Vacancy: postdoc researcher
KITLV is seeking an enthusiastic early-career postdoctoral researcher to study the anthropology of marine nature conservation in Indonesia. The position is for one year, with the intention of extension for a second year. Deadline: 30 October 2026.
Latest news
Visit | Strengthening research networks in Indonesia
30-10-2026
From 12 to 21 October, KITLV director Diana Suhardiman and research coordinator Ireen Hoogenboom travelled across Indonesia, visiting Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB), Universitas Negeri Jember, Sudut Kalisat and Universitas Negeri Padang. This visit is part of KITLV’s commitment to strengthen research networks in Indonesia towards more equal partnership.
Opinie | Sander van der Horst in Parool over de Oranjes
15-10-2026
Koning Willem-Alexander ontving op 2 oktober de resultaten van een onderzoek naar de banden tussen het Koningshuis en het Nederlandse imperialisme. Volgens KITLV onderzoeker Sander van der Horst, die een opiniestuk in Het Parool schreef over dit onderwerp, is het nu aan de Oranjes om hun woorden om te zetten in daden.
Nieuwe publicatie | Schaduwen van de Oranjezon
10-10-2026
Schaduwen van de Oranjezon door Esther Captain (KITLV) en Guno Jones (VU) onderzoekt de invloed en doorwerkingen van het Huis Oranje-Nassau in de voormalige koloniën én in Nederland zelf. Niet de vorsten staan hier centraal, maar de mensen die leefden onder de macht van Oranje: van schoolkinderen, militairen en doorsnee inwoners tot activisten, kunstenaars en antikoloniale denkers. De media besteedden uitgebreid aandacht aan deze nieuwe publicatie.
Events
11 November
Panelgesprek | Vreemdeling in de stad: Psychose als ervaring, kunst en gesprek | o.a. Francio Guadeloupe
11 November
IIAS lecture | An archive of the ordinary | With Sulakshana de Mel
18 November
Southeast Asia seminar | Ward Keeler
Latest calls
Postdoc researcher
Marine nature conservation Indonesia
Deadline: 30 October
Call for papers conference
Indonesian Internationalism
Deadline: 31 October
Silvia de Groot Fonds
Fonds voor Caraïbsche onderzoekers.
Deadline: 13 december
Philippus Corts Fund
For research & publication activities
Deadline: 13 December
Collection-Publication Fund
Collection and publication
Deadline: 15 January
Activities Fund
Proposals can be submitted for activities.
Deadline: 15 January
Who we are & what we do
The KITLV is a research institute dedicated to the study of societal challenges, focusing on the histories and afterlives of colonialism in the Caribbean, Southeast Asia, and the Netherlands. Our aim is to produce quality research that furthers justice and envisions alternative futures beyond dominant perspectives.
Our research is informed by intimate familiarity with the cultures, histories, and languages of the places we study. Combining history, anthropology, archaeology, political science, linguistics, and the arts, our interdisciplinary perspective is critical and sensitive to marginalised voices.
Research Lines
Project
Cyber troops and computational propaganda in Southeast Asia: A comparative study of public opinion manipulation
Expensive elections campaigns are a threat to democracies around the world, because they generate corruption and political inequality. Yet, due to methodological obstacles and a western bias in the current literature, we do not really know what makes election campaigns expensive.
Project
From nomadic nets to fixed shores: Navigating resource access and traditional ecological knowledge in post-sedentary Sea Nomads
The islands and coastlines of Southeast Asia are home to Sea Nomads, including Moken/Moklen, Orang Laut, and Sama-Bajau, each with their own distinct yet related cultural identities, languages, and histories. For centuries, these groups have maintained a close relationship with the ocean, often living nomadic or semi-nomadic lives where their houseboat served as both homes and the primary means of sustenance.
Project
International knowledge cooperation History of Slavery, Indonesia, Suriname & South Africa
The Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV) has been commissioned by the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science to advance international knowledge cooperation regarding the history of slavery in Indonesia, South Africa, and Suriname.
