Contingency and Continuity Anthropology and Other

2 Contingency and Continuity Anthropology and Other Non-Western Studies in Leiden, 1922-2002 Han F. Vermeulen

'It is the native point of view which really matters to us' (B.K. Malinowski 1935 I: 339) 'It will be a glorious day for anthropology when various approaches are recognized as necessary and complementary ways of understanding our complex hurrian society' (G.W. Locher 1967a: 24)

Introduction Cultural anthropology at Leideti took shape historically between two basic poles; general anthropology (ethnology) and anthropology of Indonesia (ethnography). It was precisely when both types were related that anthropologists from Leiden received wider recognition. This was the case with the work of G.A. Wilken (1847-1891) in the 1880s, of J.P.B. de Josselin de Jong (1886-1964) in the 1920s and 1930s, and of P.E. de Josselin de Jong (1922-1999) in the 1960s and 1970s. All three scholars succeeded in linking the ethnography of Indonesia (until 1949: the Netherlands East Indies) to theories of general importance, namely evolutionism and structuralism, thus widening the academic reception of their work. The achievements of their students also contributed to the international prestige of these scholars.

96 Tales from Academia - Part I

Despite the fact that anthropology developed relatively early in Leiden, both in the museum and at the university, 1 its institutionalisation was a slow process. Proposals to establish an ethnological museum were put forward in Leiden by Ph.F.B. von Siebold in 1837, but the museum he opened that year was primarily a collection of Japanese objects (Museum Japonicum). More than twenty years later his successor C. Leemans established the National Ethnographic Museum ('s Rijks Ethnographisch Museum) on the basis of the collections of von Siebold and others (1864). This Museum gradually developed into the National Museum of Ethnology that received its current name, Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde (RMV), in 1935 (Van Wengen 2002a). A chair in ethnology (Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indie) was created at the University of Leiden in 1877 and first occupied by P.J. Veth (1814-1895) (see Van der Velde, this book). Viewed internationally, this chair was remarkably early, 2 even if it was regionally bound and focused exclusively on the ethnography and geography of the Netherlands East Indies. It was only with Wilken, Veth's successor, that Leiden anthropology came to be known abroad, as Wilken succeeded in linking Indonesian data with the evolutionist theories of Tylor, Bastian and Frazer (Wilken 1912; Platenkamp & Prager 1994). Both the founding of the Leiden ethnographic museum and the creation of Veth's chair were continuations of earlier developments, starting in Germany, Russia and Siberia in the course of the eighteenth century (Vermeulen 1995, 1996). Wilken's most renowned student, S.R. Steinmetz, founded the comparative ethnological school of Amsterdam during the frrst decades of the twentieth century (see Heinemeijer, this 1

See Held 1953; Gerbrands 1959; De Josselin de Jong 1960, 1968, 1972, 1977b, 1980, 1984; Hirano 1960, 1975; Needham 1963; De Heusch 1968; Locher 1968, 1978a-c, 1981, 1985a-b, 1988b, 1990; Vansina 1971; Koentjaraningrat 1975, 1980-90; Kloos 1975, 1977, 1981; Ellen 1976, 1981; Moyer 1976; Van Baal1977, 1986-89; De Ruijter 1979, 1981a-b; Niessen 1982; Jaarsma 1983, 1984; Vermeulen 1985, 1987, 1999, 2000, 2002; Schefold 1986, 1994; De Josselin de Jong & Vermeulen 1989; Fox 1989a-b, 2000; Tjon Sie Fat 1990; Effert 1991, 1992; Platenkamp & Prager 1994; Van Wengen et al. 1995; Prager 1996, 1998, 1999; Beaufils 1997; Heran 1998; Van der Velde 2000; Van Wengen 2002a-b. 2 Comparable chairs were established in Oxford, New York, Berlin and elsewhere. Edward B. Tylor was appointed Reader in Anthropology at Oxford in 1884. He was promoted professor in 1896, three years before Franz Boas became professor of anthropology in New York. Adolf Bastian was associated with the University of Berlin from 1867 and he was extraordinary professor of ethnology in 1871-75. The chair founded atLeiden in 1877 was a structural one and has been occupied until today.

