27 Nov Blog: Prosecuting former heads of state, Bugis style
On December 14 the College of Electors will vote to elect the next President of United States of America. “What?” your media-weary brain exclaims. “I thought that happened last month!”...
Blog Posts
22 Oct Indonesia Omnibus Law: Riding into an environmental cul-de-sac?
In August, the leader of the Dayak Red Army, Pangalongok Jilah, flew to Jakarta to ask President Jokowi to release Effendi Buhing from prison. Effendi is the leader of the indigenous community in ...
01 Jul Blog: Hookworm infection as a silent disaster in late colonial Suriname
Tiny worms causing silent and insidious damage. In 1915 the Rockefeller Foundation brought its campaign to eradicate hookworms to Suriname. Tests found that more than 90 percent of the ...
24 Jun Blog: Black Lives Matter and Moluccan anti-racism
The Black Lives Matter protest held on 10 June 2020 was originally planned to take place at Anton de Komplein in the Zuidoost district of Amsterdam. But due to the huge numbers expected to attend...
12 Jun Blog: Social media blackness
Where is my golden pen? An academic cannot be an anti-racist activist today without a smartphone. I know, I can also join a protest march and carry a placard stating that Black Lives Matter. I can, yes, but then I will...
11 Jun Blog: Colonial pathologies and racial injustice
Twelve years ago, I was in the KITLV special collections room, studying archival materials about the colonial subjugation of Aceh, the region on the northern tip of Sumatra. It took four decades, from the 1870s...
11 Jun Blog: Why I wanted to be “white”
For the longest time, this little girl wanted to be white. She did not like her hair; she did not like her dark eyes; she did not like anything about the way she looked. She had very dry skin, and when she...
10 Jun Blog: Inscribing George Floyd. Thoughts about Black Lives Matter
It was a sad moment in my academic life. Last week Friday afternoon, after months of intense writing, I had given myself the luxury of reading. I had been rearranging my bookshelves at home with adding ...
10 Apr Blog: Fieldwork and COVID-19; After a ‘Corona home run’ from Indonesia
The Anthropology weblog 'Standplaats Wereld' published a blogpost by Shannon van Leeuwen, Evelien van Overveld and Fridus Steijlen about Evelien and Shannon's 'Corona home run' from fieldwork...
25 Feb Blog: Being a ‘real’ Indonesian? (Part 2)
My search for Sultan Hamid II of Pontianak - about which I wrote in my previous blog - took me to Yogyakarta before visiting Pontianak itself. I was in Yogyakarta to improve my knowledge of the Indonesian language, culture and history. ...