Project
Island(er)s at the Helm: Co-creating sustainable and inclusive solutions for social adaptation to climate challenges in the (Dutch) Caribbean
Driven by the increasing public awareness of the impact of hurricanes and the devastation of coastal areas, Island(er)s at the Helm contributes to equipping (Dutch) Caribbean societies with proficient tools for confronting these challenging climatic phenomena.
Project
TRACE: Tracing evolutionary pathways in grassroots climate governance
Climate change demands urgent action, yet global climate governance is at an impasse, unable to inclusive, just, and nested adaptive strategies. TRACE pusher for a paradigm shift in climate governance. It aims to amplify grassroots forces and spearheading systematic transformations, focusing on Southeast.
Project
Trajectories of TASTE: An analytical framework of culinary change after migration
The TASTE Project, funded by the European Research Council and running from June 2024 to the summer of 2029, examines shifting food preferences and culinary change. Centered on three Indonesian diasporas, the project explores how people have adapted their culinary traditions to new environments in the past and continue to reshape them today. In doing so, we scrutinize how cultural, historical, social, economic, and environmental factors operate, intersect, and occasionally conflict in these transformations.
Project
Unpacking KITLV Special Collections: Colonial histories, object biographies, knowledge practices, and local agency
A project on the coloniality of Asian library and manuscript-formations. With KITLV Special Collections as point of departure, we study the social biographies of manuscripts, and the colonial histories of collecting, to gain insight into the role of violence therein, and to recognize local agency in the makings of so-called Asian Libraries.
Our work
Diana Suhardiman et al.
Our publications
Hydropolitics in the Mekong region: Back to store water, power and the dialectics of change
Mainland Southeast Asia’s great river systems sustain the world’s largest inland fishery and provide food security for over 60 million people. Yet these extraordinary systems are being fundamentally transformed by hydropower development, with consequences that will reverberate for generations.
Ward Berenschot et al.
Our publications
Rightless resistance: Postcolonial citizenship, palm oil, and land grabs in Indonesia
Rightless resistance investigates why resistance to land grabbing so often fails. The rapid expansion of oil palm plantations has triggered widespread conflict across rural Indonesia as communities lose their land with little compensation. Based on an unprecedented study of 150 such conflicts, this book uncovers how villagers fight back against palm oil companies, and what their struggles reveal about power, law, and citizenship in postcolonial Indonesia.
Bretton T. Alvaré
KITLV Journals
Memory, identity, and insurgency: Lessons from the genesis of the National United Freedom Fighters (NUFF) in Trinidad and Tobago
New advanced article in the New West Indian Guide (NWIG) titled 'Memory, identity, and insurgency: Lessons from the genesis of the National United Freedom Fighters (NUFF) in Trinidad and Tobago'.
Wengki Ariando
Our publications
Knowledge and rights in transition: Post-sedentarized Orang Suku Laut in accessing resources in the Anthropocene
This chapter is part of the book Human rights and the environment: A Southeast Asian perspective and studies the problems faced by the Orang Suku Laut community that had to change their way of life.
Karwan Fatah-Black et al.
Our publications
Alkmaar en het slavernijverleden
De verwevenheid tussen de stad Alkmaar, de omliggende dorpen en het koloniale slavernijverleden bleef lang verborgen. Dit boek onthult, in opdracht van de gemeente Alkmaar en ondersteund door het Regionaal Archief Alkmaar, deze nog onbekende kant van de geschiedenis.
Hatib Kadir
Our publications
Multispecies colonialism: The politics of potential in the making of settler ecologies
This article examines how the idea of “finding potential” has structured colonial and postcolonial interventions in Papua’s wetlands. Tracing its genealogy from Dutch colonial science to Indonesian state-led development, it argues that potentiality operates as both an epistemic framework and a political tool that renders wetlands as idle and exploitable.