10 February 2026

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. 

5 February 2026

This book's analysis is based on Malay manuscripts and texts about the body, sex, and sexuality. These include religious guidebooks on sexual techniques and etiquette, of which some are translated from the original Arabic or Persian, but almost all of which have been adapted for local Malay relevance.

29 January 2026

What happens to a temple when its abbot passes away? Based on ethnographic materials from a royal temple in urban Bangkok, this presentation examines the social and spiritual structures revealed through an abbot’s funeral. 

27 January 2026

Women and older adults in the Global South bear a disproportionate share of climate impacts, yet they possess resilience knowledge that can inform adaptation planning. 

22 January 2026

In mid-1919, assistant teacher Oepik Amin penned a poem that detailed how women teachers from Aceh, North Sumatra, and West Sumatra connected in the periodical Perempoean Bergerak and pleaded that their peers ‘hear this call’. Her contribution demonstrates one way in which women teachers who were geographically distant from each other forged a gendered professional identity through Malay-language periodicals. 

20 January 2026

Who is Sutan Sjahrir, this erudite man who played an important role in the road to Indonesia's independence? Documentary photographer Isabelle Boon and anthropologist Fridus Steijlen are working on a four episode podcast series about this intriguing man.

15 January 2026

The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam is renowned world wide for its art collection, with the seventeenth century at its heart, featuring Rembrandt, Vermeer and Frans Hals. As many European national museums built in the 19th century, its focus has been on the pride and glory of the Netherlands. Still, the 17th century is also the century of the foundation of the Dutch East India and West India Companies.

16 December 2025

As a history of streets from the saddle, this talk examines how bicycles shaped everyday rule and colonial mobility in Indonesia. Drawing on Reza's article-in-progress, it traces how the bicycle, a modest technology, became central to decisions about who could move, at what speed, and in which part of the road. Following David Arnold’s notion of “modest modernity”, the bicycle is treated as an everyday machine that carried heavy political weight. Newspapers, police ordinances, popular traffic manuals, and military cycling regulations reveal a fine-grained “street sovereignty” that worked through lamps, bells, lanes, and drills.

4 December 2025

As a braided history of people of Asian and African descent in the nineteenth-century Caribbean, Catherine Peters' book project Laboring Neighbors tells the story of abolition and indenture through the ecologies where indentured Asian migrants and Afro-descendant residents lived, formed kin, and met in the interstices where colonial authority broke down. 

28 November 2025

During this public meeting Daniel Tua Ompusunggu & Jupita Sinurat, members of the heritage team Jabu Sihol from Pematangsiantar, Sumut, North Sumatra, will give a presentation on the culture (past, present & future) of the Batak people of North Sumatra, Indonesia: 'Faces of Batak heritage'.

27 November

On 19 February 1949, a group of Dutch soldiers massacred a number of health workers and wounded Indonesian soldiers in Peniwen village, Malang, East Java. To commemorate this event, the Peniwen Affair monument was established in 1983, as a reminder of one of East Java’s ‘heroic’ moment during the Indonesian Revolution. The case even gain international recognition when the Dutch court decided to provide compensation for the widowed victims of Peniwen in 2016. 

24 November 2025

We are delighted to invite you to the screening of the documentary film Gail and Bharat directed by Somnath Waghmare (director of Chaityabhumi) The documentary traces the lives of anti-caste scholars and activists Gail Omvedt and Bharat Patankar, and the journey of the movement they led in India. Following screenings of the film at various universities and civil society organizations in the UK and Germany, we are happy to host the film and the filmmaker in the Netherlands.  Mr. Waghmare will introduce the film and take questions from the audience.

20 November 2025

Traditional view on customary law and traditional authority often portrays adat as a self-contained, community-based system operating beyond the reach of the state and market economy. This assumption, however, does not hold in contemporary Bali. Adat law, institutions, and practices now play a central role in local governance and politics, shaped in part by state policy and political proximity with state actors. 

18 November 2025

The NIAS-NIOD-KITLV Fellowship Moving Objects, Mobilising Culture enables researchers and heritage practitioners from formerly colonised countries to access and conduct research on (collections of) objects – whether defined as cultural, historical, ancestral, art or otherwise – which are currently (lost) in the Netherlands, as well as on related archives and documentation. 

13 November 2025

Following the severe forest fires of 2015, the Indonesian government adopted a stance characterizing traditional fire practices as malicious and Indigenous populations as inherently careless agents. State policy subsequently enforced fire prohibitions, intense surveillance, and detentions, concurrent with the introduction of environmental and developmental initiatives aimed at decoupling fire from the traditional life practices of Indigenous communities. These punitive actions are argued to be misdirected, stemming from an overemphasis on ignition-centric fire studies that often reinforce the marginalization of Indigenous peoples.

7 November 2025

On 7 November KITLV guest researcher Rosa de Jong will defend her thesis on Second World War refugees in the Caribbean at the University of Amsterdam.

6 November

In Land of famished beings, Sophie Chao examines how Indigenous Marind communities understand and theorize hunger in lowland West Papua, a place where industrial plantation expansion and settler-colonial violence are radically reconfiguring ecologies, socialities, and identities.

4 November 2025

In collaboration with the antropology department as part of the Public Anthropology seminar series, we invite Basile Ndjio, Jasmijn Rana, and Naomi van Stapele for a broad discussion on their work in anthropology at the intersection of gender, sports, sexuality, and diversity. The seminar will provide ample space for open discussion, allowing the audience to ask questions and share responses.

28 October

On 28 October KITLV researcher Yogi Permana will defend his thesis on the political economy of flood risk management in Indonesia.

21-23 October 2025

During this conference researchers will present their findings, reflect on the last four years of the Islanders at the Helm project and share insights that matter for everyone living and working on any of the islands of St. Maarten, Saba, St. Eustatius, Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao.

9 October 2025

This talk examines the trope of the “white witch” in the eighteenth-century West Indies as it circulated across travel narratives, colonial reports, works of fiction, natural history, and medical treatises.

8 October 2025

Across the more-than-human landscapes of the Malay Peninsula, miracles and histories persist at sites of crumbling graves and the relics of saints whose karamat endure despite encroaching urban redevelopment. This talk traces the ongoing presence of these sacred remains and pilgrimage sites, attending not only to the material ruination of shrines, but also to the devotional worlds that continue to develop around them. 

7 oktober 2025

Op 7 oktober 2025 verdedigt KITLV onderzoeker en historicus Katja Paijens haar proefschrift aan de Universiteit Leiden. Katja schreef als proefschrift een politieke biografie van één van de ‘vergeten’ spelers uit de Onafhankelijkheidsrevolutie van Indonesië (1945-1949): Max Alkadrie (1913-1978), Sultan Hamid II van Pontianak.

2 October 2025

This study examines the changes in agriculture in Bali, revealing a notable paradox. On one hand, Balinese farming is renowned for its strong local traditions, such as Subak, Tri Hita Karana, and various symbolic rituals. These traditions are often celebrated as cultural icons and are even incorporated into tourism. On the other hand, farming in Bali faces significant challenges: fewer people are choosing to become farmers, production costs often exceed income, agricultural land is rapidly being converted for other uses, and numerous other difficulties have emerged.