Work with us

At GLOBALISE, we highly value collaborations with scholars, citizen scientists, artists, and anyone interested in VOC materials. This page provides an overview of current individual collaborations and opportunities to work with us, for example, as a guest researcher or intern. For collaborations with specific projects, please refer to our collaborations page. Feel free to reach out through our contact form to discuss collaboration possibilities.

Work with us

We invite students, scholars, and citizen scientists to collaborate with us in unlocking the VOC archives. Whether you’re interested in working with our existing materials or enhancing them by curating datasets and developing training materials for our Named Entity Recognition (NER) models, we welcome partnerships at various stages of the project.

Also, we frequently host datasprints, where we work collaboratively with scholars and citizen scientists to expand or refine datasets pivotal to the accessibility of VOC sources. These sessions offer a platform to exchange insights and acquaint oneself with emerging digital methodologies. Stay informed about upcoming datasprints through our Events page and newsletter.

We aim to enable users of the GLOBALISE research infrastructure to add their own annotations to the material. However, this is currently not yet possible. More information will follow.

Collaboration with specialists

In addition to project-based collaborations, we work with students, scholars, and experts with specialized knowledge in areas related to VOC materials, particularly those who bring insights into terms and concepts from Asian historical contexts. These collaborators contribute valuable perspectives that deepen our understanding and broaden the interpretive framework of VOC records. We’re currently working together with the following scholars:

• Nikhil Bellarykar is an independent researcher, specialising in Dutch sources on Maratha History. He is familiar with early modern Dutch language and paleography. He has authored multiple papers, attended academic conferences and received a scholarship to work on this theme. He is working towards multiple diverse projects at the moment.
• Yedda Ljeljeng lja Palemek (formerly Yedda Palemeq) comes from an indigenous Paiwan community in southern Taiwan. She holds a Research MA in early modern history from Leiden University and is finishing MA in linguists at National Taiwan University. Yedda is the Head Procurement Services at World Vegetable Center and a long-time collaborator with Council of Indigenous Peoples, where she contributes to the Council’s indigenous language and Austronesian collaboration projects. Outside of work, Yedda enjoys documentaries, hiking, and dancing.
• Roni Tabroni completed his doctoral program in History at Padjadjaran University and presently works as a Junior Researcher at the Research Center for Treasures of Religion and Civilization National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), Indonesia. He researches Indonesian Islamic history and has authored books and articles on subjects such as Salafism, the history of the Sultanate of Banten and Islam in the Cirebon residency. 
• Johny A. Khusyairi is a historian, currently working as an associate professor at Universitas Airlangga, Surabaya. His research interests include the history of religion, urban symbolism, local and global culture, and music studies. His publications have dealt with the themes of old and new cities in Indonesia, Javanese Christianity, East Javanese culture, and spiritualism in local communities in Surabaya. He is currently researching the Madurese-Hindu community in East Java.
• Yeh Chunting is a graduate student at National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan. He has been trained by Prof. Hsin-hui Chiu to read the VOC archive related to Taiwan and is currently working on his MA thesis under her guidance. Chunting’s research focuses on writing a global microhistory of overseas Chinese. This study is based on petitions drafted by the Chinese who were exiled by the VOC in the eighteenth century. He has previously worked as a full-time certified teacher in history at junior high school for three years (2019-2021).
• Madison MacKenzie – Bio TBA

Internships

Are you interested in an internship that connects the past with the digital future? At GLOBALISE, we welcome university students at both the Bachelor’s and Master’s levels who are passionate about early modern history and/or the digital humanities. Join us as an intern to create contextual data on themes relating to the Dutch East India Company archives.

Interns have the opportunity to work on enriching our datasets, such as by identifying individuals mentioned in the archives, reconstructing settlement structures, or developing our thesaurus for terms like commodities and status groups. We also welcome interns who are interested in contributing to outreach or who have digital skills relevant to data work. If you’d like to learn more about our internships or are unsure if this role is for you, don’t hesitate to contact us.

User panel

We regularly consult our user panel for feedback on our plans for the GLOBALISE research infrastructure. The user panel meets in varying compositions. The following people have participated in sessions: