From September 1, 2017, the Leiden University Institute for History will be appointing a PhD for a four-year period, within the NWO financed project “Colonialism inside out: everyday experience and plural practice in Dutch Institutions on Sri Lanka, 1700 – 1800.”
This project proposes a novel approach to the history of colonialism by analyzing the everyday interaction between an Asian society and an expanding European bureaucracy. It focuses on how ordinary people in Sri Lanka experienced and navigated normative institutions of taxation, legal action and religion that were set up by the Dutch East India Company (VOC). These institutions were created by the Dutch for social control and revenue extraction, but functioned simultaneously as sites of mediation and conflict resolution. In what way did coastal inhabitants, such as peasants, traders and fishermen, utilize these institutions to further their own interests? How did this everyday interaction contribute to the shaping of their lives?
Submit applications no later than May 28, 2017.