As from 1 February Adriaan Bedner is the new KITLV professor (bij special appointment) of Law and Society in Indonesia at the Van Vollenhoven Institute (VVI), Leiden University.

An interdisciplinary photo exhibition about crafts and craftsmanship in different cultures will open at Oude UB on 6 October. At the opening Fridus Steijlen will give an introduction to the Tau Tau puppets that are made in Sulawesi, Indonesia.

Indonesia Sandwich Scholarship and academic recharching programme.

The 2014 Village Law will likely cause a considerable change in the character of village governance and leadership in the coming years.

Leiden Asia Centres

In developing cooperation with Indonesia, Leiden University focuses on projects that benefit culture, nature, society and economy, in Indonesia as well as in the Netherlands.

The University has institutes in Jakarta, Cairo, Rabat and Istanbul.

Do you wish to contact us for further information on the collaboration between Leiden University and Indonesia?

Both on a personal and institutional level, the staff of Leiden CADS collaborates with:

In 'Dutch Atlantic Connections, 1680-1800', Gert Oostindie and Jessica V. Roitman, both of the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV) and also affiliated with the History Institute of Leiden University, assemble an internationally acclaimed selection of authors,…

A Biography of Sayyid ʿUthman (1822–1914)

This ethnographic research is a joint project with the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology, Leiden University, and KITLV/Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies. It aims to understand the experiences of social inclusion and exclusion of female migrants…

Four years of protracted negotiations and bitter warfare passed between the declaration of Indonesian independence on 17 August, 1945, and the official transfer of sovereignty on 27 December, 1949.

Jessica Vance Roitman and Wouter Veenendaal, researchers at the KITLV/Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies, investigate the origins, development, and consolidation of political oligarchy in the Caribbean island nation of St. Maarten.

Welcome to the webpage of the Decolonising Collective of Leiden University, aka the Decolonising Collective Leiden. We are a bottom-up initiative of academic staff, support staff, and students who collaborate and share diverse knowledges for the aim of decolonising all aspects of knowledge production…

LIAS aims to advance the globally conscious vision of area studies, both within and outside the academic community. Focusing on Asia and the Middle East, the institute is a meeting place of multiple fields of inquiry, theories and methods, historical periods, and areas.

Democratic citizenship refers to the capacity and willingness of citizens to actively influence the functioning of state institutions. While considered a vital correlate of democratization and the rule of law, its largely western-oriented literature rarely studies the forms of democratic citizenship…

Who were the main artists and producers who generated new forms of popular music? What was the music like that was produced by artists in particular urban settings? How were particular lifestyles articulated to identify new audiences and what does this reveal about the way popular music contributed…

Links to related organisations, institutes, journals and archives.

Kartika Setyawati defended her thesis on 12 November 2015

What is the impact of Indonesia’s democratization process on everyday state-citizen relations?

Reconfigurations of Practice, Community and Authority in Contemporary Aceh

The Dutch Center for Travel Writing Studies s a scientific center that develops and coordinates initiatives to promote research into travel writing. It actively seeks contact with external (scientific and social) partners to collaborate on issues surrounding cultural / national identity, cultural contact…

Leiden University was founded in 1575 and is one of Europe’s leading international research universities. It has seven faculties in the arts, humanities and sciences, spread over locations in Leiden and The Hague. The University has over 6,700 staff members and 29,520 students. The motto of the University…

Leiden University has been promoting studies on Latin America and the Caribbean for a long time.

Was the progressive colonial civil servant the precursor of the postcolonial development-aid worker?

Political Islam is not new to the Middle East, but the appearance of ISIS has stretched the phenomenon to the extreme.

North, Middle and South America together constitute the single largest area in World Archaeology that is taught as a single focus. It is also the only major world area that saw societies develop from hunter-gatherers to early empires entirely independent from developments in Eurasia & Africa. It is,…

The research profile ‘Asian Modernities and Traditions’ (AMT) aims to raise the strength and visibility of research, teaching and dissemination on Asian studies at Leiden University.

