(Only in Dutch) Het KITLV jaarverslag 2015 is nu online beschikbaar via de website. Een samenvatting in het Engels volgt binnenkort. Leden van het KITLV die een lidmaatschap hebben inclusief een geprinte versie van ...

Historian Bart Luttikhuis examines the origins of the widely-used estimate of 100,000 Indonesian victims of the Dutch-Indonesian War of Decolonization (1945-1950), and calls into question its accuracy. Ultimately, he wonders, does the number really matter?...

Orang-kontrak: De verbeelding van Javaanse contractarbeiders in Suriname en Deli’, Acta Neerlandica 12 (2016): 145-71. In a special issue of Acta Neerlandica on Hungarians in the Dutch colonies, Rosemarijn Hoefte ...

Unlike social scientists, many historians do not very often engage in a dialogue with their research subjects. For, as far as we know, the dead don’t read or speak back. But what happens if a historian ...

Indonesia's democratisation process is a case of the half-full glass. Pessimists argue that elections have descended into an ugly spectacle of vote-buying and manipulation that does little to distribute power in...

Hoko Horii is a PhD candidate at KITLV, conducting research on international human rights law and its implication on child marriage practice in Indonesia. She has been working with Mies Grijns, who is an ...

KITLV researcher Jessica Vance Roitman is just back from two weeks working in the National Archives of Curacao. She reflects on the art of history, working with archival material, and the glimpses she’s caught of the social history of the Dutch Windward...

Communist Cuba is changing at an unprecedented pace. But nothing is what it seems in Cuba. Gert Oostindie reports after making a television documentary on the eve of president Obama’s visit. Classic Cadillacs and other old timers are ...

Brandpunt - Reporter, KRO/NCRV, 22 March 2016: last week Gert Oostindie and Aart Zeeman visited Cuba, reporting on the state of affairs in Cuba on the eve of Obama's historic visit. Click here to watch the short documentary ...

On 23 March 2016 the Research Center for Material Culture and KITLV invite you to the lecture ‘Uncovering the secrets of sound and rhythm in the context of the ethnic Moluccan music of Indonesia’ delivered by dr. Christian Tamaela, ethnomusicologist and theologist...

Over the past decades, Gert Oostindie has cooperated in making several television documentaries on Cuba. He just returned from Havana after reporting on the state of affairs in Cuba on the eve of Obama's historic visit. Below is a more elaborate...

Indonesians have forgotten the genocidal violence of 1965. Or have they? In this town in Central Java, locals and officials recently gathered for a remarkable commemorative service to the 1965 dead. Gerry van Klinken investigates. "Every time I visit Indonesia...

On the 13th of March, historian Cees Fasseur passed away in a Leiden hospital at the age of 77. We lost an important historian and a friend.As a colonial historian, Fasseur carried out ground-breaking research on the Cultivation System in nineteenth century...

What’s not to love about a big Indonesian wedding? Food, socialization, and the chance to pull on your best kebaya. But, writes Jacqueline Hicks, for Indonesia’s political and economic elites, they are much more than that....

(Also in Dutch) We are looking for participants for a study on what motivates individuals to protect the cultural heritage, and / or the natural environment on the BES islands. This research is part of the 'Confronting...

The late Dr Silvia W. de Groot, historian and lifetime honorary member of the Members Association left a legacy to KITLV with the aim of financially supporting young Caribbean students or researchers, preferably ...

One-Tété Lohkay and Alida, the legend of the enslaved woman whose breast was cut off, have become folk heroines. What to do asks Jessica Roitman, an historian who wonders if these disfigurements occurred?...

Het krijgt in Nederland nog weinig aandacht, maar wat in New Delhi begon als een studentenprotest is uitgelopen op een dagenlange grote demonstratie voor vrijheid van meningsuiting. Ward Berenschot (KITLV), politicoloog en India-kenner...

On 5 January 1949, the Sumatran city of Rengat was occupied by Dutch paratroopers, at the cost of large numbers of civilian casualties. NRC Handelsblad published a report on this massacre written by KITLV...

This weekend Anne-Lot Hoek reports for NRC Handelsblad and Reporter Radio KRO-NCRV about the forgotten bloodbath in Rengat, Sumatra. The idea was to find out what happened. But what happened was not what struck her most. Every year a memorial service ...

'Informal Politics Is Real Politics; A Research Blog on the Machinations of Power in Asia and beyond'. By Ward Berenschot. How do governments actually work? Informal politics – the ways in which people draw on personal ...

Earthquakes resulting from the extraction of natural gas for decades on end are now taking a heavy toll on the people of Groningen in the north of Holland. Typically, according to Willem van der Molen, the Dutch government reacts to the demand...

To my surprise I encountered an old Oral History project of mine, the SMGI, featuring in a novel, writes Fridus Steijlen. And it plays its role with excellence. Between 1997 and 2001 I coordinated the oral history project...

On Thursday 21 January, between 8:00 and 9:30 pm, KITLV researchers Dr. Wouter Veenendaal and Prof. Gert Oostindie will present the results of their opinion survey on Saba. The presentation will take place at the ...

Thursday morning January 14, a terrorist attack in downtown Jakarta was on the news. Media contacted KITLV for comments. How did Dutch media react? Observations by Henk Schulte Nordholt and Fridus Steijlen....

Article 'Haze of democracy' by KITLV researcher Ward Berenschot in online journal Inside Indonesia: elections are fuelling the forest fires in Central Kalimantan. Berenschot is currently working on a book on local ...

With great sadness we announce the passing of professor Mario Rutten on December 26, 2015. Mario was the chair of KITLV’s wetenschapscommissie (Scientific Committee) from 2006 to 2012 and continued as ...

A little more than three years ago Ridho Reinanda joined KITLV as a researcher in the Elite Network Shifts project. Since then he found several things to be done that are unavoidable for applying computational approaches...

The research network Understanding Insurgencies: Resonances from the Colonial Past, in which KITLV participates with six other research institutes in Britain, France and Canada, was awarded a network grant from...

Op 8 december 1982 vonden de Decembermoorden in Suriname plaats. In de Stopera herdenken nabestaanden en betrokkenen de 15 slachtoffers voor de 33e keer. Hoe kijkt de Surinaamse gemeenschap aan tegen ...

Matthieu Pereira reflects on the role of law and the use of legal discourse in rural contexts. He introduces one of the issues he tackles in his doctoral research. While statements about the lack of the rule of law in Indonesia and...

While the recent academic, public and legal attention for the decolonization of Indonesia rightly focuses on violence as one of its defining characteristics, we should not lose sight of the other aspects of the conflict....

Op donderdag 3 december organiseert het KITLV in het Nationaal Archief in Den Haag een symposium over het lopende onderzoeksproject ‘Nederlands Militair Optreden in Indonesië 1945-1950’. Dit project ...

Now online available: special issue Asian Journal of Social Science on 'Digital Methods in Asian Studies'. With articles written by KITLV researchers Gerry van Klinken, Jacqueline Hicks, Vincent Traag and...

White Dutch people have recently entered the second stage of grief over losing their colonial innocence: anger, says Paul Bijl. For decades they thought that racist injustice, slavery, colonialism and mass killings were more characteristics of the Germans, Americans, British and ...