Authors: Queenie Lin
Cultural heritage in port cities in Asia is the result of centuries of maritime endeavors and conflicts, climate adaptation, and continued urbanization. By examining the selected Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC) coastal settlements, Jakarta, Banten, and Makassar in Indonesia, as well as other settlements in Monsoon Asia. This research tackles the often oversaw phenomenon of how multicultural encounters inspire mobility and circulation of environmental knowledge, building technologies and materials between the VOC port cities and the intra-Asia knowledge exchange network established accordingly. It raises the question of how “Dutch” is this Dutch maritime cultural heritage? Previous research tends to only focus on Dutch contribution to bringing Western urban planning ideals to the East, however, this work explores far more complex and concomitant combinations of local stakeholders contributing to building Dutch overseas settlements, namely the diasporas Chinese’s contribution to the brick-and-mortar production and construction knowledge circulation in VOC Asia. These coastal settlements are historically and currently on the frontline of the dire environmental impacts, which are sinking and submerged at a formidable speed. It rethinks cultural heritage through the lens of climate change which affects and informs adaptation strategies in a time of climate crisis. It aims to develop new heritage management practices to address contemporary and future risks—accelerated rising sea levels, heat, floods, and severe storms—and the impact of urbanization and human activities that lead to the sinking heritage: dredging, land reclamation, and coastal development. It navigates an ever-increasing array of natural hazards by drawing lessons from these VOC coastal cities, particularly how cultural heritage mitigates climate impacts in the past and present, and provides decision-making for heritage management, urban planning and regional governance for the future. This research is a naval approach to bridging Dutch and Indonesian research institutions by collaborating with BRIN and Universitas Indonesia.