DEVISE AND RULE: COLONIAL CONSTRUCTIONS OF THE BORNEO DAYAK c.1860–1920

ABSTRACT This paper considers some of the ways in which travellers, administrators and academics in the colonial period sought to categorise the indigenous groups of Borneo. It focuses on Sarawak and North Borneo between about 1850 and 1920, and examines the use of stereotypical images of exoticism, fear and loathing in constructing different categories of peoples in the region. The paper argues that such categorisations were important in structuring the relationships between ruler and ruled, and in the development of particular regional and local identities.