are descendants of ‘interracial’ unions between European men and Indonesian women in the 350 years of Dutch colonial presence in Indonesia. Among Indo-European families intergenerational, familial engagements with (traumatic) pasts are often characterized by silences and suppressions, which may leave following generations with limited knowledge of family histories. This may inspire them to undertake genealogy work to gain agency over family histories (Doornbos & Dragojlovic, 2021; Dragojlovic, 2011, 2020).

The multigenerational nature of the empirical data allows for differentiation across generational and familial lines. While the notion of roots tourism has gained scholarly attention, Pelliccia (2018) calls for differentiation and nuance of experiences between generations, as first, second and later generations are often studied as a single phenomenon. Kidron (2013, p. 178) identifies a similar ‘paradigm of the solitary tourist’, highlighting a strong focus on individual transformations of travels within tourism studies, rather than examinations of familial, intergenerational travel experiences. She calls for empirical studies on how ‘individual and familial mundane everyday relations inform tourist motivations and saturate tourist experiences’ (p. 176). Similarly, Kelly (2020) recognizes this invisibility of the family in tourism studies and argues that the experiential aspect of how families perform tourism activities is often overlooked. We intend to contribute to current knowledge on how tourism is produced, consumed and experienced by diasporic individuals, particularly across generational and familial lines. By drawing on travel experiences of three Indo-European generations, this study highlights generational nuances and interlinkages in Indo-Europeans’ senses of belonging, positions within larger colonial family histories and travel experiences. The accounts reveal both personal and familial transformations, as travels potentially fostered engagements with own or familial traumatic pasts, disrupted familial practices of silences or sparked interests to travel or (re)discover one’s Indonesian heritage.

We begin by discussing the Indo-European context, focusing on senses of belonging and engagements with familial pasts. This is followed by a theoretical review on roots tourism of diasporic individuals. The research methods are then clarified, followed by the analysis and conclusion of the motivations, expectations, lived experiences and meanings of roots tourism to Indonesia by three Indo-European generations.

Background

In the colonial Dutch East Indies, ‘interracial’ unions between European men (mainly Dutch) and Indonesian women were common. Despite their legal status as ‘European’ (if acknowledged by their fathers), Indo-Europeans’ ‘mixed race’ fostered an ambiguous position within colonial hierarchies. Often paternal European over maternal Indonesian ancestral identities were imagined to navigate colonial hierarchies, especially as perceived ‘whiteness’ could increase social, political and economic privileges (Captain, 2014).

The Dutch colonial rule ended after the Japanese occupation (1942–1945) and the Indonesian National Revolution (1945–1949), during which both Indonesian and Dutch individuals suffered extreme brutalities. Following Indonesian independence, Indo-Europeans were pressured to either obtain Indonesian citizenship or retain Dutch citizenship and leave the country. Thus, choosing between their paternal European and maternal Indonesian ancestries (Willems, 2005). Most Indo-Europeans were reluctant to renounce their Dutch status and approximately 300.000 Indo-Europeans repatriated to the Netherlands from 1945 to 1967. We use the term ‘repatriation’ as Indo-Europeans formally possessed the Dutch nationality and perceived the Netherlands as their imagined homeland. Notably, they knew the Netherlands mostly from textbooks and stories as many Indo-Europeans had never set foot on this imagined homeland (Willems, 2005). Due to experiences of unwelcome reception and discrimination, ‘the Netherlands did not turn into a fatherland for overseas Indo-Europeans’ (Captain, 2014, p. 57).

Indonesian independence invoked that Indo-Europeans themselves are unable to refer to any contemporary nation as their homeland (Willems, 2005). The realm of one’s childhood, the Indies, is not physically attainable or affiliated with a specific territory but rather with a lost era. Pattynama (2012) highlights how imagined representations of the Indies have become a collective identity marker through shared remembering and forgetting across generations. These experiences as well as their recollections and transmissions in familial contexts are both gendered and different across generations (Captain, 2014; Doornbos & Dragojlovic, 2021).

First-generation Indo-Europeans’ experiences of extreme brutalities have often disconnected them from contemporary Indonesia (Willems, 2005). This generation often clings to images of romanticized colonial pasts, while experiences of violence and displacement are omitted. This ‘unspeakable’ personal and collective memory work may be linked to experienced gendered, classed and racialized violence in both the Indies and the Netherlands (Dragojlovic, 2020). These secrecies of familial pasts may haunt descendants and invoke genealogy work (Captain, 2014; Dragojlovic, 2011). While first generations often attempted to ‘whitewash’ Indonesian influences to navigate colonial hierarchies, later generations often had more attention for the histories of their Indonesian ancestors (Dragojlovic, 2020; Willems, 2005). However, the second generation often struggled to reconcile these new senses of self with their upbringing and limited knowledge of family histories (Captain, 2014; Pattynama, 2012). Captain (2014) characterizes third-generation Indo-Europeans as ‘depoliticized’, as they may imagine more connections towards their Indonesian heritage with less racial consciousness.

