Research project
Rural History of the Netherlands
The research group New Rural History (in Dutch: de Nieuwe PLAG) aims to stimulate the study of rural history in the Netherlands, particularly its political and cultural dimensions. It will develop a handbook to support researchers who want to work on Dutch rural history and will foster new research to integrate rural history more fully into broader national and international historiographical debates.
- Contact
- Judith Pollmann
- Funding
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NWO-Spinozapremie
In 2025, Judith Pollmann was awarded the Spinoza Prize by the Dutch Research Council (NWO). She decided to use this prize to stimulate the study of the rural history of the Netherlands, with a particular focus on its political and cultural dimensions.
In Dutch history, urban communities have traditionally attracted far more attention than the countryside. As a result, rural areas play only a limited role in the broader narrative of Dutch history. In the ‘canon’ that informs the Dutch school curriculum, for instance, there is a place for the port of Rotterdam, but not for the land consolidation that, between 1950 and 1995, transformed almost the entire Dutch landscape, radically altering the lives of rural dwellers and the ecology of the Netherlands.
Academic rural history in the Netherlands has primarily focused on agricultural and landscape history. Other aspects of historical life outside the cities have certainly been studied extensively at the local level, but these studies are not always in conversation with academic debates. As a result, supra-local comparisons across time and space remain relatively rare. With the funding from the Spinoza Prize, we aim to change this.
Nieuwe PLAG
The first step has been the establishment of a research group, New Rural History ‒ in Dutch, the Nieuwe PLAG, which has as its key aim to stimulate the study of rural history in the Netherlands, to discuss new methods and research agendas, and learn from local, national and international examples. It will also develop of a research guide to help researchers find their way in the complex historical landscape of rural institutions.
Through this page, and a new website that is currently under development, we will keep everyone informed about our activities.
Historicidagen 2026
At the Historicidagen 2026 in Leiden, this research group will make its first introduction during two sessions ‘Nieuwe plattelandsgeschiedenis 1: Rondetafelgesprek over de toekomst van de plattelandsgeschiedenis’ and ‘Nieuwe plattelandsgeschiedenis 2: Luisteren naar stemmen van onderop’.