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Becoming Indonesian citizens: Subjects, citizens, and land ownership in the Netherlands Indies, 1930–37

For decades after their introduction in 1854, state-defined categories of subjects and citizens in the East Indies remained largely uncontested. But a furore erupted when Indo-Europeans — legally Europeans and citizens of the Netherlands — demanded rights to own land, rights exclusively apportioned to the autochthonous population. This article recounts a contentious campaign in the 1930s by the Indo-European Association to gain rights to own land, and the vehement rejection by Indonesians expressed in various civic outlets. I argue that by challenging state categories of entitlement, race, and belonging, the debates on rights to own land defined more sharply notions of citizenship among the Indies population. Drawing on ‘acts of citizenship’, I situate the discourse of rights at the centre of the debate on colonial citizenship. In so doing, I offer an insight into the genealogy of exclusion that has haunted the idea of citizenship in postcolonial Indonesia.