Roots tourism of a diaspora

With a desire to (re)connect with one’s roots, diasporic individuals may travel to ancestral homelands in search of identity, dignity and belonging (Higginbotham, 2012; Marschall, 2015). This search for ‘authentic’ senses of home and self reflects an ‘outward and visible form to an inward and conceptual process’ (Basu, 2004, p. 172).

When people move, they ‘carry within their imaginations, memories and associated emotions that intersect both with the outward markers and physical baggage they bear and with the places they encounter’ (Adams, 2014, p. 35). Within diaspora, ancestral homelands are often imagined in the absence of a physical presence (Blunt & Bonnerjee, 2019). These memories function as a generator for diasporic travels, as roots tourists search for tangible and intangible traces of familial pasts, former mundane lives or previous encounters (Higginbotham, 2012). Rather than a ‘tourist gaze’ constructed through difference, they gaze with a ‘unique, emotionally loaded mind-map, in which memory and emotion form the backdrop to every perception and activity’ (Marschall, 2015, p. 884).

Connections to familial pasts and ancestral homelands may be different across diasporic generations (Higginbotham, 2012; Marschall, 2015). Furthermore, ‘senses of existential authenticity are socially constructed across gender, culture, age, life experiences, education, personal awareness and reflexivity’ (Kelly, 2020, p. 5). Diasporic migrants may travel to homelands to recapture pleasant memories or confront places associated with traumatic memories. While their descendants may also imagine connections with family histories and identities, they may be more removed from the ancestral homeland due to limited personal memories. Instead of retracing personal pasts, descendants are more often driven by limited knowledge of family histories and desires for rootedness. Their journeys can extend genealogical research to personally experience and feel connected to homelands and ancestors, and produce tangible and intangible heritage resources (Basu, 2004; Higginbotham, 2012; Marschall, 2015).

Roots tourists ‘search for existential authenticity through existential touristic experiences’ (Higginbotham, 2012, p. 199). Their journeys often include individuals or families who visit iconic sites and sites related to family histories. They aim to personally witness the land of ancestors and find their imagined homeland materialized in certain sites (Basu, 2004). Roots tourism can be an ‘intense, immersive, multisensory experience’ (Marschall, 2015, p. 879), as encounters with places and memories are stimulated through what tourists see, touch, smell, hear and taste. These multisensory encounters enable tourists to tangibly engage with pasts and to invoke lost memories (Iorio & Corsale, 2013). The personal witnessing of these ‘memory sites’ may be accompanied by performative actions, such as repeating actions from pasts or engaging in personal rituals (Marschall, 2015). Photographs and other souvenirs may be taken to remember experiences or assert one’s identity (Adams, 2014).

Through the metaphors of homecoming, quest and pilgrimage, Basu (2004, p. 173) illustrates how roots tourism, as simultaneously a ‘metaphorical’ and ‘terrestrial journey’, can be a therapeutic act to give form to senses of self. It can be an instrument of insight to reconnect with lost memories and traditions: ‘a quasi-mystical finding of oneself in others and others in oneself’ (Basu, 2004, p. 168). However, it may also strengthen existential anxiety (Basu, 2004). Presumed ethnic affinity and belonging may be challenged if individuals discover cultural differences between themselves and homeland populations (Tsuda, 2009). Maruyama and Stronza (2010) explored how second-generation Chinese Americans redefine their perceptions of homelands through roots travels to China. Participants’ imagined connections to the Chinese homeland, based on their parents and grandparents, were often contested during actual encounters. Consequently, ‘they acknowledged China as an ancestral homeland but reaffirmed their real homeland as the United States’ (Maruyama & Stronza, 2010, p. 39).

Rather than solely individual transformations, Kidron (2013) draws attention to intergenerational, familial relations which inform travel motivations and experiences. In her study with Israeli descendants of Holocaust survivors, Kidron examined motivations and lived experiences of family roots trips to heritage sites and sites of atrocity. These journeys may help survivors to confront and reconcile pasts and practices of silent grievances and suffering within their families. Ultimately, shared travel experiences functioned as a means to bond with parents and to perform latent familial relations.

