Almost 25 years ago the Aliansi Masyarakat Adat Nusantara (AMAN) was founded in Jakarta. The establishment of AMAN generated hope that in democratizing Indonesia, adat - a term referring both to customary rights and traditions - would be better respected, thereby giving Indonesian citizens more control over their natural resources.

The historiographical differences and memories between Indonesia and the Netherlands regarding the Dutch colonial period in the Indonesian Archipelago are very real. Indonesia needs to maintain the historical narrative of Dutch present in the Indonesian Archipelago to legitimize its existence as an independent and sovereign nation-state.

Indigenous peoples in Indonesia are continuously targeted by governmental and non-governmental development programs, leading indigenous communities to a myriad of challenges.

This documentary builds on, and employs the findings of KITLV’s research project ‘Palm oil conflicts and access to justice in Indonesia’. The English version of this documentary is called ‘Colonial debris’ and will be launched early 2024.

This seminar discusses two types of deer hunting in South Sulawesi. Both types of hunting were considered a recreational part of the lives of kings and nobles but there were fundamental differences between the hunts.

In this joint LIAS (Leiden Institute for Area Studies) and KITLV Southeast Asia (SEA) Seminar Series, Teguh Dartanto will share his insights on three interrelated Indonesian economic issues.

This lecture cultivates decoloniality in the field of Indonesian art history and archaeology by deconstructing the colonial and then nationalist categorisation opposing ‘classical’ Hindu-Buddhist and Islamic antiquities, and by reconstructing in turn the long history of the ancient Hindu-Buddhist materials across times and cultures in probing appropriations, transactions and reconfigurations.

Na de publicatie van Staat en slavernij: Het Nederlandse koloniale slavernijverleden en zijn doorwerkingen bij Uitgeverij Athenaeum afgelopen juni zijn Rose Mary Allen, Esther Captain, Matthias van Rossum en Urwin Vyent verder gegaan met het formuleren van een kennisagenda die richting geeft aan toekomstig slavernijonderzoek.

In July 2022 Diana Suhardiman was appointed professor by special appointment of Natural Resource Governance, Climate and Equity at Leiden University, at Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology