We investigate the roots of social inequalities within and between countries, global migrations, and large scale shifts in the organisation of work. We explicitly do so from a global perspective, and formulate alternatives for traditional Eurocentric interpretations of history. We approach the relationship between humans, landscape and animals from an ecological, social-economic and political perspective. We also combine methodological and conceptual insights from history and anthropology to come to a better understanding of societies’ present and past.
Questions we ask include:
- What is the long-term influence of globalization on social inequality? How is capitalist development connected to colonialism, slavery and other large-scale forms of coercion, and what is the role of divisions along lines of gender, race and social class?
- What are the effects of large-scale migration on labour relations, transfers of knowledge and social movements?
- How do economic changes affect social, political and cultural processes, including the formation of heritage and collective memory? What can the global history of the social sciences explain about how we view the world?
- How do people cope with climate change and other environmental changes? How is nature an agent in historical development? What role have global environmental movements played in creating visions and practices of sustainability?
Our academic staff teach, research and take MA, ReMA and PhD supervisions in the following areas:
Prof. dr. Pepijn Brandon (Chair, Global Economic and Social History): History of capitalism, colonialism, slavery, war and global inequality
Prof. dr. Petra van Dam (Chair, Water and Environmental History): History of environmental, social-economic, political and cultural aspects of the relationships between humans, animals, and water landscapes
Prof. dr. Pál Nyíri (Chair, Global History from an Anthropological Perspective): Global mobility of Chinese elites, Chinese nationalism, the politics of immigration in Eastern Europe, and comparative approaches to Eastern Europe and China
Prof. dr. Ulbe Bosma (Professor by special appointment of International and Comparative Social History): History of capitalism and commodity frontiers, colonialism, the global countryside, labour and migration
Dr. Norah Karrouche (Assistant professor): Historical culture and memory in Morocco, Algeria and among North African communities in Europe, oral history, digital history
Dr. Dániel Moerman (Lecturer): History of water and the environment
Dr. Wesley Mwatwara (Assistant Professor of Global Economic and Social History): History of Sub-Sahara Africa, animal history
Dr. Lucas Poy (Assistant Professor in Global Economic and Social History): History of Latin America, socialism, social movements
Dr. Younes Saramifar (Assistant Professor): interdisciplinary scholar of narratives of domination and political storytelling of religious populism
Dr. Patricia Schor (Postdoctoral Researcher): History of race and racialization, afterlives of slavery
PhD candidates
Dominique Ankoné, The tensions of freedom. Tran Duc Thao's anticolonial thought, activism and influence in post-WWII France
Merel Blok, Seven Frontiers - The Global South in the Age of Early Industrial Capitalism
Jelle Bruinsma, “Our Successful Control of the World’s Markets:” State, Capital, and U.S. Financial Imperialism, 1898 – 1914
Marten Buschman, Henri van Kol, 1852-1925
Tamira Combrink, Slaves, commodities and logistics
Alexander Geelen, Slavery and mobility in the Dutch early modern overseas empire
Natalia Goezevataja, Ukranian artists and decolonization
Berco Hoegen, Geschiedenis van de knotbomenplantages in het rivierengebied
Sam Miske, Land Grabbing in Southeast Asia: Company, Conquest, and Indigenous Power in the Banda Islands and West-Java, 17th Century
Zawdie Sandvliet. Land Grabbing in the Dutch Atlantic: Land, Indigenous rights and African slavery in New Netherland and Suriname
Eva Seuntjens, Slavery insured: The Amsterdamse Assurantie Compagnie 1771
Hanna te Velde, Colonial Girl Power
Pauline Wittebol, Amsterdamse handelsnetwerken en Amerika in de 18de eeuw
Zhang Xiaoke, Nationalism and decolonization in Chinese opera