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The last month has been a busy one filled with lots of exciting activities across the consortium, such as our annual Consortium Meeting: Embodied & Braided alongside Radiant Shadow performances, Culture Capsule x Hip Hop is Erfgoed events at the ITA, and the OCAN talk show in Groningen & Eindhoven!

Also of note: Archipelagoes out now! Special issue on Papiamentu/o featuring Jan Bant and Margo Groenewoud;

Dastan Abdali & Jan Bant publish chapters in the book: Wereldsteden van de Lage Landen;

EHHSN call for Papers – Things done change – apply now.

Save the date: On June 3, 10, 16, and 23, 2025, the Culture Capsule will be at the Foundation Hip Hop Centre, digitising. On October, 21 and 22, 2025, Island(er)s at the Helm end conference.

Reflecting on the Consortium meeting 2025: Embodied & Braided

What does it mean to try and improve representations of who belongs in Dutch culture, and who counts as European, using the themes of embodiment and braiding? To sit together, listen and experience. This year we did that, and witnessed dance performances reckoning with the colonial past – and bringing tears, joy and undoing through dance. We shared conversation about a book that braids together past and present in a violent but unflinching gaze at Haiti’s global past – which encapsulates so much about the connection between Europe and the Caribbean. And we heard how brilliant colleagues in the early stages of their formal academic career are doing the work of research, community-building and representation. And confronting how we can ethically research communities that have been othered and excluded. 

While students courageously protested brutality back on our home campuses, we opened up research on societal injustice through a presentation on racial profiling in state services (the toeslagen affaire). We also workshopped some of the challenges we’ve faced as a project group –  a loose, slightly idealistic, somewhat organic and spiraling collective of individuals and organisations. As said in the conclusion, we can’t do all of the things all of the time, but we can do some of them, and make some things better.

Consortium 2025 was embodied and it braided together a lot of research and many truths. That’s our tactic for coming to a better understanding of the Netherlands and Europe. We’ll see where it takes us in the next two years. Check out a few images below!

Event Announcement

Research Updates & Call for Papers

Dastan Abdali & Jan Bant’s chapter’s in the book: Wereldsteden van de Lage Landen: stadsgeschiedenis van Nederland en België

Dastan Abdali places the rise of Zombi Squad and their political Hip Hop in a context of the fall of the wall, a resurgence of right-wing extremism, and postcolonial migration flows.

Jan Bant’s chapter discusses the global metropolis of Amersfoort, which, as he reveals, is the baseball capital of the postcolonial Netherlands!

Buy here

Margo Groenewoud is a guest editor of a special edition issue in the Journal Archipelagos

As a journal of Caribbean digital praxis, Archipelagos is a journal, spearheaded by Kaiama L. Glover and Alex Gil. Margo Groenewoud was invited as Guest Editor for a special edition on Papiamentu/o and the Dutch Caribbean, which was published in April 2025. The initiative for addressing this issue stemmed from the apparent oversight of Papiamentu/o culture and the Dutch Caribbean as a whole in Caribbean Studies, and its consequences for the digital realm.

This special issue provides deeper insight into the many misunderstandings surrounding the oversight of Papiamentu/o culture and the Dutch Caribbean as a whole in Caribbean Studies. Re/presenting Europe PhD student Jan Bant also co-authored one of the articles, entitled Diaspora and Digital Discourse: Papiamento/u Research in the Digital Archives of Coleccion Aruba. Read the specail issue here

Re/presenting Europe is featured in the Utrecht University podcats ” The ARENA”.

“In The Arena, we dive headfirst into these tensions and wonder: What is the role of the university in our society today?

In the second episode of The Arena, we follow the work of four academics who are pushing the boundaries of how research can create societal impact through co-creation, outreach and providing advice.

How do refugees receive information about the Dutch asylum procedure? How do we truly measure the impact of war? And who gets to define European identity? We join Koen Leurs and Kinan Alajak as they question the role of AI in asylum procedures in the Netherlands. And Lauren Gould, as she investigates the devastating aftermath of a Dutch airstrike in Iraq. Meanwhile, Rachel Gillett and her team work to build a Dutch hip-hop archive, to ensure the voices of marginalized communities are heard and remembered.”

Important Final Announcement

Does your organisation or stichting need serious, skills-based research, writing and creativity to produce something history/heritage related? We can help. Please contact Rachel: r.a.gillett@uu.nl. We have skilled and enthusiastic students who want to work with a foundation, stichting, or organisation. They’d like to apply their skills to an alternate final project than a traditional history thesis – think report, mini-history of your organisation/members, lesson materials for primary or high school age, podcast, multi-lingual microcast, online display, web-based toolkits. Anything you think cultural history and heritage students working on Re/presenting Europe can handle. Run time is from February-June 2026, set-up and pitch is now!  Email r.a.gillett@uu.nl if interested – or give me a call.