Gerry van Klinken is an honorary research fellow at KITLV, where he worked as a senior researcher until 2018, and at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. Gerry became professor by special appointment of Southeast Asian Social and Economic History at the University of Amsterdam in 2013, and emeritus upon his retirement in 2018. 

Gerry’s current research is moving towards the comparative history and politics of climate change adaptation in Asia (Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines and India). He is also writing an introductory book on environmental humanities (Climate Readings). He coordinated international research projects on the provincial middle class in Indonesia (In Search of Middle Indonesia, 2006-2011), on citizenship and democratisation in Indonesia (From Clients to Citizens? 2012-2016), and on digital humanities (Elite Network Shifts, 2012-2016).  

After gaining a MSc in geophysics (Macquarie University, Sydney, 1978), Van Klinken taught physics in universities in Malaysia and Indonesia (1979-91). Thereafter he moved into Asian Studies and earned a PhD in Indonesian history from Griffith University in Brisbane in 1996. After that he taught and researched in this field at universities in Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra, Yogyakarta (Indonesia), and now Leiden and Amsterdam. 

In 1998 he became a frequent media commentator on Indonesian current affairs in Australia. He was editor of the Australian quarterly magazine Inside Indonesia between 1996 and 2002 and remains on the editorial board. From late 1999 to 2002 he was resident director in Yogyakarta for the Australian Consortium of In-Country Indonesian Studies (Acicis). In 2002-2004 he also spent nine months as research advisor to the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in East Timor (CAVR). 

Selected Publications

Klinken, Gerry van & Maarten van der Bent, ‘East Java, 1949: The revolution that shaped Indonesia’, in: Bambang Purwanto, Roel Frakking, Abdul Wahid, Gerry van Klinken, Martijn Eickhoff, Yulianti, Ireen Hoogenboom, and (trans Taufiq Hanafi) (eds.), Revolutionary worlds: Local perspectives and dynamics during the Indonesian independence war, 1945-1949, pp.129-55. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023. 

Klinken, Gerry van, ‘Typhoon disaster politics in pre-1945 Asia: Three case studies’, Disaster prevention and management 30-1, pp. 35-46, 2020. doi: https://doi.org/10.1108/DPM-01-2020-0027. (Open Access) 

Klinken, Gerry van, Postcolonial citizenship in provincial Indonesia. Singapore: Palgrave Pivot, 2019. 

Klinken, Gerry van & Su Mon Thazin Aung, ‘The contentious politics of anti-Muslim scapegoating in Myanmar’, Journal of Contemporary Asia 47-3, pp. 353-75, 2017. 

Klinken, Gerry van, The making of middle Indonesia: Middle classes in Kupang town, 1930s-1980s; Power and place in Southeast Asia 293-5. Leiden: Brill, 2014. 

Klinken, Gerry van, ‘Why was there no Javanese Galileo?’, in Peter Boomgaard (ed.), Empire and science in the making - Dutch colonial scholarship in comparative global perspective, 1760-1830, pp. 109-34. Basingstoke [etc]: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. 

Klinken, Gerry van & Joshua Barker (eds.), State of authority: state in society in Indonesia. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University SEAP, 2009. 

Klinken, Gerry van, ‘Return of the sultans: The communitarian turn in local politics’, in: Jamie Davidson and David Henley (eds.), The revival of tradition in Indonesian politics: The deployment of adat from colonialism to indigenism, pp. 149-169. London: Routledge, 2007.  

Klinken, Gerry van, Communal violence and democratization in Indonesia: Small town wars. London: Routledge, 2007.  

Klinken, Gerry van & David Bourchier, ‘The key suspects’, in: Richard Tanter, Desmond Ball, Gerry van Klinken (eds.), Masters of terror: Indonesia's military and violence in East Timor, pp. 103-213. New York [etc]: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006.