Singing in Motion: Hymn Texts and Belonging among the Moluccan Protestant Community in the Netherlands

Abstract

This dissertation examines the role of hymn texts in the identity formation of Moluccan Protestants in the Netherlands, drawing on material religion, oral/aural theory, and practice theory. The study is grounded in anthropological fieldwork among second- and third-generation Moluccan Protestants, combining participant observation, interviews, survey research, digital methods, and historical-hymnological analysis. Its central argument is that singing hymn texts forms and evokes an intergenerational and interdenominational sense of Moluccan belonging. The dissertation unfolds across five thematic chapters, each framed as a journey. Chapter 1 traces Moluccan migration history through the figure of the barrack, following former KNIL-soldiers from the Dutch East Indies to the Netherlands and arguing that personal memory constitutes an indispensable dimension of (post)colonial historical narrative. Chapter 2 reconstructs the itineraries of Moluccan hymns, mapping an organizational network of churches termed the "Moluccan Protestant landscape" and identifying a core hymnological repertoire that is experienced as authentically Moluccan. Drawing on the concepts of authenticity and archive, the chapter advances a decolonial sonic history of Moluccan Protestantism. Chapter 3 analyzes the geographical dimensions of hymn singing, conceptualizing the movements of people and songs toward ancestral homelands as literal, metaphorical, and physical geographies shaped by an "insular landscape." Composing and choir practices are shown to function as sonic pilgrimages that evoke acoustic homecoming across generations. Chapter 4 focuses on the liturgical year, arguing that polyphonic congregational singing constitutes an embodied sonic skill that creates an emotional community of longing. Special occasions such as Confirmation, the Lord's Supper, and the consolation service are sites where hymns transmit collective memory and form affective bonds. Chapter 5 addresses postcolonial politics of representation, introducing the concept of "textual aurality" to theorize how the sound of sung Malay supersedes denominational and generational divisions, functioning as a shared language of political and cultural belonging. Methodologically, the study is deliberately multidisciplinary, integrating anthropology, hymnology, history, and ethnomusicology. Its theoretical contribution lies in advancing a material conceptualization of religious texts, one that moves beyond semantic content and silent reading to encompass embodiment, emotion, sound, and collective practice. A hymn is understood not merely as a written text but as an oral/aural scriptural form whose meaning emerges through practice. The concept of the "hymnological core" captures a dynamic rather than static tradition: a thread of overlapping fibers that persists through generational and denominational change. The dissertation demonstrates that Moluccan hymns have played a central role in processes of identity formation precisely because they accommodate movement and transformation. Hymns store memories, map transnational landscapes, and mediate the tension between loss and resilience. In doing so, they constitute what the author calls a "textile" of sound, binding Moluccan Protestants across time, place, and confession, and singing their pasts, presents, and futures into motion.