Digitising Indonesian Artefacts in Europe : A Case Study of Wereldmuseum, Museum Bronbeek and the Museum of Ethnography

The purpose of this thesis is to explore the practices and approaches to the digitisation of Indonesian artefacts in three organisations, Wereldmuseum and Museum Bronbeek in the Netherlands and the Museum of Ethnography in Sweden. The study seeks to find how the digitisation of Indonesian artefacts is undertaken, particularly within the context of the museums’ colonial histories and postcolonial digital humanities. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with museum professionals, with the addition of an overview of each museum’s online database. A thematic analysis was applied to the data collected from both the interviews and the database overview. Though the colonial contexts of the museums’ Indonesian collections are not considered during their digitisation, each of the museums have ethical considerations when it comes to the digitisation and digital display of culturally sensitive objects. Dialogue with source and diasporic communities also play a prominent role in the museums’ digitisation of Indonesian objects. Great variation is found in the presentation of the collections in the databases, with the occasional inclusion of information about the objects’ colonial contexts. Despite the lack of considerations concerning colonial contexts and the possibility of including more reflections during the digitisation process of such collections, the museums still have some considerations that aid in creating postcolonial workflows that help centre Indonesian voices in these European museums.