Vacancies: 4 PhD positions
The project Tracing Evolutionary Pathways in Climate Adaptation in Southeast Asia (TRACE) is looking for four PhD candidates. Closing date: 15 December 2025.
Latest news
Podcast | Vierdelige podcast-serie 'Sjahrir is hier'
11-12-2025
‘Sjahrir is hier’ is een vierdelige podcast-serie waarin documentair fotograaf Isabelle Boon samen met antropoloog Fridus Steijlen op zoek gaat naar één van de belangrijkste voorvechters voor een onafhankelijk Indonesië en eerste premier van de republiek: Sutan Sjahrir (1909-1966). Sjahrir was een erudiete en inspirerende man voor wie de dialoog, rechtvaardigheid, onderwijs en jeugd centraal stonden.
Award | Indonesian Cultural Award for Harry Poeze
20-11-2025
On 22 October Dr. Harry A. Poeze (KITLV) and Prof. Dr. Bernard Arps (Leiden University) received the Anugerah Kebudayaan Indonesia 2025 from the Indonesian Ministry of Culture as a reward for their lifelong dedication to Indonesian studies and cultural preservation. The Anugerah Kebudayaan Indonesia (Indonesian Cultural Award) celebrates those who dedicate their lives to preserving, developing, and promoting Indonesian heritage.
Live stream | End conference Island(er)s at the Helm
13-11-2025
During the Island(er)s at the Helm end conference 'New perspectives on climate challenges in the (Dutch) Caribbean' from 21-23 October at the University of Curaçao, our researchers presented their findings, reflected on the last four years of the Islanders at the Helm project and shared insights that matter for everyone living and working on any of the islands of St. Maarten, Saba, St. Eustatius, Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao.
Events
16 December
SEA seminar | Pedalling rule: Bicycles, mobility and urban order in colonial Indonesia | Teuku Reza Fadeli
27 Januari
SEA seminar | Building transformative climate resilience: Collaboration and strategies of women and older adults in Eastern Indonesia | Sharyn Davies
29 January
Book talk | Sexuality and Islamic spirituality in early Malay writings | Syahirah Rasheed
Latest calls
Silvia de Groot Fonds
This fund supports Caribbean researchers with their research on Caribbean history or culture. Deadline: 14 December 2025.
Philippus Corts Fund
This fund supports research & publications on the shared history of Indonesia and The Netherlands. Deadline: 14 December 2025.
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
Tom Hoogervorst et al.
Blogs
Custom, combat, and ceremony: Java and the Indo-Persian textile trade
Textile trade provides a multidisciplinary avenue to examine flows in material culture, performances of power, and ultimately changes in the perception of the self. This article focuses on pre-Islamic contacts between the Malay World, Java, the Persian Gulf, and the Indian Subcontinent.
Wengki Ariando et al.
Our publications
Cross-religious enrollment of suku laut students in Bintan Madrasahs
This research examines religious moderation at Madrasah Ibtidaiyah Negeri (MIN) 1 Bintan, focusing on the children of the Sea Tribe from Kampung Panglong, Desa Village, Bintan Regency, Riau Islands Province, who choose to attend this madrasah despite being Catholic and Protestant.
Diana Suhardiman et al.
Our publications
Rethinking environmental governance
This book brings to light the pluralistic views, diverse forces, and multiple realities (re)shaping formal and informal decision-making structures, processes, and power interplay in environmental governance.
KITLV / BRILL
KITLV Journals
New West Indian Guide (NWIG)
The latest issue of the NWIG (volume 99: issue 3-4) is now available, with articles on the Caribbean in the fields of humanities, social & political science, archaeology, economics, geography and geology.
Ward Berenschot et al.
Our publications
Dispossession by archive: Contemporary land grabbing through colonial land deeds in Indonesia
This article examines a new pattern of land grabbing in Indonesia, where coalitions of state and private actors use colonial-era land deeds to expropriate community land.
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.