Tales from Academia -Part I 97

book). Wilken's successors, J.J.M. de Groot, a sinologist of renown, and A.W. Nieuwenhuis, a physician, held the chair of Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indie from 1891 to 1904 and from 1904 to 1934 respectively. Their work was characterised as contributing to 'area studies' rather than to cultural anthropology (P.E. de Josselin de Jong 1960: 16, 1977b: 4). Nieuwenhuis's professorship was seen as a period of stagnation, although Schefold (this book) draws attention to more positive aspects of Nieuwenhuis's work. To remedy the situation, a second (supernumerary) chair was created in general ethnology (algemeene volkenkunde). With this additional chair the theoretical development of anthropology at Leiden received a significant boost. ' In 1922, J.P.B. de Josselin de Jong was appointed to this non-regional chair. He inspired many dedicated students with newly formulated ideas on structural anthropology and improved their opportunities by initiating a master's degree in ethnology in 1929. He was appointed to the main chair at Leiden in 1935, which he held forlwo decades. When he retired in 1956, De Josselin de Jong had taught two generations of students who were to influence developments in The Netherlands and abroad. By 1956 anthropology had finally become sufficiently institutionalised. A bachelor's degree (candidaats) in cultural anthropology, in addition to a master's degree (doctoraal) in cultural anthropology, could be acquired from 1953, when cultural anthropology (CA) was chosen as the new academic name for ethnology (volkenkunde). From then onwards, the study of ethnology was modernised and expanded into that of cultural anthropology (elsewhere called social anthropology). These developments represent stages in a· process of institutionalisation that, more often than not, was contingent and inspired by bureaucratic reforms, both in The Netherlands and its colonies. Nevertheless, the establishment of a second chair in 1922 was a deliberate move, enabling the development of a new (structural) approach to anthropology. There was a great deal of continuity in J.P.B. de Josselin de Jong's teaching before and after World War Il. The main paradigm, structural anthropology, was reinforced, particularly after the publication of Claude Levi-Strauss's magnum opus on elementary kinship structures (1949). However, because of the war, and especially due to Indonesia's independence (proclaimed on August 17, 1945; granted in 1949), the national and international context of anthropology changed tremendously. To signal this shift, the earlier degree programmes in lndology (Indologie) and East lndies law (lndisch recht), focusing on the former colonies, were dissolved and replaced by a new degree programme: non-western sociology (1952).


In Leiden, these two subjects merged when Godfried W. Locher (19081997) founded an Institute of Cultural Anthropology (CA) and Sociology of Non-Western Peoples (SNWV) during the academic year 1955-56 (Vermeulen 1997, 1999a). This institute, initially known as the ICA, still exists today as a Department combining the two disciplines in its name. 3 The foundation of the ICA represented a further step in the institutionalisation of Leiden anthropology. This led to a period of growth in cultural anthropology and non-western sociology during the 1960s and 1970s. Increasing numbers of students resulted in increasing numbers of staff members, leading to the introduction of new specialisations, including applied anthropology and sociology. However, the initial period of growth was followed by a period of financial constraints beginning in 1979 and continuing to the present day. The ICA was later replaced by institutions with various names, ranging from Institute and Subfaculty via Vakgroep to Department. These terms only reflect shifting educational policies at ministerial and university levels. Despite these changes the character of the two study programmes, each leading to its own degree, did not change until January 2000. It was then decided to combine both programmes into a single programme, reflecting not so much a new theoretical view but rather a shortage of staff to teach both curricula. In the following, I shall describe the institutional history of anthropology and non-western sociology at Leiden since 1922 and 1952 respectively, focusing on the development of ideas in the context of curriculum changes. My method is contextual and historicist (Stocking 1965), rather than presentist. My sources are publications, interviews, and archival material. 4

