This is an article written by Joost Cote Monash University (Australia) and published in June 2010 in the “Tijdschrift voor Sociale en Economische Geschiedenis”
Abstract.
This article considers how the Indisch Dutch related to post-war Australia. After establishing the definitional and statistical identity of Australia’s Indisch Dutch, the discussion draws attention to the geographical proximity of what were once two European colonial settler communities inhabiting the southeast corner of the Asian hemisphere. Although a mere hours flying from their former pre-war locations, almost all Indisch Dutch who migrated to Australia came via the Netherlands. Despite the geographical proximity of their past and present lives, they are in fact separated by a dramatic history. This paper considers what if anything the histories of two European communities had in common and what this may have meant to both Indisch migrants and their Australian hosts in the 1950s and 1960s
