Gendered and Ethnic Knowledge: Mrs. J.M.C. Kloppenburg – Versteegh (1862-1948), an Example from the Dutch East Indies Around 1900

The project inspects domestic practices of recipe collecting and the transfer of medical knowledge in the colonial setting of the Dutch East Indies around 1900, where race, class, and gender come prominently into play. Hesselink analyses the ambitious practices of collecting and publishing of the Indo-European Mrs. J.M.C. Kloppenburg-Versteegh, an author of a recipe book based on indigenous medical herbs as well as of a plant atlas, both widely used by Indo-Europeans as well as Europeans in Java where professional western health care was scarce. Introduced by her mother and local healers to the powers of indigenous plants, Mrs. Kloppenburg developed a great zeal to find, test and exchange recipes within in broad network of non-Western and Western practitioners. An intermediary between Western and indigenous medicine, Mrs. Kloppenburg’s medical handbooks enjoyed considerable success within the Indo-European community in Java, whereas some representatives of the western medical practices condemned her work as quackery. Regarding the colonial household as a site of production of medical knowledge and not just a recipient of European genius, Hesselink highlights also the role of recipe collection by women in this setting. A close analysis of Mrs. Kloppenburg’s recipe collection, its use, and reception brings light to the role of indigenous practitioners in the construction of scientific medicine.