Rose-tinted spectacles are essential

The letters sent by the Rempt-Schepers couple from the Dutch East Indies/Indonesia to the Netherlands between 1937 and 1946 were recently donated to the Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies (NIOD). For this blog, the couple’s daughters selected a few of the letters from the period September 1945 to February 1946 and wrote an introduction.

Truth, integrity and transparency: the upside-down world of Bauke Geersing

Interview Roel Frakking on the micro-dynamics of violence during decolonization-conflicts

For the NIOD REWIND podcast, researcher Anne van Mourik recently interviewed Roel Frakking on the term 'extreme violence' and the importance of local dynamics in researching decolonization conflicts.

Research to be completed later due to COVID-19

The results of the research programme Independence, decolonization, violence and war in Indonesia 1945-1950 will be presented several months later than originally intended, namely at the end of November 2021, rather than early September 2021. This delay is a direct consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic, which meant that archives in the Netherlands and Indonesia were closed and it was no longer possible to travel to and within other countries. 

Publication BMGN-LCHR

The latest BMGN-Low Countries Historical Review is published today. The first results of the project Comparing the Wars of Decolonization are presented in this academic journal (Dutch only).

Gotong Royong (mutual cooperation) – project Regional Studies during the Corona-crisis

Of course the Corona-crisis did also throw a spanner in the Dutch-Indonesian project Regional Studies. In this blog the Indonesian research coordinators Yulianti and Abdul Wahid reflect on the impact of the Corona-crisis on their work. Next, their Dutch counterparts Ireen Hoogenboom and Martijn Eickhoff share some of their experiences.