3

Departement Culture le Antropologie en Sociologie der Niet- Westerse Samenlevingen (CA/SNWS), also known as the 'Department of Cultural and Social Studies.' See http://www .fsw .leidenuniv .nl. 4 The sources on the history of cultural anthropology and of non-western sociology at Leiden are abundant. Archival sources are held at the Department (J.D. Speckmann), the KITLV (J.P.B. de Josselin de Jong, G.W. Locher, A.A. Gerbrands), the University Library (J.F. Holleman) and the National Museum of Ethnology. P.E. de Josselin de Jong's collection was donated to the Institute of Ethnology at MUnster University, Germany. A central archive for anthropology at Leiden does not exist. Primary sources are readily available through the NCC (Nederlandse Centrale Catalogus).

Tales from Academia -Part I 99

The Birth of Structural Anthropology in Leiden WhenJ.P.B. de Josselin de Jong accepted the appointment as full professor in the chair of Indonesian and general ethnology at Leiden in 1935, the first period of discoveries in the field of Indonesian studies, and .of structural anthropology, was nearing its conclusion. Together with his friend and fellow curator, W.H. Rassers (1877-1973), De Josselin de Jong had developed a new way of structuralist thinking, which they applied to Indonesia and other fields of studies. From 1920 onwards, JPB (as his students called De Josselin de Jong) and Rassers worked together closely as curators in the National Museum of Ethnology (RMV) at Leiden, developing the paradigm introduced by Emile Durkheim and Marcel Mauss in the L'Annee sociologique School from 1898 (Durkheim & Mauss 1903). Rassers was a philologist and ethnologist interested in ancient Java. Like Veth, Rassers never visited the Indies. Yet, his theories on dualism and moieties in Javanese society and mythology (1922) were influential (see Schefold, this book; Prager 1998). De Josselin de Jong was a linguist and ethnologist initially mainly interested in Amerindian cultures. Joining his tutor C.C. Uhlenoeck in linguistic and ethnological fieldwork among the Blackfoot (1910-11), De Josselin de Jong had become interested in the relationship between language and culture. What connected him and Rassers was a non-regional approach to culture and society. This approach was holistic and 'panchronic' (P.E. de Josselin de Jong & Vermeulen 1989: 303, 305). While Rassers inspired De Josselin de Jong to undertake a 'renewed and deeper reading of Durkheim and Mauss' (Locher 1965: 41, 1978a: 39), De Josselin de Jong introduced Rassers to literature on kinship and dual organisation (Vermeulen 1987: 6). However, while Rassers followed Durkheim in assuming that 'social organisation is the basis of the primitive systems of classification' (Rassers 1922: 215), De Josselin de Jong was more cautious in this respect, holding that determination could go both ways. Influenced by the structural linguistics developed by Ferdinand de Saussure, the 'Prague School', and Edward Sapir, De Josselin de Jong rejected the Durkheimian 'primacy of the social aspect' to arrive at a more finely tuned view on the relationship between 'cosmos' and 'society.' Relativism had questioned the prevalent geographical bias in linguistics, exchanging it for a fundamental 'perception of the relativity of one's own language ... and of the principal equality of all languages of the world' (Uhlenbeck 1986: 7). Having participated in the first International Conference of Linguists in The Hague (April 1928), De Josselin de Jong