Methods

We draw upon life story interviews to gain an in-depth understanding of both lived experiences and present-day realities of Indo-Europeans across the Netherlands. The interview guide was adapted from McAdams (2008) and covered lifespans chronologically, in which participants were encouraged to exert control over their autobiographical narratives. Topics included accounts of participants’ family histories; motivations, expectations, lived experiences and meanings of physical travels to Indonesia; and senses of belonging to the Netherlands, the Indies and Indonesia. Probes from photographs, documents, heirlooms and souvenirs from travels further evoked experiences. The principal researcher self-identifies as Indo-European and participants often positioned themselves together with the researcher, which fostered the biographical exchanges and co-construction of knowledge (Roberts, 2002).

Fifty Indo-Europeans from the first, second and third generation within twenty-one families were interviewed (either individually or together with partners, siblings or children). The individuals were recruited through acquaintances, Indo-European nursing homes and online Indo-European platforms. The dataset encompasses sixteen individuals from the first generation (all born in the colonial Dutch East Indies, ranging in age from 80 to 98 years), twenty individuals from the second generation (either born in Indonesia during or after WW2 and repatriated to the Netherlands as children or born in the Netherlands, ranging in age from 45 to 78 years) and fourteen individuals from the third generation (all born in the Netherlands, ranging in age from 24 to 52 years). Most families consisted of two (eleven families) or three generations (five families), in the remaining five families only one generation was interviewed due to relatives’ unwillingness or family estrangement. Out of the twenty-eight female and twenty-two male participants, twelve participants had never visited (or revisited after repatriation) Indonesia, but these individuals did discuss their family histories, senses of belonging and motivations for not visiting Indonesia.

Within the software package ATLAS.ti, the transcribed interviews were thematically analysed with deductive and inductive coding (Kitchin & Tate, 2000). The analysis focused on motivations, expectations, lived experiences and meanings of roots tourism to Indonesia by participants, taking into account generational and socio-demographic characteristics. Ethical approval for this research was obtained from the ethics committee of the Faculty of Spatial Sciences, University of Groningen. Names used in this paper have been altered for confidentiality.

Roots travel to Indonesia

The accounts of the three Indo-European generations reveal both differentiation and interlinkages in the motivations, expectations, lived experiences and meanings of their roots travel to Indonesia. The three diasporic generations imagined different connections to familial pasts and ancestral homelands, influencing their travel experiences. For the first-generation participants, personal memories functioned as a generator for their travels, which shaped their travel motivations and activities, itineraries and positionalities during travels (see also Higginbotham, 2012; Marschall, 2015). For some, travels enabled active engagement with traumatic wartime experiences, while others intentionally kept their distance to protect themselves from feelings of disappointment or loss.

In line with previous studies on roots tourism among later diasporic generations, second-generation participants were often driven by a desire to discover senses of self and filling ‘biographical gaps’, in search of something that was missing (Higginbotham, 2012; Marschall, 2015). Their travels enabled them to geographically locate links and connect with people and places related to Indonesian ancestries, beyond traumatic familial pasts (see also Basu, 2004; Dragojlovic, 2011). Recognitions were often found in multisensory encounters, which enabled participants to tangibly engage with familial pasts.

Regarding the third-generation participants, especially the younger participants revealed less ‘embodied’ knowledge of the sensitivities of family histories. This impacted their travel experiences with fewer anxieties compared to previous generations and following Captain (2014), reflected their more ‘depoliticized’ position towards colonial family histories. While for some their travel fostered (sometimes unexpected) recognition and a sense of homecoming, for others it was a confirmation of their ‘Dutchness’.

First generation

All except one first-generation participant had travelled to Indonesia once or multiple times after repatriation. Their accounts revealed a certain ambiguity and anxiety to travel to contemporary Indonesia, due to traumatic wartime experiences or feelings of loss and disappointment. These feelings shaped travel motivations and activities, itineraries and positionalities during travels.

Based on their anxieties, participants described that while they did retrace places from their past, they mostly intended to keep their distance while visiting Indonesia. They were afraid to experience a sense of loss due to differences between their romanticized childhood and contemporary Indonesia (see also Iorio & Corsale, 2013; Tsuda, 2009). This intention of distancing was exemplified by Roelof, who was born on Java in the late 1920s and repatriated to the Netherlands with his wife and son in his 20 s. During the interview, Roelof reminisced about his childhood home, where his family had lived in prosperity for multiple generations: ‘Sometimes I still cry about it. You are born and raised there. I went back once. To Bali, so I did not have to visit my birthplace.’ Roelof described how he longed to touch the soil once again. However, he was anxious to visit the island of Java and instead only visited the neighbouring, more ‘touristic’ island of Bali. His anxiety was linked to possible feelings of disillusionment: ‘You hope to retrace elements but since that Merdeka [independence] business… What is left? Who lives in that house now? The people are probably willing to let you in but well… so many hours on the plane.’ Hence, Roelof distances himself and argues: ‘Never mind, let’s just keep it in my thoughts and heart.’

