GLOBALISE newsletter 7

11 April 2023

Upcoming event, new blog post, and data publication

GLOBALISE datasprint: Mapping Places in the Indian Ocean World

On 15 May 2023, GLOBALISE is organising a datasprint on places in the Indian Ocean world in collaboration with CREATE Lab. The goal is to collectively generate, curate, and link as much data on historical places as possible.

Everyone with affinity for or interest in (historical) maps, history of the Indian Ocean region, or digital techniques for data extraction – regardless of proficiency – is very welcome to attend. Please note that this event will be onsite in Amsterdam

More information on the datasprint and registration here.

Blog: "Textile Taxonomies: GLOBALISE’s efforts to define traded textiles in the Indian Ocean Region"

If you do not immediately know what periemoenemolam are, you might want to read about GLOBALISE’s efforts towards categorising these commodities in Henrike Vellinga’s blog post!

New data publication on the General Letters of the VOC

We have published a dataset that provides an overview of all General Letters (Generale Missiven) in the archives of the VOC at the National Archives in the Hague.

This dataset expands on the source publication of the General Letters in the Rijks Geschiedkundige Publicatien series by identifying “new” General Letters in the VOC archives that have not been indexed in the source publication.

It also builds on the TANAP database by linking folio numbers to their respective scannumbers in the digitized collection of the National Archives.

Get to know us!

At GLOBALISE, we work in a growing team of historians and developers. We would like you to get to know the people behind the project better, which is why we will introduce each of our colleagues in this and upcoming newsletters. This week: Mrinalini Luthra and Ruben Land from work package 3: Historical Contextualisation.

Mrinalini Luthra

I recently joined GLOBALISE as a Data Ethics Specialist. I will be engaging with questions around responsible stewardship of historical data about enslaved people, colonisation and slavery in digital spaces and how to express the subjectivities of data, technologies, and interfaces in the GLOBALISE infrastructure.

Outside of GLOBALISE, I like to spend my time bouldering, practicing and teaching yoga, and planning and executing my next meal. I have a tendency to make elaborate meals (including my lunches) and am currently experimenting with chili oil recipes.

You can reach out to me to discuss critical and feminist perspectives in research, (AI) ethics, yoga for climbers, chili oils and food.

Ruben Land

I started working as an intern for GLOBALISE a month ago and devote my time to our places dataset, linking place names to other external datasets and adding alternative spellings.

I am currently writing my master’s thesis on the VOC. And if I am not working or writing, I am probably playing table tennis.

A fun fact about me is that in my early childhood, I collected crown caps, of which I had finally collected perhaps a few thousand before throwing them away.

Nowadays, I like learning new languages (Russian and Spanish)!