100 Tales from Academia- Part I

stated in his lectures: 'If there is system in language, why shouldn't there be system in other expressions of culture?' (quoted in Van Baall977: 286; cf. De Josselin de J ong 1935: 12-13/1977: 174 ). By postulating an essential 'unity' of individual societies, he assumed that a social and cultural system is operational in each of them (Nooteboom 1964). Such a system could be discovered by concentrating on the interrelations between myth, ritual, and social structure. Although Western society was complex, it was neither unusual nor exclusive; its study should therefore be included in anthropology as well. In the second half of the 1920s, De Josselin de Jong accomplished a breakthrough in kinship studies. In 1927-28 he was 'already giving a detailed course on kinship. structures in which he used not only the concept of structure but the word as well' (Locher 1968: vi). This structural approach also appeared in the final chapter of the dissertation written by his student J.Ph. Duyvendak (1926), and in his own articles on the Natchez social system (1928) and on the origins of the Divine Trickster (1929). Through studying sources on America, Africa and Australia, De Josselin de Jong discovered that 'systems based on asymmetric [or circulatory] connubium were compatible with both matrilineal descent and patrilineal descent, and with double descent' (Locher, quoted in De Josselin de Jong & Vermeulen 1989: 307; Locher 1988b). Finding that asymmetric alliance and double-unilineal descent could be combined within another, more basic model, he stated that 'an organic connection' could not be excluded (De Josselin de Jong 1935: 10/1977: 171-2). The essence of this model, called 'possibilistic' by JPB's student Locher, was published in the Ph.D. theses of his students H.G. Luttig and H.J. Friedericy in 1933 and of F.A.E. van Wouden and G.J. Held in 1935.5 Locher refrained from writing his thesis on kinship systems in Australia, as A.R. Radcliffe-Brown had announced publications on this subject in the journal Oceania of 1930. Locher later regretted this because 'we were theoretically more advanced on this issue than Radcliffe-Brown' (Locher 1988b: 61). All the dissertations mentioned above were submitted before De Josselin de Jong accepted the main chair at Leiden. As his lectures were not compulsory (as were those of Nieuwenhuis), and because few job opportunities existed in ethnology, it was the originality of his ideas that fascinated students. Despite his style of lecturing, which was critical and

Tales from Academia- Part I 101

detached, students were attracted to his teaching as they felt he reported on advancements he and others were making in revealing hidden structures, both iil the humanities and natural sciences (Locher 1988b: 61-62). De Josselin de Jong presented two courses a week, as well as a seminar in which new subjects and students' papers were discussed. He wrote all his lectures down before presenting them. Some of these lecture notes (numbered 13-17) have been preserved, others were placed in the care of students or relatives. A few were distributed by way of stencilled lecture notes (Vermeulen 1992). In order to extend discussions outside lectures and seminars, students founded an ethnological debating club (dispuut), called W.D.O. after an inscription on an inherited gavel, in November 1928. The W.D.O. dispuut was interfacultary and open to students from all fields within the university. It has been -and still is- a forum where students and professors meet on an informal basis. As it was not yet possible to acquire a degree in ethnology, De Josselin de Jong urged the Leiden Faculty of Arts to formulate requirements for an MA degree (doctoraal) in ethnology, and these were issued in November 1929.6 De Josselin de Jong taught anthropology according to the American four-field approach, i.e. including ethnology, linguistics, prehistory, and physical anthropology. The frrst two subjects were his main focus. Well versed in French, English and German literature, JPB was critical of Boas's particularism and perceived the relevance of Malinowski's functionalism, although he rejected the latter's ahistoricism (Locher 1988b: 64). His pre-war lectures included: The Social, Economic, and Religious Aspects of Primitive Society (1929-32), History of Ethnology (192~32, stencilled lecture notes 1938), and Ethnology of the Netherlands East Indies (stencilled lecture notes 1939). JPB published little in this period and as 'his thinking expressed itself in the work of his students' (Kuiper 1966: 400) their work is important for reconstructing his ideas. Almost all Ph.D. theses supervised by JPB before World War II were based on library studies. Their focus was not limited to Indonesia: only five out of nine theses defended before 1940 dealt with that region. Apart from Duyvendak's and Friedericy's theses mentioned above, only C. Nooteboom, F.A.E. van Wouden, and M.M. Nicolspeyer discussed Indonesia. J. van Baal wrote his thesis on religion and society in Southern 6

5

A list of Ph.D. theses supervised by J.P.B. de Josselin de Jong was published in Vermeulen (1987: 59-61). A list of Ph.D. theses supervised by P.E. de Josselin de Jong was published in Vermeulen (1999: 207-209).

