Postcolonial Utrecht Internships and the 'Bitterzoete Route'

From 2017 to 2019, Britta Schilling conducted research commissioned by the Gemeente Utrecht in collaboration with Het Utrechts Archief, Artikel 1 Midden Nederland and Onze Indische Buurten. She supervised a team of MA Cultural History students who investigated the historical background of local streets in the Lombok neighbourhood in Utrecht that are still named after former ‘heroes’ from the Dutch imperial period. Together with the local Werkgroep Gepeperde Straten, students developed a walking tour and website as a starting point for further dialogue.

As part of their assignment, students reflected on ten historical figures in the first instance, drawing on an extensive and complex historiography which presents its own challenges when condensed into a text for the general public under 500 words. Importantly, the tour also features the history of Utrechters engaging with this difficult heritage through the years. The product has been co-created by the students and the local community and has received national and local media attention. Schilling also discussed the tour with History teachers from sixteen countries, including the Netherlands, Germany, Turkey and the United Kingdom, as part of the 2019 EUROCLIO ‘Learning to Disagree’ summer training programme. The tour was dubbed the Bitterzoete Route and can be found at https://bitterzoeteroute.nl/en/. The project was facilitated by the Academie van de Stad.

• The learning aims of the internship project are available on the Students’ Research for Society webpage
• The project received press coverage in various outlets including de Volkskrant (Note: slight misquote - it should read, ‘Wat we nu tot stand hebben gebracht, was het maximaal mogelijk binnen het tijdpad.’)
• Some of our students were filmed in action by RTV Utrecht