Related Papers
B.W. Higman (ed.), UNESCO general history of the Caribbean
(With Rosemarijn Hoefte) Historiography of Suriname and the Netherlands Antilles
2000 •
Gert Oostindie
Albert Helman: between erudition and "primitivity"
ALBERT HELMAN: BETWEEN ERUDITION AND 'PRIMITIVITY'. THE ODYSSEY OF A EUROPEANIZED SURINAMESE. Introductory remarks
2019 •
Johanna Visee
ABSTRACT Distance/proximity, the sense of alienation and the wish of “belonging to”, the traumatic split-up between two worlds, the relation of culture (ratio) and nature (instinct), civilization and identity in three works of the Surinamese writer Albert Helman (1903-1996) covering a period of almost 60 years. In the novel “South-South-West” (1926) the protagonist takes the reader on a memory trip through his early years in his homeland, he himself being on his first trip towards “civilization”. The novel ends with an epilogue, a fierce attack on colonialism. The second novel “Heads of the Oayapok!” (1980) consists of five speeches delivered by an ethnic anthropologist with roots in an Indian tribe in Surinam. In the first four speeches he addresses himself fictitiously to the heads of the tribe of his ancestors. In the last speech he speaks to officials honoring him for his scientific research on extinguished tribes to which he himself belongs. A brilliant artistic concept to forge the whole out of internal contradictions. The third novel, “The end of the map” was published in 1984, but referring to a journey in the inland of Surinam Helman made in 1955. In his introduction he declares that he wanted to go beyond his own personal map to explore the “terra incognita” within himself, “a shocking awakening”. Through his whole work Helman struggled with the ambivalences within his own being having internalized an enormous European culture and erudition, but always aware of the “primitive Indian” within himself.
Suriname, Nature and Culture. account of a personal experience
Suriname: Nature and Culture. (account of a personal experience)
2001 •
JULIO B I T T E N C O U R T FRANCISCO
The present text has a personal vision of the author, who also incorporates in it his culture and knowledge yet his view of the world of the time he wrote the text, time that he lived and worked in the Surinamese country in the year 2001. The work brings historical, geographical, ethnic and cultural aspects of Suriname with a foresight of a Brazilian and, in a way, brings the insight that he shares with his country many characteristics that are also present in Latin America, but with a completely different aspects such as the Dutch colonization that is so very much different from the Latin way, predominant in the rest of South America. Ethnic, social and political diversity, but also the configuration of its complex society, is surprising, being for the author a kind of alter ego of his own country, achievable manly by empirical observation of how the Surinamese people deals with race, face coexistence with sparse resources, live among deep differences and struggle to survive with democracy.
Praveen Sewgobind
Caribbean Studies
J. Marten Schalkwijk. 2010. The Colonial State in the Caribbean: Structural Analysis and Changing Elite Networks in Suriname, 1650-1920. Den Haag: Amrit/Ninsee. 499 pp. ISBN: 978 90 74897 60 0
2012 •
Aaron Gamaliel Ramos
New West Indian Guide / Nieuwe West-Indische Gids
Anton de Kom and the Formative Phase of Surinamese Decolonization
2009 •
Peter Meel
Lost ‘Townes’ of the Arawak in South-East Suriname. Archaeology and Anthropology 19(2):58-78 (2015)
DUIN (2015) Lost ‘Townes’ of the Arawak in South-East Suriname.
2015 •
Renzo Duin
In 1609, Robert Harcourt ordered his cousin Unton Fisher to explore the Maroni River, (a.k.a. Marowijne; the present geopolitical boundary between Suriname and French Guiana). An abbreviated summary of Fisher’s account is included in the 1613 publication of Harcourt’s Relation of a Voyage to Guiana. In the 1926 edited volume of Harcourt’s Relation, Alexander Harris included as an appendix what he considered to be a copy, or fragment of a copy of “the Fisher Report.” This report contains two short “directions” provided by an indigenous informant to his home town. These routes venture through largely unexplored terrain in the south-east of Suriname, between the headwaters of the Suriname and the Maroni. This is the first time that these directions are plotted on a map. While the exact geographic placing of the named indigenous villages has not been possible, their general position urges for a reconceptualization of social and historical processes in the region; not in the last place because of the presence of several “Arwacca Townes” [Arawak settlements] along the Paloemeu, a tributary of the Tapanahoni, generally considered home to the Trio and Wayana who are both belonging to the Cariban language stock.
Reflections on Indigenous Research in Suriname - course paper
Rayah Bhattacharji
In and Out of Suriname
2015 •
Paul B Tjon Sie Fat
Diepeveen, Janneke & Matthias Hüning (2016): The status of Dutch in post-colonial Suriname. In: Daniel Schmidt-Brücken, Susanne Schuster & Marina Wienberg (Hrsg.), Aspects of (post)colonial linguistics. Current perspectives and new approaches, 131-155. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter.
The status of Dutch in post-colonial Suriname
2016 •
Matthias Hüning
Dutch is an official language not only in the Netherlands and Belgium, but also in Suriname, a country in South-America. Before its independence, Suriname was a colony of the Netherlands, starting as early as 1667. After its independence in 1975, the multilingual Republic of Suriname maintained Dutch as its official language, the language of education and public life. In this paper, we shall address two seemingly conflicting developments which take place in this former Dutch colony: on the one hand, the growing use of the creole language Sranantongo as a lingua franca across Suriname and on the other hand, the persistence of Dutch. We shall argue that the linguistic developments in Suriname must be understood against the background of a young nation which is constructing its own post-colonial national identity.
