De ‘jongens’ van Bontekoe?

Over nut en noodzaak van mondiale geschiedenissen van kolonialisme en arbeid

Abstract

This text is the inaugural lecture given by Professor Matthias van Rossum for the professorship by special appointment on Global Histories of Labor and Colonialism at the Radboud University. The professorship is established by the International Institute of Social History (IISH), part of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences (KNAW), where he works as senior researcher since 2016. Van Rossum is involved in several large research and infrastructure projects addressing the history of slavery, slave trade, labor, and colonialism. In his inaugural lecture, he argues for the need for source-based global social and labor histories to critically revisit lingering dogmas that stem from colonial legacies and elite history writing, and to reconstruct narratives of the past that can shape our understanding of the world and build bridges.