Threads of Imperialism: Colonial Institutions and Gendered Labour Relations in the Textile Industry in the Dutch Empire

Abstract

This chapter explores the effect of colonial institutions on gendered labour relations in the Javanese and Dutch textile industries through the perspective of mutual colonial influences. Indigenous Javanese textile production was less dramatically affected by Dutch state-subsidized textile imports than most historians suggest. Javanese workers, particularly women, found niche markets and profited from the imported factory-made yarns and white cloth, which stimulated hand-weaving and -printing until the 1920s. Simultaneously, colonial policies and connections affected metropolitan textile production. Firstly, Dutch exports to Java stimulated industrialization in the Netherlands, entailing new gendered divisions of labour. Secondly, colonial profits contributed to rising male wages in the late nineteenth century, presumably causing married Dutch women to comparatively quickly and extensively withdraw from formal paid work.