Despite his intentions of distancing, Roelof described that he ‘felt the tropics’ while visiting Bali. Other participants similarly described a certain recognition in contemporary Indonesia, either in the population, food, climate or tangible traces of their pasts (see also Marschall, 2015). As Hendrik, born in the early 1930s and repatriated in his late 20 s, highlights: ‘Twenty-seven years in Indonesia do not simply disappear. You feel that you are born there.’ Despite (partly) recognizing their natal homeland in current Indonesia, participants also acknowledged their rootedness in the Netherlands. As Maria, born in the late 1930s and repatriated in her early 20 s, articulates: ‘It was like a holiday, not home. […] It felt good, it felt pleasant. Maybe you can say that my roots are there, like “I am born on this island”.’ Similarly, Bas, born in the late 1930s, stated: ‘Subconsciously, the Indies remain a part of you. But you are detached enough, part of the Netherlands, that you can look at it from a distance.’

Aside from distancing oneself to avoid disillusionment, contemporary connections to the Indonesian territory and population were also shaped by traumatic wartime experiences. Especially the bersiap (1945–1946) remains poignant among many Indo-Europeans, as Indonesian nationalists committed large-scale murders of (assumed) Dutch sympathizers (Dragojlovic, 2011). On the question if it felt like home when she returned to Indonesia, Mariska, born in the early 1920s and repatriated with her family in her early 30 s, answered: ‘Yes, immediately. But would I stay? No. There is mistrust, I do not trust the population anymore.’ Similarly, Christina, born in the late 1930s and repatriated as a child, mostly connected the Indonesian soil to her wartime experiences. The first and only time she visited Indonesia was thirty-five years after repatriation. Together with her daughter Brenda, she retraced places from her past, such as her old family home and school. During the interview, Brenda, born in the Netherlands and now in her 60 s, described that during her childhood without knowing the specifics, she felt that daily family life was ‘haunted’ by wartime experiences (see also Doornbos & Dragojlovic, 2021). After she convinced her mother to be more open about her ‘silenced’ experiences, they travelled together to Indonesia. This trip fostered tangible engagements with her mother’s past, as they retraced sites and repeated activities and routes from her mother’s childhood. Similar to Kidron (2013), for Brenda, their visit fostered a deep understanding of familial pasts and a positive connection to Indonesia. Her mother, however, described a different feeling while returning to Indonesia: ‘Pain. I had heartache. I thought, why? Why did all this happen?’

Bas, who left the Indies as a young boy and now in his early 80 s, similarly acknowledged that he was ‘haunted’ by his wartime experiences, causing nightmares and aggressive behaviour. Instead of keeping distance, he intended to actively confront and rework his childhood experiences from an adult perspective. His genealogy work included collecting ‘hidden’ family histories and ten visits to Indonesia. Bas and his family were interned in various civilian camps across Java. After the liberation by English troops, the internees were evacuated in a freight train to liberated parts of the island. Bas and his wife followed this exact train route during their travels to Indonesia around sixty years later: ‘[…] to retrace those places as an adult. To see what I was so preoccupied with. I found out things were like I remembered. We came across pleasant and unpleasant things.’ Thus, his traumatic experiences functioned as a generator for their travels and informed the travel itinerary (see also Higginbotham, 2012; Marschall, 2015). While visiting his father’s burial site, Bas described that he and his wife gazed upon the grave for more than an hour in the burning heat:

The feeling that someone is holding on to you, you cannot explain that, you have to feel it. My wife said, ‘then something is not yet finished.’ […] We went again the next day and you will not believe it, it was peaceful. Very quiet, like somebody said to us: ‘now, everything is alright.’ On our flight back, we flew right over the cemetery and the plane made a turn there. That is emotional stuff.

This and other experiences during his travels revealed characteristics of a secular pilgrimage. Similar to Basu (2004, p. 168), these journeys in search of himself and his traumatic past had ‘ritualistic and religious qualities’. This sense of sacredness is reflected in the travel itinerary following the train route, other-worldly experiences, collected relics from places (such as photographs and maps) and resulting personal transformations. Indeed, his journeys can be understood as ‘personal therapeutic acts’ (Basu, 2004, p. 170). Bas did not trust his memories and emotions, as he felt they were tarnished by his anger and pain. By retracing these traumatic sites, he aimed to separate the places and experiences from his emotions. Ultimately, his genealogy work has brought him closer to his Indonesian heritage, as he ultimately describes: ‘I was taught that the Netherlands was divine, the motherland. Well… it is my fatherland, my motherland is Indonesia, that is what I realized later.’ Ultimately, Bas collected all his insights in a ‘tangible heritage resource’ (Higginbotham, 2012, p. 190), a book which he shares with family members and former internees.

