Vacancy: Postdoctoral researcher Food Studies
The TASTE project, consisting of a principal investigator and three PhD candidates studying taste transformations in South Africa, Suriname, and Sri Lanka, is now seeking a postdoctoral researcher to join the team. Deadline: 25 August 2025
Latest news
Blog | KITLV meets daughter of late Indonesian painter Djoko Pekik
19-07-2025
By Adrian Perkasa: I first read about Djoko Pekik during the violent periods of Indonesian Reformasi through his iconic artwork, Indonesia 1998 berburu celeng (Indonesia 1998 Boar Hunting). His painting featured two guys hanging a boar after hunting, and hundreds, if not thousands, of people greeted them with diverse expressions.
Media | Adrian Perkasa about Indonesia's plan to rewrite its national history
13-07-2025
Adrian Perkasa writes in The Conversation about Indonesia’s plan to rewrite its official national history was initially met with positive responses, particularly for its goal of better serving the younger generation. But the project to reshape the country’s mainstream historical narrative soon ignited widespread controversy for overlooking underrepresented groups and reinforcing authoritarian tendencies.
Call for applications | KITLV visiting fellowships 2026
16-07-2025
KITLV invites scholars working in the fields of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies to apply for a Visiting Fellowship. Candidates are invited to send in a proposal of the work they wish to carry out while at KITLV. Fellows may work on a publication or research project of their own choice.
Events
4 September
Book talk | The rule of dons | Rivke Jaffe
2 October
UUKS seminar | Rituals and rice cultivation | I Kadek Surya Jayadi
21-23 October
Island(er)s at the Helm end conference | New perspectives on climate challenges in the (Dutch) Caribbean
Latest calls
Vacancy: Postdoctoral researcher Food Studies
The TASTE project is seeking a postdoctoral researcher. Deadline: 25 August 2025
Visiting fellowships 2026
KITLV invites scholars working in the fields of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies to apply for a visiting fellowship.
Activities fund
The Members Association / Vereniging KITLV invites its members to actively contribute to realizing the goals of the Association.
Collection & publication fund
The Members Association / Vereniging KITLV invites its members to contribute to maintaining and expanding its collection.
Who we are & what we do
The KITLV is a research institute dedicated to the study of societal challenges, focusing on the histories and afterlives of colonialism in the Caribbean, Southeast Asia, and the Netherlands. Our aim is to produce quality research that furthers justice and envisions alternative futures beyond dominant perspectives.
Our research is informed by intimate familiarity with the cultures, histories, and languages of the places we study. Combining history, anthropology, archaeology, political science, linguistics, and the arts, our interdisciplinary perspective is critical and sensitive to marginalised voices.
Research Lines
Project
Cyber troops and computational propaganda in Southeast Asia: A comparative study of public opinion manipulation
Expensive elections campaigns are a threat to democracies around the world, because they generate corruption and political inequality. Yet, due to methodological obstacles and a western bias in the current literature, we do not really know what makes election campaigns expensive.
Project
From nomadic nets to fixed shores: Navigating resource access and traditional ecological knowledge in post-sedentary Sea Nomads
The islands and coastlines of Southeast Asia are home to Sea Nomads, including Moken/Moklen, Orang Laut, and Sama-Bajau, each with their own distinct yet related cultural identities, languages, and histories. For centuries, these groups have maintained a close relationship with the ocean, often living nomadic or semi-nomadic lives where their houseboat served as both homes and the primary means of sustenance.
Project
International knowledge cooperation History of Slavery, Indonesia, Suriname & South Africa
The Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV) has been commissioned by the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science to advance international knowledge cooperation regarding the history of slavery in Indonesia, South Africa, and Suriname.
Project
Island(er)s at the Helm: Co-creating sustainable and inclusive solutions for social adaptation to climate challenges in the (Dutch) Caribbean
Driven by the increasing public awareness of the impact of hurricanes and the devastation of coastal areas, Island(er)s at the Helm contributes to equipping (Dutch) Caribbean societies with proficient tools for confronting these challenging climatic phenomena.
Project
Trajectories of TASTE: An analytical framework of culinary change after migration
The TASTE Project, funded by the European Research Council and running from June 2024 to the summer of 2029, examines shifting food preferences and culinary change. Centered on three Indonesian diasporas, the project explores how people have adapted their culinary traditions to new environments in the past and continue to reshape them today. In doing so, we scrutinize how cultural, historical, social, economic, and environmental factors operate, intersect, and occasionally conflict in these transformations.
Project
Unpacking KITLV Special Collections: Colonial histories, object biographies, knowledge practices, and local agency
A project on the coloniality of Asian library and manuscript-formations. With KITLV Special Collections as point of departure, we study the social biographies of manuscripts, and the colonial histories of collecting, to gain insight into the role of violence therein, and to recognize local agency in the makings of so-called Asian Libraries.
Our work
Diana Suhardiman et al.
Our publications
The temporally cumulative effects of hydropower development in northern Laos
Drawing on a study of the lower reaches of the Nam Ou Basin in the Pak Ou and Nam Bak districts of Luang Prabang province in Laos, this paper explores how the social outcomes of a major hydropower project emerge from and are contingent upon long-term changes in livelihoods that can be dated back to the 1970s.
David Kloos et al.
Our publications
Social media and society in Indonesia
A special issue on social media in Indonesia in the journal Indonesia, co-edited by KITLV researcher David Kloos, Merlyna Lim (Carleton University) and Johan Lindquist (Stockholm University).
Ward Berenschot et al.
Our publications
Village politics in Indonesia: Across time and space
A special issue in Southeast Asia Research about village politics in Indonesia, which KITLV researcher Ward Berenschot edited with Linda Savirani, Arie Ruhyani (both UGM), and Edward Aspinall (ANU).
Esther Captain et al.
Our publications
Dit monument is het teken dat wij het hebben overleefd
Esther Captain en Urwin Vyent verzamelden in deze bundel belangrijke toespraken van o.a. Jet Bussemaker en Femke Halsema uitgesproken op de jaarlijkse herdenking van de afschaffing van de slavernij.
Rosa de Jong et al.
Our publications
Narrating Jewish refugee transit to the Caribbean in Felicia Rosshandler’s Passing through Havana
This article looks at the literary representations of the flights of Holocaust refugees to the Caribbean. Refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe feature prominently in Caribbean novels.
Esther Captain et al.
Our publications
Slavery & the Dutch state: Dutch colonial slavery and its afterlives
This book shows how the modern Dutch state and its predecessors were complicit in colonial slavery. It describes the roles of various actors in the Netherlands and the colonized societies.