Rector Magnificus Carel Stolker will head a delegation that is visiting Indonesia at the end of June. The visit is to celebrate the 50th anniversary of ‘Leiden’ institute KITLV-Jakarta. What does this institute do and why is Indonesia important to the University?

Bernardo Almeida will give a webinar on Building land tenure systems in Timor-Leste on February 18, 2021, from 15.30 - 17.00. This webinar is organised by the KITLV.

The Republic of Indonesia celebrated its 75th Independence Day on 17 August 2020. As a gift to celebrate this, on the initiative of a group of Leiden alumni*), a biography will be written of Leiden and Indonesian scholar Hoesein Djajadiningrat.

To truly understand complex regions such as the Middle East and Asia, you have to know their culture, history and local societies inside out. Driven by curiosity for other cultures, the Leiden University Institute for Area Studies (LIAS) provides an understanding and analysis of current and historical…

Although official law generally conceives of personal injury victims as individual rights holders, the actual experience of physical injury and its consequences is relational. Indeed, many researchers in the global North as well as the global South have contended that the very concept of the Self should…

This project looks at the current practices of marriage law in Indonesia. It examines the often ambiguous views different groups hold of marriage, from local villagers in Bengkulu to women’s activists in Jakarta, and how these relate to the development of national law on the one hand and local practices…

Academic staff and students blog about their research and teaching.

Labour is back as a significant social and political force in Indonesia, as was shown in the recent 1 May trade union demonstrations in Jakarta. Over the past years major changes have taken place in Indonesian labour law, leading to new forms of judicial and political resolution of labour disputes.

International partnerships in which Leiden University participates.

The one-year master in Southeast Asian Studies, a specialisation of Leiden University’s master in Asian Studies, offers a large and varied selection of subjects and the freedom to choose the areas on which you will focus.

Three Dutch research institutes - including the Leiden University’s KITLV - will conduct a follow-up study on the use of violence during the Dutch East Indies war of decolonisation (1945 – 1950). The government has designated 4.1 million Euros for this study.

The Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Governance and Society (VVI) and the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV) organize a two-day workshop on Indonesian Family Law on 4 and 5 October.

New research has confirmed that the Dutch military used systematic, extreme violence against Indonesians. In his book Soldaat in Indonesië (Soldier in Indonesia), to be released at the end of October, historian Gert Oostindie draws the same conclusions using different sources. He presents new findings…

The Office of Leiden University in Indonesia has a vacancy for an Academic Staff Member and University Lecturer for LDE (Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Universities)

The Office of Leiden University in Indonesia is currently looking for an intern interested in learning aspects of public and government relations, marketing and communication in the field of higher education.

Professor Henk Schulte Nordholt was made a Knight of the Order of the Netherlands Lion on Friday 6 September 2019 for his services to the study of Indonesia. Mayor of Leiden, Henri Lenferink, presented him with his medal. This was at the end of a valedictory symposium for and a valedictory speech by…

A new memorial stone on the facade of a student house in the Hugo de Grootstraat is a reminder of the dozens of Indonesian students who studied in Leiden before and during the Second World War. Some of them were active in the Resistance, which cost a number of them their lives.

Starting January 18, the online exhibition Images of the Indonesian War of Independence, 1945-1949 can be viewed via the UBL website. The exhibition is the result of a collaboration between the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV) and Leiden University Libraries…

Dutch-Caribbean research will get a boost. Gert Oostindie, working at the Institute of History and KITLV, has received a grant from NWO, consisting of 750,000 euros, for his research project 'Confronting Caribbean challenges: hybrid identities and governance in small-scale island jurisdictions'.

Last July, Robbert Dijkgraaf, Minister of Education, Culture and Science and Annetje Ottow, President of Leiden University's Executive Board, opened the new front office of the Leiden University office in Jakarta. The office - located on the grounds of the Dutch embassy - has a dual role. Firstly, it…

Political scientist Wouter Veenendaal received an NWO Veni grant for his research on the political stability of small states. 'I find small states fascinating, they are almost always excluded from comparative research, while in fact they often challenge existing theories in political science.'