On a final note, most participants revealed a strong sense of belonging to the Netherlands, following colonial hierarchies in which often paternal European over maternal Indonesian ancestral identities were imagined (Captain, 2014). However, participants also acknowledged their own ‘in-betweenness’ and capabilities to navigate within colonial hierarchies. This ‘in-betweenness’ was also reflected in participants’ travel experiences and positionalities while visiting Indonesia years later. Participants often underscored they were not the same as other tourists from the Netherlands, as they functioned as translators between Dutch tourists and the Indonesian population or described that they were less prone to travel scams as ‘they knew how the country worked’.

Overall, the accounts of the first-generation participants reveal how personal memories shaped participants’ travel motivations and activities, itineraries and positionalities during travels (see also Higginbotham, 2012; Marschall, 2015). Most participants still (partly) recognized their natal homeland in contemporary Indonesia, but they also acknowledged their rootedness in the Netherlands. For some, their travels enabled active engagement with traumatic wartime experiences, while others intentionally kept their distance to protect their feelings of disappointment, loss or anxiety.

Second generation

The twenty second-generation participants were either born in Indonesia or the Netherlands after their parents’ repatriation. The participants born in Indonesia did not experience the colonial culture but did have childhood memories of wartimes and displacement. Thus, this particular generation includes both individuals who can draw on personal childhood memories during travels and individuals who only have collective memories. While the former group, similar to the first-generation participants, searched for tangible and intangible traces of personal pasts, the latter was more often driven by limited knowledge of family histories or a desire for rootedness (see also Higginbotham, 2012; Marschall, 2015). Most second-generation participants travelled to Indonesia with their partners and/or children. In some cases, participants travelled with their first-generation parents or brought a list of places their parents wanted them to visit or retrace.

Participants often described that their family histories were mediated through silences and romanticized anecdotes (see also Dragojlovic, 2020). Doris, born in the Netherlands in the 1960s, struggled to reconcile her parents’ romanticized stories with the traumatic pasts which she felt preoccupied her family. In response, she never felt the need to visit Indonesia: ‘My parents did not have an Indonesia to return to, they were considered Dutch by the Indonesian population. They were not welcome, they were hated.’ However, she decided to do so in her 50 s, after her daughter’s positive travel experiences in Indonesia. Doris’ travel motivations relate to a quest with ‘the elusive grail of the “authentic self”’ (Basu, 2004, p. 167): ‘For me, it was a quest for my own identity.’ She wanted to experience what emotions her visit would elicit. The organized group travel did provide some ‘safety’, yet, ‘the only thing you see are the hotels. […] I would have liked to stay more in one place and talk, getting to know the country.’ Doris described that her travels did not make her more positive about the country itself, but she did recognize certain personality traits of herself in the Indonesian population, which were often misunderstood in Dutch society. This ‘geographically situated sense of self’ (Nash, 2002, p. 48) enabled her to reflect on her social position in the Netherlands and fostered more self-acceptance: ‘It was comforting. I am not crazy. There are more people like me.’ Aside from personal transformations, she experienced that Indonesians were not resentful during encounters when she would mention her country of birth, as they only subtly stated: ‘We have a shared history.’

Others similarly described that their travels enabled them to gain knowledge and agency of family histories or discover a sense of self (see also Dragojlovic, 2011). These travel motivations relate to Captain’s (2014) observations of second-generation Indo-Europeans who struggled to reconcile senses of self with their upbringing and limited knowledge of family histories. Growing up in the Netherlands, they were not always accepted by peers and experienced feelings of exclusion but they were not able to articulate their difference due to their parents’ silences: “They were not the same as white Dutch, that much was obvious, but they did not know why” (Captain, 2014, p. 65). Travels enabled participants to tangibly and sensorily engage with familial pasts and discover senses of self (see also Iorio & Corsale, 2013). The travels of Marije during her 20 s, now in her late 50 s, fostered an understanding of her parents’ experiences and behaviours:

All the stories about the Indies were abstract. I could not grasp these stories. I could at that moment [in Indonesia]. I could see my parents as children […] Suddenly, my parents had a life, I could put their stories in perspective. Their stories were not gone, I had stored them somewhere, however, I could never grasp them. Thanks to my visit, the stories got colour, taste, feeling and smell. It became real.

