DIDAKTIS: Jurnal Pendidikan Bahasa dan Sastra Indonesia
Vol 4 No 2 (2026): DIDAKTIS: Jurnal Pendidikan Bahasa dan Sastra Indonesia

Feudal colonialism: Racial authority, aristocratic brokers, and the subjugation of the body in Pangeran dari Timur

Aslan Abidin (Universitas Negeri Makassar, Indonesia)
Angellika Matta (Universitas Negeri Makassar, Indonesia)
Andi Karman (Universitas Negeri Makassar, Indonesia)



Article Info

Publish Date
06 Sep 2026

Abstract

This article examines how colonialism is represented not as a simple opposition between European colonizers and Indigenous subjects in Pangeran dari Timur, a novel by Iksaka Banu and Kurnia Effendi. Employing qualitative content analysis, the study examines 52 purposively selected textual excerpts, validated through close reading and coded into two analytical domains: feudal colonialism and its effects, and racialized status hierarchy. The findings indicate that elite collaboration, discrimination, and colonial privilege are the most prominent patterns in the corpus. Colonialism emerges as a layered political and cultural formation, particularly in Java. Dutch and British colonial power becomes effective because it is translated through kings, regents, priyayi, landlords, court protocols, land relations, and ritualized forms of deference. Everyday objects and gestures, including shoes, clothing, seating arrangements, language, kneeling, and artistic patronage, transform hierarchy into embodied habit. Raden Saleh appears as an ambivalent figure who reveals both the possibilities and the limits of colonial inclusion. The article proposes feudal colonialism as a literary-analytical model for reading colonial formations in which foreign racial authority and Indigenous aristocratic mediation operate simultaneously.

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Journal Info

Abbrev

didaktis

Publisher

Subject

Education Languange, Linguistic, Communication & Media

Description

DIDAKTIS: Jurnal Pendidikan Bahasa dan Sastra Indonesia (e-ISSN 2986-5956) is published by Fakultas Sastra, Universitas Muslim Indonesia. It is published twice a year, namely in March and September. It journal publishes research-based articles in the field of (1) Language and Literature Learning: ...