NIOD Rewind Podcast on War & Violence

What was the Indonesian revolution (1945-1949) like as a lived experience? Anne van Mourik speaks with historians Abdul Wahid, Yulianti and Roel Frakking about their new book Revolutionary Worlds: Local Perspectives and Dynamics during the Indonesian Independence War, 1945-49 (Amsterdam University Press). With the book, Indonesian and Dutch researchers bring together two historiographical traditions to shed light on the complexities of the revolutionary war. What did this collaborative project yield? And what does it mean that the book’s primary focus lies with the period between 1945 and 1950? What stories emerge when the consequences of the revolution for different communities locally are centered?

Image: ‘The guerilla’s are defining their tactics’ (Gerilya Mengatur Siasat) 1964. Painting by S. Sudjojono, Presidential palace, Bogor.

What was the Indonesian revolution (1945-1949) like as a lived experience? Anne van Mourik speaks with historians Abdul Wahid, Yulianti and Roel Frakking about their new book Revolutionary Worlds: Local Perspectives and Dynamics during the Indonesian Independence War, 1945-49 (Amsterdam University Press). With the book, Indonesian and Dutch researchers bring together two historiographical traditions to shed light on the complexities of the revolutionary war. What did this collaborative project yield? And what does it mean that the book’s primary focus lies with the period between 1945 and 1950? What stories emerge when the consequences of the revolution for different communities locally are centered?

Image: ‘The guerilla’s are defining their tactics’ (Gerilya Mengatur Siasat) 1964. Painting by S. Sudjojono, Presidential palace, Bogor.

How is memory weaponised in the Russian-Ukrainian war? In this episode, Anne van Mourik and Thijs Bouwknegt talk with historian Nanci Adler. How does she, as a scholar of transitional justice, reflect on this conflict? What is the significance of Vladimir Putin’s shut down of the Russian human rights organisation Memorial? And how does this feed in to Russia’s repression of its Stalinist history?

How is memory weaponised in the Russian-Ukranian war? In this episode, Anne van Mourik and Thijs Bouwknegt talk with historian Nanci Adler. How does she, as a scholar of transitional justice, reflect on this conflict? What is the significance of Vladimir Putin’s shut down of the Russian human rights organisation Memorial? And how does this feed in to Russia’s repression of its Stalinist history?

How does the current Russo-Ukrainian war impact the memory of the Holodomor – the man-made famine in 1932-33? How do the recent Spanish memory laws impact present-day discussions of the Años del Hambre, the years of hunger during the Francoist dictatorship? And how are memories of the Scottish Highland Clearances (1750-1880) evoked in connection to Black Lives Matter demonstrations? In this episode Marta Baziuk (Holodomor Research and Education Consortium), Laurence Gourievidis (Université Clermont Auverne) and Miguel Ángel del Arco Blanco (Universidad de Granada) speak about the functioning of famine pasts in the present.

The episode is made by Anne van Mourik (NIOD) and Lindsay Janssen (Radboud University) in the context of the research project Heritages of Hunger.

Photo: Replica of the 'Bitter Memories of childhood' sculpture, located in the Holodomor Memorial Parkette (2018), Toronto. This photo was taken on 6 March 2022 – after the Russian invasion of Ukraine (24 February 2022). Someone has placed flowers of Ukraine's national colours (yellow and blue) in the arms of the statue.

Photographer: Charley Boerman

Why do humans fight? Anne van Mourik speaks with Sinisa Malešević (University College Dublin) on his new book (published by Cambridge University Press). Drawing on interviews with former combatants, Sinisa explores how violence operates in the context of face-to-face actions. What motivates human beings to fight? To what extent do people fight for reasons of self-interest? And in which contexts is fighting more likely to happen?

In this episode Anne van Mourik and Dat Nguyen talk with Tam Ngo and Sarah Wagner on the remains of the war dead of the Vietnam-American War (1957-1975). Following the end of the war, the commemoration and identification of the fallen and missing-in-action soldiers from both the Vietnamese (North and South) and American sides remains a contentious issue. With Tam and Dat researching respectively the North- and South Vietnamese perspectives and Sarah the U.S. perspective, this episode approaches the topic from three different angles of the war. What is the contention about? How are the bones used for necro-political and necro-governmental agendas over time?

Ever since its founding an important theme within NIOD research has been 'violence': the perpetration of violence, the legacies of violence, and the multilayered experience of violence and its effects on individuals, communities and nations.

To renew thinking on the core question of what constitutes violence and how to study it, in June 2022 the NIOD organised, together with the Netherlands Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS) a workshop on the question ‘What is violence? Debates and Directions’. In this episode, scholars Sinisa Malesevic, Tatjana Tönsmeyer, Avi Sharma and Ton Zwaan discuss how they use the concept of violence in their work. How to address less visible kinds of violence, such as long-term pollution or climate change, which have the potential to kill entire populations and destroy entire regions of the world? How can research on violence draw attention to institutionalised inequalities and exploitation? And who actually decides what counts as violence – in the past but also in the present and future?

Het NIOD beheert meer dan 2500 meter archiefmateriaal: van een op sigarettenvloei geschreven dagboek uit een Japans interneringskamp in de Tweede Wereldoorlog tot aan archiefmateriaal verzameld en opgemaakt gedurende het Srebrenica onderzoek in 1996-2002. Hoe wordt deze bulk aan data opgeslagen en doorzoekbaar gemaakt? Anne van Mourik spreekt met Carlijn Keijzer, NIOD beleidsadviseur Collecties en Diensten. De totstandkoming van archieven is mensenwerk waarbij keuzes worden gemaakt over het bewaren en structureren van het materiaal. Wat betekent deze selectie en waardering voor welke geschiedenissen wel en niet uitgelicht worden? Hoe reflecteren bestaande machtsstructuren op welke verhalen in de archieven worden verteld en welke worden vergeten?

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In de aflevering wordt verwezen naar: Ismee Tames, 'Digitale ontsluiting van het Centraal Archief Bijzondere Rechtspleging: Mogelijkheden en onmogelijkheden', Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis 133 no. 2 (2020): 303 - 324.

Why was music key to anticolonial and antiracist cultural politics in interwar Paris? Anne van Mourik interviews Rachel Gillet on her new book At Home in Our Sounds: Music, Race, and Cultural Politics in Interwar Paris. In the aftermath of World War I, Black men and women participated in the Parisian cultural and political life via music. How could music function to build community and assert belonging? And how was it deployed to combat fascism and racism in the early 1930s?