The doctoraal degree in Ethnologie, introduced by the Faculty of Arts at l..eiden on July 12, 1929, was announced in the Nederlandsche Staatscourant 217, November 6, 1929. Between 1931 and 1940 at least five students took such a degree and between 1946 and 1954 at least sixteen students.


New Guinea (1934). G.J. Held published an ethnological analysis of the Sanskrit epic, the Mahabharata (1935). Quoting Marcel Mauss, Held concluded that the French scholar was correct in writing that the epic is 'l'histoire d'un gigantesque potlatch' (1935: 348). Held's reconstructions of Indian kinship, in which double descent and classificatory systems figured predominantly, were an important source of inspiration, and of critique, for Claude Uvi-Strauss (1949). G.W. Locher's thesis on religion and mythology of the Kwakiutl (1932), utilising sources provided by Franz Boas and his students in the USA, gave rise to an international discussion involving Boas and K.Th. Preuss (Locher 1982). Another of JPB's pupils, H.G. Luttig, a South-African student of history and ethnology, discussed the religious system and social organisation of the Herero in Namibia (1933). Prior to World War II only two students from Leiden conducted fieldwork before taking their Ph.D.: Friedericy and Nicolspeyer. Friedericy had served as a civil servant in the East Indies before writing up his thesis on the status system of the Buginese (1933). He later wrote several novels inspired by anthropology (Friedericy 1984). Strictly speaking, Martha Nicolspeyer' s thesis (1940) was the only pre-war Leiden thesis based on original field research for a Ph.D. She accompanied Cora Du Bois to the Indonesian island of Alor and focused on the social structure of a mountain-area group as the 'time available for research [five months in 1938-39] was restricted.' · in general, all JPB' s students displayed the same tendency to focus on a holistic and structural analysis. of culture and society. In particular the theses of Held and Van Wouden are important, reflecting JPB's ideas on asymmetric connubium, double descent and the corresponding structure in myth and cosmic representations. Their theses and Rassers's pioneering work were summarised by De Josselin de Jong in his (second) inaugural address on the Malay Archipelago as a Field of Ethnological Study (1935). This address is seen as a programme of future research (P.E. de Josselin de Jong 1977, 1984), but can also be read as a report on foregoing studies. After all, both De Josselin de Jong and his students had already carried out research on Indonesia. Van Wouden, in particular, presented the most detailed account of JPB's ideas. On this basis De Josselin de Jong arrived at his formulation of the 'structural core' in ancient Indonesian societies (Schefold, this book). In the second part of his address, JPB dealt with the 'reaction of indigenous culture to certain powerful cultural influences from without', viz. Hinduism and Islam.


In this way, from 1920 onwards, JPB and Rassers, working in the Leiden ·museum, had opened up a new paradigm defining a structural theory on culture and society. Both men played a leading role in the formative period of Leiden structuralism (1920-40). By teaching and publishing, JPB expanded the structuralist tradition in Leiden, influencing his students during the next two generations. This 'Leiden tradition' preceded the structuralist orientation which began in France and England during and after World War II. Therefore, Leiden anthropologists have been called, not without reason, 'les precurseurs hollandais' (De Heusch 1968: 33-34). To qualify for the main chair at Leiden, De Josselin de Jong had undertaken fifteen months of ethno-linguistic fieldwork on five islands in Eastern Indonesia (1933-34) with a fellowship provided by the Rockefeller Foundation. During this trip he collected numerous 'texts' and attempted to test his model of double descent and asymmetric alliance. The results were not satisfactory and he published only two volumes of Studies in Indonesian Culture (1937, 1947; a third volume appeared posthumously in 1987). This sojourn was of importance also because De Josselin de Jong witnessed the encroachment of administrators, traders and missionaries on Indonesian societies he considered to be 'disintegrating.' Observing the destructive impact of administration and missions on cultures in Eastern Indonesia, he collected data on social change on the island of Kisar.

