Initiatives regarding slavery past and colonialism

The role of UU Geosciences in the Dutch colonial and postcolonial order

The research roughly covers the period from 1879 to around 1990, from the time of the first chair in geology at Utrecht University. The researchers study the role and intertwining of the Faculty of Geosciences with the (Dutch) colonial order and how this intertwining determined or influenced research and education. In addition, the focus is explicitly on history after 1945 and the processes of 'decolonisation' and the 'post-colonial' era, looking at the knock-on effects, discontinuities and changes of colonial ties inside and outside the faculty, disciplines and careers of Utrecht geoscientists.

The research was launched in February 2023, with the researchers starting to visit and inventory useful archival collections in the Netherlands. In addition, preparations are currently being made to conduct interviews. Soon, the researchers will contact stakeholders, starting in the Netherlands. In a later phase of the research project, they will also conduct interviews with stakeholders from Caribbean countries, Indonesia and Suriname.

Team composition

• PhD student Sophie Bijleveld
• Prof. Dr. Tine Beneker (supervisor)
• Dr Michiel van Meeteren (co-supervisor)
• Emeritus Prof. Dr. Leen Dorsman, fulfils an advisory role

The history of slavery is an important topic within the Faculty of Humanities. There are several projects within the departments of History and Art History, Languages, Literature & Communication, Media and Cultural Studies, Philosophy & Religious Studies. Some of these projects are:

• Indian and Japanese cotton manufacturing; inequality and the great divergence
• Cultural memory and legacies of empire; postcolonial Germany; the colonial home in Africa; Decolonization and 'development'
• Global cotton manufacturing; inequality
• Colonialism and missionary activity in Central-Africa
• The impact of international trade on development in Africa
• Environmental history of Central Asia; post-soviet history
• Diplomatic history of the postcolonial world; african national history, NGOs and European and Belgium diplomacy in a postcolonial context
• Conflict, violence and trauma; politics of trauma in the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission
• Industrial development in sub-Saharan Africa from the late pre-colonial to the early post-colonial era
• Soldiering and militaries, anti-colonial struggles and their legacies, and the connections between gender and militarism
• Historical interactions between climate, law and economic development; credit markets and development in twentieth century India; expansion of cooperatives and its impact on development outcomes across colonial India
• Slave autobiographies; public history and the education of history, heritage, and citizenship
• Entangled histories of Europe, the Middle East and North Africa from the late eighteenth century until the 1950s; the genealogy of western armed interventionism in the Ottoman Levant in the long nineteenth century
• The history of human rights in Dutch foreign policy from a historical and comparative perspective; national and international political factors influencing humanitarian peace operations; historical injustices  (reparations, tribunals etc.)
• World War I and anticolonial activism; history of racialisation and belonging in Europe; global perceptions of France as a land of liberty
• Decolonization wars; Alliance-formation and the Colonial defence of Indonesia and Malaysia, 1945-1957
• Study cultural encounters (particularly in the Americas); spatial thinking (descriptive cartography and geography); categories of beings & things (in, e.g., cabinets of curiosities); environmental thought; and what the category of ‘monster’ and practices of monster-making can tell us about humanity
• Global history of the Dutch seventeenth century and the global connections that shaped it

A working group of staff and students from History and Philosophy of Science (Freudenthal Institute), led by Robert-Jan Wille has made a first inventory of the Beta Faculty's colonial past since 1815, including the Botanical Gardens. This involves both research and teaching. The working group has focused on all colonial connections, not just slavery. The inventory was discussed by the working group with the faculty board. Based on the inventory and Henk van Rinsum's expected publication on the 'colonial history of UU', the faculty board will decide on the follow-up.

• The report has been discussed in the Faculty Council.
• The Faculty Board has asked the Netherlands Society for Veterinary History (led by Emeritus Professor Peter Koolmees) to explore persons, locations and expeditions of the faculty so they can make an inventory of what they are talking about in regards to Veterinary Medicine. This is because the Society has a well-kept archive they can use for this. The results of this exploration have since been delivered to the Executive Board, where the information from other faculties is also being compiled. Based on further conversations, we will decide as the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine on our next steps on how to do the research.

• In the Faculty Council, a note on a concrete proposal for attention to the topic within FSBS was discussed.
• This note has been sent to DUB earlier.
• From the note: “The Faculty Board (FB) wants to give this report the attention it deserves, and implement the recommendations as much as possible. A complicating factor in this is that the faculty itself did not exist before 1963, and as such was not involved in the rise of colonialism and slavery. Having said this, FSBS academics have done research in and with the former Dutch colonies. So that means the topic definitely matters to our faculty, too.”

The concrete proposal is to organise an afternoon/evening on which former Executive Secretary Henk van Rinsum will place the report in a broader context, and to have conversations with each other after that.