Indigenous Peoples possess unique perspectives of the world that will be lost if their knowledge and heritage are not documented, studied and protected. If we lose this knowledge, we are losing part of our own heritage.

The head of MCS is also Director of the Leiden-based LDE Centre for Global Heritage and Development, President of LeidenGlobal, and staff member of the Heritage and Museums department of the Faculty of Archaeology. Joint activities are being developed at the interface between heritage and museum stu…

This book provides an overview of critical scholarly reflections on the history of Dutch slavery and colonization, as well as how this translates into critical cultural practices.

Opportunities, challenges, and future perspectives of people-centered approaches in dynamic historic urban landscapes

Bringing Dominican indigenous collections back to the community

Master

This dissertation presents a legal geographical analysis of the heritage laws of the independent English-speaking islands of the Lesser Antilles.

global challenges and possibilities

Museums are powerful and influential institutions in their ability to shape knowledge and contribute to our identity. What we preserve and how we present our collections and heritage is closely connected to our identity and culture. In the multidisciplinary Museums, Heritage and Collections, you'll…

The aim of this PhD dissertation project is to study the effect of private foreign investment outside the realm of economics in the context of a colonial structure in Indonesia between c. 1910 and c. 1960.

Objects and framings of heritage, archives, and academic knowledge production generate worldwide, fierce societal debates on the legacies of colonial violence, past injustice and present-day institutional racism. Whether bronzes from Benin, daggers from Bali, fossils from Java, photo-albums from…

This thesis explores the value of cultural and archaeological heritage through a focus on multinational corporations (MNCs) across industries and their involvement with cultural heritage.

This study offers a new approach to the history of sites, archaeology, and heritage formation in Asia, at both the local and the trans-regional levels.

This project studies travel writing about the Dutch East Indies written between 1800 and the end of the Second World War. By analyzing both Dutch travel texts and Indigenous travel texts in Javanese and Malay, it presents a new, double-voiced perspective on (the historiography of) the Dutch colonial…

This pilot project will initiate research on how heritage has been and can be mobilized to address climate change governance in Himalayan Asia. Climate adaptation strategies frequently include the sourcing of heritage, encompassing landscapes, built environments 4 and cultural practices. However, effective…

The researchers and students at the Department of Archaeological Heritage and Society at the Faculty of Archaeology study the role of the past in modern societies. They want to find out more about the relationships between the past and the present, and the role that heritage plays.

The fourth volume of Ex Novo has the pleasure to host Heleen van Londen, Marjo J. Schlaman, and Andrea Travaglia as guest editors of the special issue titled The Natural and The Cultural. Integrating Approaches in Landscape Heritage Management. This timely collection of peer-reviewed papers and short…

The proposed research program studies the impact of private foreign investment on development in Indonesia during the years c. 1910-1960.

The Heritage and rights of indigenous peoples focuses on the living heritage of indigenous peoples and its safeguarding, connecting the past and the present in local communities.

The 2011 disasters precipitated widespread concern among heritage scholars about the fate of Tohoku’s cultural properties, tangible and intangible. Damage to not only buildings and landscapes but also ‘formless’ heritage, some worried, could weaken social infrastructure and thus slow or undermine re…

The master’s programme in Colonial and Global History at Leiden University offers the most in-depth and comprehensive programme on the history of colonialism and globalisation currently available in Europe.

A study of Dutch Fort at Galle, Sri Lanka

This project investigates diversifying and democratizing heritage through practices of “home-making”. We propose to research ‘home-making’ as a non-binary practice of combining memories of roots and routes, dwelling in the present, and desires for the future.

The master's programme in Heritage and Museum Studies at Leiden University focuses on the relationships between past and present, the role of heritage in our society, and how our heritage can contribute to improving the quality of life and the environment.

The Centre for Digital Heritage undertakes collaborative international research in the field of Digital Heritage. It is an initiative of the University of York.

In Europe a number of production and communication strategies have long tried to establish local products as resources for local development. At the foot of the Alps, this scenario appears in all its contradictions, especially in relation to cheese production. The Heritage Arena focuses on the saga…

This volume provides one of the most comprehensive overviews of the archaeology of a single Caribbean island yet published. Drawing together scholars from the Caribbean, north America and Europe, all working from a range of disciplines within the broader scope of archaeology, and drawing upon recent…

At the initiative and expense of His Royal Highness King Willem-Alexander, Leiden University will be conducting a study of the role of the House of Orange-Nassau in Dutch colonial history. The project will run from 2023 to 2026.

This 4-year research project focuses on vernacular and unacknowledged heritages of the highlands of Bhutan. It seeks to make a major contribution to the preservation of these heritages, to create a cultural resource for current and future generations.

Archaeological and Anthropological perspectives

The Heritage Quest project is a citizen science project in which volunteers participate in archaeological research.

The Heritage Quest project is a citizen science project in which volunteers participate in archaeological research. Discover the aims and methodology of the project, the sub-projects and how to participate yourself.

In White Lies and Black Markets, Fatah-Black offers a new account of the colonization of Suriname—one of the major European plantation colonies on the Guiana Coast—in the period between 1650-1800.

The heritage of Indigenous Peoples has long been researched and commented upon from the outside. This book adopts an innovative approach by engaging with the heritage of Indigenous Peoples from the ‘inside’.

A comparative study of colonialism and rural settlement in first millennium BC west central Sardinia

A project to explore the configuration of different types of settlement and its role in the evolution of landscape, both in pre-Roman times and in the so-called Colonial landscape. We used several techniques of field survey, pottery classification and other non-invasive approaches to the archaeological…

The Colonial and Global History Research Programme of the Leiden University Institute for History combines a deep curiosity of transcultural processes such as imperialism, (de)colonization, and globalization with critical historical research on regional societies in Africa, Asia, and the Americas.

This catalogue is the result of the EU_CUL project (2018-2021), which explores the use of cultural heritage in Europe for fostering academic teaching and social responsibility in higher education.

The colonial and slavery past is an important theme in education and research at Leiden University. Particular attention is also paid to structural abuses that arose from this history and that often still persist in the present day.

In the specialisation Heritage and Society you explore the role of heritage in society. With our combination of education and research you lay a strong foundation for an (inter)national carreer in heritage management and policy.

The Department of Archaeological Heritage and Society focuses on the relationships between past and present, the role of heritage in society, and how heritage can contribute to the improving quality of life and our (future) environment.

Carsten Stahn has just published Confronting Colonial Objects: Histories, Legalities and Access to Culture. The book is part of the OUP Cultural Heritage Law and Policy Series.

Platform for research about heritage languages spoken in the Netherlands

Archaeological heritage management is concerned with the identification, protection, management and preservation of the material remains of human activity in the past (of whatever period and in whichever region of the world) and with the interaction that this involves with all kinds of stakeholders.

The main research question of this PhD project focus on how educational policies and practices can contribute to the promotion and understanding of archaeological indigenous heritage among teachers and students in the Caribbean?

This project introduces primary school children (8-12 years) to science and archaeology.

The territories that would make up what is today the Republic of Zambia officially became British in 1891. However, this did not equate to an on-the-ground presence of colonial authority capable of affecting the destiny and daily lives of people.

Heritage Quest has featured in several media. Read and watch the items made by others about the project.