Gert Oostindie, former director of KITLV from 2000 up to 2021 and emeritus professor of Colonial and Postcolonial History at Leiden University, is a Honorary Fellow at KITLV. In the academic year 2022-2023, he held the Cleveringa chair at Leiden University. From 2022 through 2026 he has been re-employed by Leiden University to direct the research program on the role of the House Orange-Nassau in the colonial history of the Netherlands, a project commissioned and financed by King Willem Alexander. 

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 40 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 Publications

Oostindie, Gert, Rekenschap. Het koloniale verleden, excuses en herstel. Boom, 2023. 

Oostindie, Gert, Beyond the pale; Dutch extreme violence in the Indonesian war of independence (et al.). Amsterdam University Press, 2022. Also published in Dutch (2022) and Indonesian (2023). 

Oostindie, Gert, Het koloniale en slavernijverleden van Hofstad Den Haag. Boom, 2022. 

Oostindie, Gert & Wouter Veenendaal, Ongemak. Zes Caribische eilanden en Nederland. Prometheus, 2022.  

Oostindie, Gert & Alex van Sitpriaan (eds.), Antilliaans erfgoed. 2 delen: I. Toen en nu en II. Nu en verder. Leiden University Press, 2021. 

Oostindie, Gert, Colonialism and slavery; An alternative history of the port city of Rotterdam (ed.). Leiden University Press, 2021. 

Oostindie, Gert, & Wim Klooster, Realm between empires; The second Dutch Atlantic, 1680-1815. Cornell University Press, 2018.  

Oostindie, Gert, Soldaat in Indonesië,  1945-1950; Getuigenissen van een oorlog aan de verkeerde kant van de geschiedenis. Prometheus, 2015, (trans: Serdadu Belanda di Indonesia 1945-1950; Kesaksian perang pada sisi sejarah yang salah, Obor, 2016). 

Oostindie, Gert, El Caribe holandés; El colonialismo y sus legados transatlánticos, José Martí (ed.), 2014. 

Oostindie, Gert & Jessica V. Roitman (eds.), Dutch Atlantic connections, 1680-1800; Linking empires, bridging borders. Brill 2014.