Sophie Rose, "Intimacy and Social (Dis)Order in Dutch Colonial Expansion: Regulating Sex, Marriage, and Family Life, 1600–1800" (Brill, 2025)

About this episode

The episode discusses the complexities of intimacy, marriage, and family life in the Dutch colonial empire during the eighteenth century, as explored in Sophie Rose's book.

Explosive sexual scandals, bitter domestic conflicts, and dramatic changes in fortune. Sex, marriage, and family life were matters of enormous consequence in the highly complex societies that formed across the early modern Dutch overseas empire. This was not only true for the colonial authorities that administered settlements on behalf of the Dutch East and West India Companies (VOC and WIC), but also for the people of various backgrounds and statuses that inhabited these places. Focusing primarily on the eighteenth century, this book explores how these disparate and unequally empowered groups contested the norms that governed intimate life in Dutch colonial outposts from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic. Sophie Rose, Ph.D. (2023), is a post-doctoral researcher at Leiden University. This interview is conducted by Dr Lewis Wade, a Humboldt Research Fellow at the University of Bamberg. He is the author of the prize-winning Privilege, Economy and State in Old Regime France and can be found on Bluesky @wadehistory.bsky.social. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

People in this episode

Host: Dr Lewis Wade

Guest: Sophie Rose

Topics covered

• Dutch colonial expansion
• intimacy
• social order
• sex and marriage
• family life
• eighteenth century
• colonial authorities

Keywords

• Dutch colonialism
• sexual scandals
• domestic conflicts
• intimate life
• colonial outposts
• historical norms
• post-doctoral research

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Leiden University, Dutch East India Company, Dutch West India Company, Brill

Books & works: Intimacy and Social (Dis)Order in Dutch Colonial Expansion

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