Gert Oostindie
Professor Gert Oostindie (1955) is the director of the KITLV, an institute of the KNAW/Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.
From 1993 to 2006, he also held a chair in Caribbean Studies at the Department of Anthropology of Utrecht University. In September 2006, he was appointed Professor of Caribbean History at the History Department of Leiden University and left Utrecht University.
Gert Oostindie studied history and social sciences, with a specialization in socioeconomic and Latin American history, at the Free University of Amsterdam (graduation, cum laude, 1982). He obtained his PhD at Utrecht University (cum laude, 1989) with a doctoral thesis on slavery and the plantation economy in the Dutch Caribbean colony of Suriname. He became head of the KITLV’s Department of Caribbean Studies in 1983, a position he held until assuming the directorship of institute in 2000.
Professor Oostindie’s principal areas of research have been the Caribbean and Dutch colonial history. He published extensively on the colonial history and decolonization of the Dutch Caribbean, on history, ethnicity and migration in the Caribbean and Latin America in general, and on the significance of colonial history and postcolonial migration to Dutch national identity. He is presently preparing a book on the latter theme.
Over the past twenty years, Gert Oostindie has published, co-published, and edited over 20 books and 125 articles with a wide range of publishers (see selected listing below). He has served on many editorial, scholarly, and governmental committees both in the Netherlands and abroad, and is a frequent contributor to the Dutch mass media on his areas of expertise. He has travelled widely in the Caribbean and Latin America and, lately, in Southeast Asia.
Projects:
AWAD
Bringing History Home
Dutch Atlantic Connections, 1680 - 1795
Dutch Colonialism, Migration and Cultural Heritage
Historiography of the Police in (former) Dutch Carribean: Suriname, Netherlands Antilles and Aruba
Enquête postkoloniale Nederlanders in Nederland
Contact:
A full list of KITLV publications and their authors can be obtained from our archive of annual reports.
Selected Publications
A substantial number of these publications are available as PDF-files on Cream of Science
(ed.), Dutch Colonialism, Migration and Cultural Heritage. Leiden: KITLV Press, 2008.
De parels en de kroon. Het koningshuis en de koloniën. Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij/Leiden: KITLV Uitgeverij (1st ed.). Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij 2006 (2nd and 3d ed.). 192 pp.
'Dependence and Autonomy in Sub-national Island Jurisdictions: The Case of the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba.', The Round Table 95(386) 2006:609-626.
'The Study of Ethnicity in the Dutch Caribbean. Full Circle to Furnivall?', Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies 1(2) 2006:215-230.
Ethnicity in the Caribbean . Essays in Honor of Harry Hoetink. [Edited by Gert Oostindie.] Reprint with new Preface, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2005. [Original edition London: Macmillan, 1996.] xiii+239 pp. Order form for this book
Paradise Overseas; The Dutch Caribbean: Colonialism and its transatlantic legacies. Oxford: Macmillan, 2005
(with Inge Klinkers), Decolonising the Caribbean; Dutch policies in a comparative perspective. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2003. Order form for this book
‘Squaring the circle; Commemorating the VOC after 400 years’, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 159 (2001):135-161.
(ed.), Facing up to the past; Perspectives on the commemoration of slavery from Africa, the Americas and Europe. Kingston/The Hague: Ian Randle/Prince Claus Fund, 2001.
(with Inge Klinkers), Knellende Koninkrijksbanden; Het Nederlandse dekolonisatiebeleid in de Caraïben, 1940-2000. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2001. [Vol. I, 1940-1954; Vol. II, 1954-1975; Vol. III 1975-2000.]
(ed.), Curaçao, 30 mei 1969; Verhalen over de revolte. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1999.
(ed.), Dromen en littekens; Dertig jaar na de Curaçaose revolte, 30 mei 1969. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1999.
(ed.), Het verleden onder ogen; Herdenking van de slavernij. Amsterdam/Den Haag: Arena/Prins Claus Fonds voor Cultuur en Ontwikkeling, 1999.
(with Peter Verton), Ki sorto di Reino?/What Kind of Kingdom? Visies en verwachtingen van Antillianen en Arubanen omtrent het Koninkrijk. Den Haag: SDU Uitgevers, 1998.
Het paradijs overzee; De ‘Nederlandse’ Caraïben en Nederland. Amsterdam: Bert Bakker, 1997. [2nd ed. 1998, 3rd ed. Leiden: KITLV Uitgeverij, 2000; spoken version, 15 MCs, CBB, 1999.]
(ed.), Ethnicity in the Caribbean. London: Macmillan, 1996. Order form for this book
(with Michiel Baud, Kees Koonings, Arij Ouweneel and Patricio Silva), Etnicidad como estrategía en América Latina y el Caribe. Quito: Abya-Yala, 1996.
(ed.), Fifty years later; Antislavery, capitalism and modernity in the Dutch orbit. Leiden: KITLV Press, 1995. [Also published Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1996.]
Roosenburg en Mon Bijou; Twee Surinaamse plantages, 1720-1870. Dordrecht, Providence: Foris, 1989. [KITLV Caribbean Series 11.]
(with Emy Maduro), In het land van de overheerser II; Antillianen en Surinamers in Nederland, 1634/1667-1954. Dordrecht, Cinnaminson: Foris, 1986. [Verhandelingen KITLV 100.] [1st and 2nd edition 1986.]
