•  
  •  
 

Abstract

In 1933 Anton de Kom set up an advice bureau in his family’s yard in Paramaribo, the capital of Suriname, then a Dutch colony. After years of living in The Netherlands, De Kom wanted to hear the klachten (complaints) of Surinamese workers and the unemployed. Thousands responded to De Kom’s invitation; the descendants of African slaves and Asian indentured workers, Indigenous peoples, and Maroon leaders traveled from the South American plantations and forests to share their experiences of exploitation and abuse. After a month, police arrived to shut down De Kom’s listening project, hundreds of Javanese workers squatted in his yard in a demonstration of passive resistance. As worker protests spread across Paramaribo, colonial authorities brutally attacked gathering crowds. De Kom (often known as ADEK) was arrested and held in jail for three months until authorities suddenly deported him and his family to the Netherlands.

One year later, De Kom published an unusual monograph from exile. We Slaves of Suriname was the first account of Dutch imperialism from the perspective of the colonized (De Kom [1934] 2020; De Kom 2022). Written in Dutch, it has been described as “probably the first historical account of slave resistance and marronage” (Van Stipriaan 2006, 77), though scholars overlook the book’s intellectual contributions. In this paper, I turn to Eli Meyerhoff’s (2019) Beyond Education to understand the significance of De Kom’s important work. Drawing on Meyerhoff’s articulation of modes of study beyond education, I explore how De Kom developed innovative ways to recover Surinamese histories of resistance amid intense repression, intellectual and political isolation, and deeply rooted imperialist ideologies. As I delve into De Kom’s study, I reflect on ways those of us who wish to challenge colonial education can learn from De Kom’s creative, accountable, and genre-bending practice.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 License.

DOI

10.24968/2473-912X.4.1.3

Download

Included in

Education Commons

Share

COinS