The Dutch colonial burden: colonial collections in postcolonial times and the transfer of academic values

Abstract

In this paper I will address the way Dutch Asianists transfer academic values to the next generation. The conclusion will be that they do so in a, perhaps surprisingly, unsystematic way, even to the point that there is little consensus about what constitute the major academic values. The paper consists of a preliminary analysis, based on interviews with four scholars (Jan Breman, Elsbeth Locher?Scholten, Henk Schulte Nordholt and Wim van den Doel) and a content analysis of a selection of PhD theses, inaugural lectures, valedictory lectures, and Festschriften. These four types of writing are, more than ordinary articles and monographs, texts in which people express normative ideas.