Ivo was three years old when he repatriated with his parents in the 1950s: ‘I do not remember anything, but unconsciously it influenced me a lot.’ During the interview, Ivo described his family dynamics, centred around his father’s unpredictability, anger and demands of ‘Dutchness’. During his late 40 s, Ivo increasingly engaged in genealogy work and travelled to Indonesia:

Usually, I look forward to the holidays. This time I did not, I had a strange feeling, like this was not going to be a normal holiday. I became more restless as the holiday got closer. […] I stepped out of the plane, I heard the sounds, I smelt the scents, I felt the warmth and I started crying. I did not understand why. I could not stop crying.

Ivo revealed how he engaged with familial pasts through sensory and other-worldly encounters and subconscious recognitions; speaking words in Bahasa Indonesia he did not know he knew and ‘I see the dishes and I know how they will taste.’ His ‘existential journey to the source of the self’ revealed both characteristics of a homecoming and pilgrimage (Basu, 2004, p. 161). Ivo described that his genealogy work enabled him to gain agency over traumatic familial pasts and regain a sense of self, which was long dismissed by his father and not always accepted within the Netherlands. However, he struggled to reconcile this regained self in his ordinary life upon his return (see also Basu, 2004): ‘You display your roots, your ancestry. That is frightening if you were always taught that was not allowed.’

Thus, most second-generation participants travelled to contemporary Indonesia to actively engage with familial pasts and fill ‘biographical gaps’, in search of ‘something’ they felt was missing in their mundane lives. This also influenced their positionalities and activities during travels. With the ‘search for existential authenticity through existential touristic experiences’ (Higginbotham, 2012, p. 199), they distinguish themselves from ‘more trivial, “pleasure-seeking” touristic practices’ (Basu, 2004, p. 153). Based on commonalities in descent, they often imagined more connections to the Indonesian population than ‘regular’ tourists (see also Tsuda, 2009) and this was often noticed by Indonesians during their travels. For second-generation participants with first-hand memories, certain positionalities while travelling also helped them to handle their anxieties based on personal trauma. Iris, who returned to Indonesia after she had repatriated at age ten in the 1950s, described that she did not want to visit the country as a tourist: ‘I wanted the mundane life, no hotels and excursions.’ Iris wanted to find an ‘authentic feeling’ of her childhood but was also afraid to stand out due to her fear of being perceived as the enemy by Indonesians. Therefore, she travelled together with her daughter Pam, who spoke Bahasa Indonesia and stayed with Indonesian acquaintances. Contrastingly, Emma, who also repatriated during her childhood in the late 1940s, described that she was warned by others: ‘If you go, you should go as a tourist. Not in remembrance of the past. It has changed. Those Indies do not exist anymore.’

Six out of the twenty second-generation participants had never travelled to Indonesia. For some this related to a lack of interest in their Indo-European heritage, the climate, insects, financial or time constraints. For others, there were more emotional motivations. Tanja, now in her 50 s, described feeling particularly connected to her Indonesian foremother and was scared of the repercussions of a visit to her sense of belonging: ‘I do not want to go because I am scared that I want to stay forever.’ Alex, born in the Netherlands in the late 1960s, described that he followed his father’s sentiment of not visiting Indonesia. Growing up, his father showed anger and resentment of losing the Indies and the treatment of Indo-Europeans after repatriation by the Dutch government. Alex shared his father’s opinions and did not want to undermine him, even after his passing: ‘a kind of betrayal towards my father.’ Interestingly, he recently became more interested to travel to Indonesia, especially after his daughter in her late 20s, Judith, went. She described that during her travels, she felt connected to the Indonesian population and experienced a certain trust and recognition. As she was not able to pinpoint what this recognition was based on, her travels made her more interested to study her family histories. However, her father’s attitude prevented her from actually doing so: ‘Something is holding me back. I do not know why. I think because daddy is so angry. What if I also become angry?’

Overall, most second-generation participants described that their travels were driven by a desire to discover senses of self and filling ‘biographical gaps’. Reflecting intergenerational linkages, second-generation participants’ travels were often influenced by memories and experiences of their first-generation parents (resisting some, motivating others). Ultimately, their travel experiences, either by themselves or with their first-generation parents, enabled them to geographically locate pasts and often disrupted familial practices of silences (see also Kidron, 2013). Recognitions were often found in multisensory encounters, which enabled participants to tangibly engage with familial pasts.

Third generation

The fourteen third-generation participants were all born in the Netherlands to an Indo-European and Dutch parent, except for one participant whose parents were both Indo-European. While some third-generation participants described they knew the general histories of the colonial Indies, war and displacement, participants often highlighted they did not know specifics of familial pasts. Based on these intergenerational practices of silences, they struggled to position their families in these histories and did not always know which ‘side’ they were on.

