In its public diplomacy between 1949 and 1962, the Netherlands consistently claimed that its presence in Netherlands New Guinea – also widely referred to at the time as West New Guinea (WNG) and today as West Papua – was not of a colonial nature. 

Instead, the Dutch government maintained that it had nothing significant to gain economically from the territory because it lacked resources of commercial value, that the Netherlands was concerned only with the well-being of the Papuan people and, particularly as the push for decolonisation gained traction, preparing them for self-determination. This presentation is based on an article that challenges those claims by critically examining Dutch public diplomacy at the time as well as presenting evidence of The Hague's engagement with private companies to profit from the mineral wealth of the territory, which was concealed from the public. 

Speakers

Grace Cheng, PhD, is the Founding Director of the Center for Human Rights at San Diego State University, where she teaches for the Department of Political Science.  Her work is concerned with competing perspectives on global justice and human rights.  Cheng has written on these themes in various publications, including Nationalism and Human Rights: In Theory and Practice in the Middle East, Central Europe, and Asia Pacific, for which she is editor.  Her current project addresses the political economy of extractivism, with reference to the role of corporations and their embeddedness in economic statecraft.  

Astrid Cornelisse, MA, is an investigative journalist and independent researcher. She makes podcasts and radio documentaries about various topics. Her latest is Goudeerlijk: Het verhaal van Papua, a six-part investigative podcast about the secret behind the world’s largest gold mine and most hidden genocide in West Papua. The research for this podcast evolved into academic research together with Grace Cheng.

Moderator

Hatib Kadir is an environmental humanities researcher specializing in ecological crises in peripheral regions at KITLV. Over the past seven years, he has conducted research in coastal areas of the Eastern Indonesian archipelago, spanning from Maluku to West Papua. His work delves into the intersections of the Anthropocene, human and non-human interactions, and ecological disruptions caused by resource exploitation, infrastructure projects, political policies, human activities, settler colonialism, and invasive species.

Format, date, time & venue

This seminar is a hybrid event and will be held in the conference room of KITLV, Herta Mohr building, room 1.30, Witte Singel 27 A, Leiden and online via Zoom, on Tuesday 10 February from 15.30–17.00 PM (CET).  

Time for Papua seminar series

A seminar series on the legacies and contemporary realities of West Papua. Papoea Huis, KITLV and the Wereldmuseum Leiden proudly present Time for Papua - an interdisciplinary seminar series dedicated to exploring the shared histories between the Netherlands and West Papua, and the ways these histories continue to shape the present. Read more.

Image

Netherlands New Guinea: 2½ Gulden,1954, Queen Juliana. Source: ebay.com

Flyer

PDF format (A3)