On Thursday, October 16, 2025, the Department of History, Faculty of Cultural Sciences (FIB), Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM), in collaboration with the Doctoral Program in Humanities at FIB UGM, organized a seminar and study session on the theme “Language and the Characteristics of Dutch Colonialism in the Indonesian Archipelago.” The seminar featured Joss Wibisono, a journalist and researcher with expertise in colonial practices in the Dutch East Indies, examined through the lens of language and post-independence Indonesian history. He is also widely recognized as a contributor to online media platforms such as Tempo, Historia.id, and Indoprogres. The session was moderated by Uji Nugroho Winardi, S.S., M.A., a lecturer at the Department of History, FIB UGM. The event opened with remarks from Dr. Abdul Wahid, M.Hum., M.Phil., Head of the Department of History at UGM. read more

Application deadline: 30 November 2025
Research period: 2026

About the program

This program is part of a larger research entitled “Tracing evolutionary pathways in grassroots climate governance: Connecting the past, present, and future inter-scalar adaptation strategies in Southeast Asia – TRACE” based at KITLV and Leiden University, the Netherlands. The Department of History UGM as a partner of this research program invites university students and alumnus who are eager to trace traditional knowledges associated with irrigated agriculture, particularly with wet rice cultivation in Java, Bali, Nusa Tenggara, Sulawesi, and islands of Eastern Indonesia. What kinds of knowledge consulted, how they are stored, and how they relate between different ontological forms are the primary task of the tracing. This program intends to look into layers of memories and reposited knowledges amongst farming communities of irrigated rice agriculture in the archipelago. These layers point to its emergence and entanglements with states, including the traditional kingdoms, sultanates, Dutch Indies colonial state, and the post independence Republic of Indonesia. Through ethnographic/oral history and archival research and by providing a space for farmer/community agency, we intend to work together with farming communities, environmental groups, and the government in order to trace the knowledges that must have been passed down from various generations on the ecological knowledge related to the creation and maintenance of irrigated agriculture. read more

On Wednesday, October 1, 2025, the Department of History at Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM), in collaboration with the Master’s Program in International Relations, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, UGM, hosted the launch of the book Rethinking Histories of Indonesia: Experiencing, Resisting, and Renegotiating Coloniality. The event was integrated into the series of activities of Go South (Annual Convention on the Global South) 2025, which carried the theme 70 Years Bandung Spirit: Re-Invigorating Decolonial Struggle Amidst Geopolitical Turbulence. read more

Hosted in Europe or Southeast Asian countries | 3 Fellowships | 2 months each
Application deadline: 31 December 2025
Fellowship period: Autumn 2026

The Restituting, Reconnecting, Reimagining Sound Heritage (Re:Sound) project invites applications for three short-term research fellowships aimed at scholars, curators, artists, and source community members from Southeast Asia. These fellowships seek to support original research and curatorial experimentation within two main sound collections in the Netherlands: The Jaap Kunst Collection at the Universiteit van Amsterdam (UvA) and The Philips Omroep-Hollandse Indies radio broadcasts at the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision (NISV), or other repositories of source communities from Southeast Asia in Europe and repositories in Southeast Asia relevant to Re:Sound. read more

The Department of History, Faculty of Cultural Sciences, Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM), proudly announces the launch of the official website for the international research program Exploring New Futures for Indonesian Objects: Dismantling Colonial Knowledge Production and Recovering Lost Histories and Memories, accessible at https://pastfutureheritage.fib.ugm.ac.id/. Officially launched on September 30, 2025, the website is part of a collaborative research initiative between Universitas Gadjah Mada and the University of Amsterdam (UvA), under the Dutch Research Agenda (NWA) program Research into Collections with a Colonial Context. read more