Title: Chapter 5. Monkeys as Metaphor: Ecologies of Representation in Dutch Travel Writing about Suriname from the Colonial Period
Abstract: This chapter maps out the ecologies of representation with regard to monkeys in Dutch travel writing on Surinam from the colonial period.By combining insights from animal studies and postcolonial theory, it addresses the monkey as a figure of ambiguity in texts from the early up to the late nineteenth century.It shows how the 'dreaded comparison' between humans and animals plays out in those texts wherein both animality and humanity is created, contested, and (re)negotiated.Such actions occur through strategies of familiarisation and defamiliarisation, thereby also shedding light on the peculiarities of a Dutch colonial gaze that informed the writings of Dutch scientists, naval officers, or missionaries that were sent to Suriname in order to explore, conquer, or convert.