lndology By aecepting the full chair at Leiden in 1935, JPB left the safe haven he had enjoyed as a supernumerary professor and curator in the National Museum of Ethnology. He now embarked upon a direct relationship with the civil servants' training programmes in Leiden. These programmes were subject to sensitive national politics. When The Netherlands had resumed its colonial activities after becoming a Kingdom in 1813-14, and especially after the secession of Belgium in 1830-39, the need for well-trained colonial officers and civil servants had become urgent. In order to exploit Java, the centre of its most important colony, The Netherlands had enforced a form of indirect rule to be carried out by qualified personnel with sufficient knowledge of local languages and customs. To this purpose, civil service training programmes had been set up in Surakarta (Java) 1832-43, in Delft 1843-1900, in Batavia (now Jakarta), in Leiden at a national school1864-91 (see Van der Velde, this book), at the University


of Leiden from 1902, and at the University of Utrecht from 1925 (De Josselin de Jong & Vermeulen 1989: 283-286; Fasseur 1993). All anthropology professors mentioned above, i.e. Veth, Wilken, De Groat and Nieuwenhuis, had been teaching ethnology (volkenkunde) in these training courses, referred to as Indology (lndologie) and East lndies Law (lndisch recht). Important innovations were made once 'Indology' was accepted as a full five-year academic study leading to the degrees of BA and MA in the Academic Statute of 1921, drawn up by the historian Johan Huizinga (Staatsblad 800). This Statute also included a full degree programme in history and, as we have seen, an MA programme in ethnology (from 1929). Students of Indology (a term now generally referring to the study of the South-Asian subcontinent) at that time aimed at a career as civil servants in the Netherlands East Indies. Having passed a comparative examination at The Hague, Indology students were appointed as trainee civil servants (candidaat lndisch ambtenaar), received scholarships (studiebeurzen), and had to prepare for three years to obtain a BA (candidaats), followed by two years leading to their MA (doctoraal). Students could chose between two variants: a 'linguistic BA' and 'economic MA', or an 'economic BA' and 'linguistic MA.' Most opted for the former variant. Trainee civil servants who had completed this programme, either in Leiden or in Utrecht, were called lndologen and they held key positions in the colonial administration. Graduates of East Indies law were positioned at the top of the colonial hierarchy, mostly in urban centres, and their number exceeded that of Indology graduates. As the latter were posted mainly in the outer regions of the colonies, they had to possess a pioneering spirit, patrolling among local people under their administration (see Kommers, this book). Indology and Indies Law courses were offered in a special interfaculty unit called the 'United Faculties of Law and of Arts' (Vereenigde Faculteiten van Rechtsgeleerdheid en van Letteren en Wijsbegeerte), a loose federation of some twelve professors residing in their own faculties, but meeting in the 'United Faculties' to examine the students and award degrees. Such a situation existed not only at the University of Leiden (from 1884 to 1955) but also at the University of Utrecht. At the University of Amsterdam, attempts were made to establish a programme for Indies Law from 1922 and these efforts were resumed after World War II, but studies in Indology were never provided there. All in all, the civil servant trainings programmes were a smoothly run operation, thriving with hundreds of students each year. Indology was not a discipline but a multi-disciplinary programme of studies, designed to be of practical use in the colonies. For their BA,


