oostindie[at]kitlv.nl
+31(0)71-5272295
Oostindie, Prof. dr. Gert
Gert Oostindie, former director of KITLV from 2000-2021 and emeritus professor of Colonial and Postcolonial History at Leiden University is a Honorary Fellow at KITLV. He is presently involved in the government-funded research program ‘Independence, Decolonization, Violence and War in Indonesia, 1945-1950’, two NWO-funded programs, ‘Confronting Caribbean Challenges’ and ‘Traveling Caribbean Heritage’, ‘The Colonial and Slavery Past of Rotterdam’ project commissioned by the Rotterdam city council and the research ‘The Colonial and Slavery Past of The Hague‘ commissioned by the The Hague city council.
Oostindie studied History and Social Sciences at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam (cum laude, 1982), and obtained his PhD at Utrecht University (cum laude, 1989). He has been awarded many research grants and fellowships, served on editorial, scholarly and governmental committees both in the Netherlands and abroad, and is a frequent contributor to the Dutch mass media on his areas of expertise. Between 2006 and 2015, he held the chair as Professor of Caribbean History at Leiden University; between 1993 and 2006, he was Professor of the Anthropology and Sociology of the Caribbean at Utrecht University.
Oostindie’s principal areas of research have been comparative Caribbean studies and Dutch colonial and postcolonial history. He published and edited, mainly in English or Dutch, over 30 books and authored a large number of articles on the colonial history and decolonization of the Dutch Caribbean; on history, ethnicity and migration in the Caribbean and Latin America in general; on Atlantic slavery and its legacies; on postcolonial migrations and the significance of colonial history to Dutch national identity; and on the war of decolonization in Indonesia.
Recent books
Antilliaans erfgoed. 2 delen: I. Toen en nu en II. Nu en verder, (red. met Alex van Stipriaan), Leiden University Press, 2021.
Colonialism and slavery; An alternative history of the port city of Rotterdam (red.), Leiden University Press, 2021.
Het koloniale verleden van Rotterdam (red.), Boom, 2020.
Postkoloniale beeldenstormen, Uitgeverij Vantilt, 2018.
Realm between Empires; The Second Dutch Atlantic, 1680-1815. Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press, 2018. (with Wim Klooster)
Sporen van de slavernij in Leiden. Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2017. (with Karwan Fatah-Black)
Serdadu Belanda di Indonesia 1945-1950; Kesaksian perang pada sisi sejarah yang salah. Jakarta: Obor, 2016. (with the cooperation of Ireen Hoogenboom & Jonathan Verwey)
Soldaat in Indonesië, 1945-1950; Getuigenissen van een oorlog aan de verkeerde kant van de geschiedenis. Amsterdam: Prometheus, 2015. (with the cooperation of Ireen Hoogenboom & Jonathan Verwey) (5th ed., 2017)
El Caribe holandés; El colonialismo y sus legados transatlánticos. La Habana: Editorial José Martí, 2014.
Dutch Atlantic connections, 1680-1800; Linking empires, bridging borders. Leiden: Brill 2014. (ed., with Jessica V. Roitman)
Gedeeld Koninkrijk; De ontmanteling van de Nederlandse Antillen en de vernieuwing van het trans-Atlantische Koninkrijk der Nederlanden. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2012. (with Inge Klinkers)
Postcolonial migrants and identity politics. New York: Berghahn, 2012. (ed., with Ulbe Bosma & Jan Lucassen)
Curaçao in the Age of Revolutions, 1795-1800. Leiden: KITLV Press, 2011. (ed., with Wim Klooster)
Postcolonial Netherlands; Sixty-five years of forgetting, commemorating, silencing. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2011.
Research output (KNAW research portal – PURE)
Related Research Project(s)
Related Links
Research output