As described, first- and second-generation participants often visited Indonesia with either personal memories or prior expectations of ethnic belonging (see also Tsuda, 2009). Third-generation participants may be described as more ‘depoliticized’ (Captain, 2014), with fewer experiences of exclusion in the Netherlands and ‘embodied’ knowledge about the colonial relations between the Netherlands and Indonesia. This influenced their travel motivations, activities and positionalities, as they more often visited the country as ‘regular’ tourists without retracing familial pasts. This was especially the case for the younger third-generation participants between the ages of 19 and 30 with limited ‘embodied’ knowledge of the intricacies of family histories. The anecdote of Jesse, now in his 30 s, illustrates this limited understanding of colonial relations:

The first time I visited Indonesia I brought an old towel with a huge V.O.C. [Dutch colonial trade company] logo from a Dutch bank. I had not thought about it, which shows how distant that history feels. I used it on the beach. I only understood later. My grandfather has exploited people there.

While for some their travels revealed (unexpected) similarities between their families and the Indonesian population, others experienced strong cultural differences (see also Maruyama & Stronza, 2010; Tsuda, 2009). Judith, who travelled to Indonesia in her 20s, described that she was not recognized as Indo-European by the Indonesian population. Judith did experience a certain trust based on similarities between Indonesians and her family:

I took a bus with an Indonesian man to his house. This sounds super naïve but there was some sort of trust. […] He brought me back to my hotel together with his wife and children. He just wanted to show me the real Indonesia.

Judith often mentioned during her encounters that she was ‘mixed’, after which Indonesians would often underline their historical bonds. Laura, now in her early 20 s, knew her grandparents and other family members were born in the Indies but did not comprehend their ‘mixedness’ and Dutch citizenship in the former colony. Based on her shared ancestry, Laura assumed ethnic affinity and expected to recognize herself in the Indonesian population during her visit (see also Tsuda, 2009). As this was not the case, Laura states that she would not dare to claim an Indo-European identity, due to her light complexion and instead, she redefined her attachments to the Netherlands and Indonesia (see also Maruyama & Stronza, 2010).

Contrastingly, older third-generation participants were more often aware of the intricacies of their familial pasts and imagined more connections with the Indonesian soil and population. These older participants often had more contact with their first-generation grandparents while growing up or went through important life events after which they became more interested in their familial histories. The experiences of these older participants echoed those of the second-generation participants born in the Netherlands, in which they travelled to fill ‘biographical gaps’. They had a certain wish for authenticity and experienced more often feelings related to what Basu (2004) characterizes as a homecoming. As Pieter, now in his late 50 s, illustrates: ‘A homecoming. […] The puzzle became whole; I belong both here and there. At the same time, you also notice you are different from them. But that part you could not quite understand or reconcile, you recognize there.’ Similarly, Krista, now in her 40 s, described how she felt a certain rootedness and connection to the Indonesian population. Krista distinguished herself from ‘regular’ tourists by describing her ‘existential touristic experiences’ and contrasting these with the stay on a more ‘touristic’ island (Higginbotham, 2012, p. 199): ‘We found that horrible, that was not like us. It was a beautiful hotel and pool, but the food was too European.’ Notably, despite their recognitions during their travels, both Krista and Pieter recognized their strong senses of belonging to the Netherlands, as they also experienced many visible differences between themselves and the Indonesian population.

Most participants travelled to Indonesia by themselves or with partners, however, a few made the trip with their second-generation parents. Gijs and Jesse, both in their early 30 s, even visited Indonesia with three generations. While their grandfather was hesitant about returning to Indonesia due to possible disappointments, he ultimately decided to take his children and grandchildren to teach them about his natal homeland. However, before the family reached the former home, the grandfather was hospitalized. During the interview, his wife shared that the grandfather stated later: ‘I am a guest, I do not belong here anymore.’ Ultimately, Gijs and Jesse decided to continue the family trip by themselves years later, during which they experienced a certain distance from the Indonesian population:

Jesse: Sometimes I caught myself feeling connected, but who are you kidding? Of course you recognize things […] You can feel that way, but they [Indonesian population] do not look at you like that. You are simply a tourist.

Gijs: I recognize that. Maybe there is also some guilt, causing you not to want to feel connected.

