De situatie op Aruba in augustus 2020 beantwoordde aan vele Corona-clichés. Onzekerheid, afwezigheid, afstand. Er gold een avondklok en een samenscholingsverbod; mondkapjes waren verplicht en uitgaan was verboden. Ook de winkels waren dicht en kinderen hadden bijna ...
KITLV has established a cluster to do research on climate change This is new for us. It is a huge field with a rich literature. Like kids in a candy store , members of the research cluster have been circulating ...
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!”...
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 ...
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 ...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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 ...