Indology students in Leiden had to read the Malay and Javanese languages (initially with Ph.S. van Ronkel and C.C. Berg, later G.W.J. Drewes and c.C. Berg), comparative ethnology of the East Indies (with J.P.B. de Josselin de Jong), the study of Islam (initially with A.J. Wensinck, later J.H. Kramers), archaeology and history of the Netherlands Indies (initially with N.J. Krom, later F.D.K. Bosch and T.H. Milo). In order to pass the MA, they had to read Eastern economics (with J.H. Boeke, after 1929), Western economics and statistics (with C. Westrate, from 1939 onwards), national and administrative law of 'the Netherlands East Indies (initially with J.J. Schrieke, later J.H.A. Logemann), adat law (initially with F.D. Holleman, from 1934 to 1939, later V.E. Korn), and take one optional subject (keuzevak), for instance, ethnology. The majority of JPB's Ph.D. students followed this programme, although some (including Locher and Luttig) took a BA in history. When De Josselin de Jong was appointed to the chair in general ethnology, a few interested students followed his lectures, wishing to obtain a Ph.D. After he was appointed to the main chair, his lectures on the ethnology of Indonesia were compulsory for all students majoring in Indology or Indies Law. These new requirements prevented him from expanding on his earlier discoveries and his productivity in this respect decreased significantly. He had his brief formulated in both regional and general terms,7 and concentrated on lecturing, publishing little apart from his Studies in Indonesian Culture. Meanwhile practically all of JPB's former students had accepted positions in the East. Although none was employed as an anthropologist, most were able to conduct limited studies in the field. Van Baal, Nooteboom and Friedericy worked as civil servants, Held and V an Wouden as linguists. Duyvendak began as a teacher in secondary schools. In 1938, he was appointed the frrst professor of ethnology at the Law Academy of Batavia (now Jakarta), to be succeeded as professor by Held (1946-55). Luttig returned to South Africa to serve as a lecturer in ethnology, becoming active politically, and finally being appointed an ambassador (1965). Only Locher stayed on. He was not an Indologist and, due to the Great Depression, initially could not find a job. In order to qualify as a teacher in geography, Locher followed lectures in Amsterdam, reading sociology with W.A. Banger and social geography with H.N. ter Veen during the academic year of 1933-34, giving up that ambition when 7

In 1935, the chair's brief was changed into 'ethnography of the Netherlands Indies [later, of Indonesia] in relation to general ethnology' (de volkenkunde van

Nederlandsch-Indie in verband met de algemeene volkenkunde).


he was appointed museum curator in Rotterdam. Having moved to the National Museum of Ethnology at Leiden in 1937, he wished to conduct fieldwork. Shortly before The Netherlands became involved in World War II, Locher left for Dutch Timor (February 1940). When the Japanese invaded the island (February 1942), he was mobilised, took part in guerrilla warfare and was evacuated to Australia in December 1942 (Vermeulen 1999a). Locher, Van Baal, Held, Nooteboom, and Van Wouden set out to test their teacher's model of the structural relationship between kinship and marriage systems on the one hand and socio-cosmic dualism on the other (De Josselin de Jong 193511977). They were to find increasingly that the models did not fit reality.


Things were accelerating after the war8 when JPB started lecturing again and Locher returned from Australia to become director of the National Museum of Ethnology at Leiden in June 1946. This appointment implied a major change in policy, as Locher began to modernise and expand the museum. Not only concentrating on recruiting staff members and the acquisition of museum· collections, he also worked out an educational policy (Van Wengen 2002a: 97-101). As the museum was the focus of all anthropological activities in Leiden, it is not surprising that the Institute of Cultural Anthropology was founded on its premises and only later moved to buildings owned by the university (see below). Almost immediately after The Netherlands had been liberated from Nazi Germany in May 1945, J.P.B. de Josselin de Jong resumed his teaching with a sense of urgency. In a letter to Locher of July 1945, he wrote he had spent twenty-five months at St. Michielsgestel, a prison camp for political hostages in the south of The Netherlands, had subsequently survived the 'Hunger Winter' of 1944-45, and now was giving lectures again to students in Indology and Indonesian Law 'who. have lost a great deal of time already.' 9 This was exceptional, July and August being traditional holidays, and the new academic year beginning in September. It shows that JPB was motivated to accommodate students who had been forced to remain idle during the war. It also gives substance to reports by his students indicating he had become more radical during the war, and had

now begun to be actively involved in promoting independence for Indonesia, considering this a righteous cause even before the war. He published several political articles on Indonesia in 1945-46 and, as chairman of the radical political association 'Nederland-Indonesie', issued a manifesto to the Dutch and Indonesian people in January 1946 (1946a). This pamphlet called for new ways of dealing with the altered political situation in. