Date: Tuesday, 18 March 2025
Time: 12:00 – 13:30 CET
Location: online 👉 register now to participate (Zoom link will be sent by e-mail to all registered participants).
Sources and Approaches to Global History in the Digital Age
Digital humanities and the digitisation of archives are ever-growing trends in academia. How will digitisation open up new opportunities and yet present new challenges to historical research? Co-organised with Leiden University’s COGLOSS series, the GLOBALISE project — as well as projects associated with it (Combatting Bias and Necessary Reunions) — invites discussions on digitisation, accessibility, and new approaches to global history.
Part 1 of this webinar introduces GLOBALISE and its affiliated projects. Part 2 takes the form of ‘lightning talks’, providing a platform for early career researchers to share their research and reflect on how digital methods have informed their work.
Speakers: Lodewijk Petram, Manjusha Kuruppath, Leon van Wissen, Amber Zijlma, Mrinalini Luthra, Li Yichao, Bart van Duijvenbode, Rosalie Oudshoorn, Satrio (Ody) Dwicahyo
Programme
12.00 – 12.05 Introductions by Pichayapat Naisupap and Melinda Susanto
Part 1
12.05 – 12.10: GLOBALISE, Lodewijk Petram
GLOBALISE is an infrastructural project committed to enhancing the accessibility and research potential of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) archives. These archives offer a unique perspective on the VOC’s complex role in history, as well as glimpses into early modern societies in Asia, Africa, and Australia. The project aims to empower researchers and the general public to explore these archives and write new, inclusive histories.
12.10 – 12.20: Necessary Reunions, Manjusha Kuruppath and Leon van Wissen
The Necessary Reunions project applies emerging techniques of georeferencing and machine-generated transcriptions to the VOC’s textual archives and maps of early modern Kerala, India. The information obtained through these methods will help reconceptualise Kerala’s early modern topography and consequently help support the writing of new histories of the region.
12.20 – 12.35: Combatting Bias, Amber Zijlma and Mrinalini Luthra
The Combatting Bias project focuses on the issue of ‘bias’ in the creation of datasets and their use in social sciences and humanities research. Rather than viewing bias as a flaw to be eliminated — an impossible and counterproductive goal, we approach it as a category of analysis to interrogate how knowledge is produced and engage with power structures that shape historical narratives. The project will produce an overview of biases alongside practical guidelines to help researchers identify, analyse, articulate, and reduce biases embedded in their works.
12-35 – 12:45: Q & A
Part 2
12.50 – 13.20: Lightning talks
Li Yichao, Peking University
Li Yichao is in the fourth year of the BA programme and the ‘year zero’ of MPhil programme in the Department of History, Peking University. He focuses on the ‘Chinese Hospital’ system in Southeast Asia glocally, which might help bridge the gap between East Asian Studies and Southeast Asian Studies.
Bart van Duijvenbode, Radboud University
Bart van Duijvenbode is a BA student at the Radboud University in the Netherlands. His research focuses on a group of textile merchants on the Coromandel Coast from 1760 to 1780 and how they utilise their network, both for trade and for combating extortion from the VOC.
Rosalie Oudshoorn, Leiden University
Rosalie Oudshoorn is an MA student in Colonial and Global History at Leiden University’s Institute for History. She conducts research on female leadership and the workings of the matrilineal system in Malabar using the VOC archives. She is currently writing her MA thesis on the position of ranis in Malabar.
Satrio (Ody) Dwicahyo, Leiden University
Satrio ‘Ody’ Dwicahyo is a PhD candidate at Leiden University’s Institute for History and a teaching staff member at the History Department of Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta. His research explores the role of violence in political conflicts in Java during the 17th and 18th centuries. He works with transliterated Javanese sources alongside VOC documents from the period.
13.20 – 13.30: Q & A
