Prior to the LeidenGlobal Public Annual Event is this Masterclass for PhD Candidates and (Research) Master Students, together with dr. Shivant Jhagroe (Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs, Leiden University), who is studying and promoting the rights of water bodies in the Netherlands, and dr. Diana Vela Almeida (Copernicus Institute, Utrecht University), a scholar and activist working on indigenous land rights in Latin America.

Should nature be given rights? Recently, the idea that nature should have legal rights has gained support worldwide. However, is the idea of giving rights to nature the best way to produce a new kind of human-nature relationship? If nature has legal personhood, could entities such as states or corporations sue rivers for flooding? And is there a risk that ecosystems with rights will displace indigenous communities, whose worldviews often lie at the basis of these rights?

For the Sake of Forests and Gods documents the violent consequences of nonstate actors impinging on the existence of Indigenous peoples in the remote highlands of Palawan Island, the Philippines. Nimble, focused, and well-funded, religious and environmental organizations increasingly assume governmental authority over the lives and livelihoods of the Pala'wan people within their ancestral territories.

How does one ‘know’ the Caribbean? ‘Knowing’ in a (post)colonial context has historically relied on a narrow and exclusive set of ways and methods of claiming ‘legitimate’ knowledge.

Revelling in the idea that “study is what you do with other people” (Moten and Harney), this paper takes as its problematic that poetic knowledge (Césaire) and the education of feeling (Lamming) are underexamined in Caribbean climate research.

In this talk I discuss the Indonesian origins of the people of Madagascar. Scholars from various disciplines have reached seemingly contradictory conclusions about the place where these people come from.

In different cities throughout Indonesia, particularly young people are frequenting Dutch colonial urban spaces, whether individual buildings or vast public spaces. They stroll along the local government-initiated pedestrianized streets in Kota Tua, the historical inner city of Jakarta, hang out at former post offices which have been redeveloped into multifunctional gathering places in Yogyakarta or Surabaya through private initiative, or have fashionable photoshoots in front of crumbling façades in Kota Lama, Semarang to fill their social media accounts.

Forms of female resistance and heroism are significant themes in literature on and in Southeast Asia. This seminar examines how Dutch colonial literature and historical records depict a prominent female leader and resistance figure from Aceh, Indonesia, highlighting the complex portrayal of resistance and heroism in colonial and indigenous narratives.

On January 11, 2023, Indonesian President Joko Widodo publicly acknowledged twelve instances of gross human rights violations committed by the state, the most notable of which was the 1965-66 genocidal purge of the left.