Overall, accounts of older third-generation participants reflected similarities with second-generation participants and their experiences of perceived ‘homecomings’ (Basu, 2004), but younger third-generation participants revealed more distance from contemporary Indonesia and less assumed ethnic belonging. Their accounts revealed less anxiety and ‘embodied’ knowledge of the sensitivities of family histories in comparison to previous generations. While these participants did acknowledge connections with the Indonesian soil and population based on shared ancestries, they fulfilled a more ‘depoliticized’ position towards colonial family histories (Captain, 2014). This also impacted their travel activities and positionalities, in which they more often fulfilled ‘regular’ tourist activities instead of retracing places from the past and ‘existential touristic experiences’ (Higginbotham, 2012, p. 199). In some cases, the positive experiences of this generation inspired their second-generation parents to travel to Indonesia themselves.

Conclusions

This article has explored senses of belonging of three Indo-European generations and examined how these were influenced by roots travel to contemporary Indonesia. In doing so, we have intended to uncover their motivations, expectations, lived experiences and meanings of travels to Indonesia. The multigenerational nature of the empirical data enabled differentiation across generational and familial lines with regards to Indo-Europeans’ senses of belonging, positions within larger colonial family histories and travel experiences.

As discussed by one of the participants in her encounters with Indonesians during travels, ‘we have a shared history.’ Ancestries and personal and collective memories of the colonial Indies connect various generations to contemporary Indonesia, influencing their motivations, expectations, lived experiences and meanings of roots travels. While for individuals born on the Indonesian soil personal memories often functioned as a generator for travels, later generations were more often driven by a desire to discover senses of self, in search of ‘something’ that was missing in their mundane lives (see also Higginbotham, 2012; Marschall, 2015). Notably, younger third-generation participants revealed less ‘embodied’ knowledge of the sensitivities of family histories, which impacted travel experiences and reflected their more depoliticized’ position towards colonial family histories (see also Captain, 2014).

The accounts also reveal interlinkages in the meanings of travel experiences for senses of belonging. While most participants imagined strong connections to the Netherlands, their travels to Indonesia allowed them to actively engage with their own or familial pasts. Their ‘existential touristic experiences’ (Higginbotham, 2012, p. 199) fostered personal transformations with more understanding of one’s family histories. Participants often described ‘a puzzle becoming whole’ or a part of one’s identity finally being recognized and accepted by oneself. While for some travels fostered (sometimes unexpected) recognitions and a sense of homecoming, for others it was a confirmation of their ‘Dutchness’ due to experienced cultural or visible differences.

Reflecting intergenerational linkages, second-generation participants’ travels were often influenced by the trauma, anger and anxiety of their first-generation parents (resisting some, motivating others). While Marschall (2015) distinguishes generations based on historical distance from the ancestral roots and the role of personal memory, the narratives reveal how experiences and sentiments can be passed on so strongly that they become a memory in itself for these participants, influencing their travel motivations and experiences. Across the generations, travels often fostered engagements with own or familial traumatic pasts, potentially disrupted familial practices of silences or sparked interests to (re)discover one’s Indonesian heritage. Apart from more personal transformations, positive travel experiences of family members also encouraged participants to travel themselves, looking past traumatic collective and personal memories. Indeed, positive travel experiences and related stories, photos and videos of family members often influenced personal travel intentions.

While the notion of roots tourism has gained scholarly attention, multiple diasporic generations are often studied as a single phenomenon (Pelliccia, 2018), in which there is a strong focus on individual transformations of travels while the embeddedness in familial relations is often overlooked (Kelly, 2020; Kidron, 2013). The accounts of the three Indo-European generations reveal not only personal transformations in senses of belonging, but also familial transformations, influencing mundane family dynamics and practices.

Acknowledgments

We are grateful for the participants who shared their intimate histories and experiences. We would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Julia Doornbos

Julia Doornbos is a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Spatial Sciences, University of Groningen, the Netherlands. Her doctoral thesis focuses on the everyday geographies of Indo-Europeans across the Netherlands and intergenerational transmissions of colonial family histories. Her current research interests include diaspora and (forced) migration, identities, senses of belonging, everyday (family) life and in- and exclusion.

Bettina van Hoven

Bettina van Hoven is Associate Professor of Cultural Geography at the Faculty of Spatial Sciences and Academic Director of Education at University College Groningen, University of Groningen, the Netherlands. Her recent research has concentrated on the feelings of belonging, and the attachment of various population groups to the place where they live. In the past, she has worked on projects involving: women in Eastern Europe, diaspora and migration, institutions, ethnicity, sexuality, disabilities, youth and nature.

Peter Groote

Peter Groote is Associate Professor in the Department of Cultural Geography, University of Groningen, the Netherlands. His research interests include Heritage studies, Economic history, Historical GIS, Places of death and Roadside memorials.