World heritage status for Kartini letters in KITLV collection
UNESCO has recognized a large collection of handwritten letters of Raden Ajeng Kartini as documentary world heritage.
Latest news
Delegation | KITLV welcomes Silpakorn University from Thailand
31-05-2025
On 27 May 2025 KITLV welcomed a delegation from the Silpakorn University, Thailand. The visit marked a significant step towards exploring KITLV's research engagement in Southeast Asia. Discussions during the meeting centered on potential collaborations concerning critical issues in the region.
Media | Rosa de Jong on digitizing documents of Jewish refugees in Suriname
22-05-2025
KITLV guest researcher Rosa de Jong tells in this article about her project to digitize birth records, land sales and correspondence of Jewish refugees who fled the horrors of World War II to the Caribbean, including Suriname. A team in Suriname digitized 100,000 documents to preserve Jewish history in the Caribbean.
Interview | Sander van der Horst on Indonesian resistance in World War II
01-05-2025
Interview with PhD researcher Sander van der Horst on Indonesian students in Leiden who joined the resistance against the Dutch and German occupiers. According to Sander, some students were already building an underground network before the war, prompted by years of Dutch censorship and espionage.
Events
12 June
UUKS seminar | “Cursed by the plant”: Ecocentric worldviews in the customary law and cosmology of South Sulawesi | Louie Buana
19 June
SEA seminar | An algorithmic visuality of Muslim women images | Nurul Huda Rashid
27 June
Algemene Ledenvergadering Vereniging KITLV | Annual Meeting Members Association
Latest calls
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.
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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
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.
D. Suhardiman, W. Ariando
Our publications
Bakelam: Sea nomads’ knowledge systems and potential building block for living with change
This paper looks at one of the sea nomads groups, namely Orang Suku Laut (OSL), focusing on their knowledge systems, cultural values, and agency, manifested in the Bakelam nomadic tradition.
Sander van der Horst et al.
Our publications
Studenten en antikoloniaal verzet, 1925-1975
Sander van der Horst schreef samen met Henna Goudzand over antikoloniaal studentenverzet in Leiden.
Rosemarijn Hoefte
Our publications
Multi-ethnic nation building and branding in Suriname
This chapter in Routledge Handbook of Caribbean Studies discusses Suriname's contested political and socio-cultural evolution in the last 150 years.
Wengki Ariando
Our publications
Nasib nomad laut: Gamang di laut, tumbang di darat
This article 'Nasib nomad laut: Gamang di laut, tumbang di darat' (in Indonesian) examines the escalating marginalization of Indonesia's sea nomadic communities, the Sama-Bajau and Orang Laut.
KITLV / BRILL
KITLV Journals
New West Indian Guide (NWIG)
Published continuously since 1919, the New West Indian Guide / Nieuwe West-Indische Gids (NWIG) is the oldest scholarly journal on the Caribbean.