Research project

Epistemic actors. The role of Indonesians in the making of knowledge in the colonial era

Investigating the making of knowledge in anthropology and natural history in colonial and postcolonial Indonesia.

Duration: 2025 - 2030
Contact: Fenneke Sysling
Funding: NWO Vidi grant

Mohammed Saleh joined two expeditions to New Guinea as a topographer. Photograph: Smithsonian Institution Libraries

Who is behind a successful scientist? In colonial Indonesia, it was local informants and assistants. They provided information the scientists needed or they collected plants or animals.

In this project, the focus is on these Indonesian epistemic actors. We look at what role they have played in the making of knowledge in anthropology and natural history in (and about) colonial and postcolonial Indonesia. This includes their contribution to Western scientific knowledge but also, and more importantly, their influence on local knowledge communities.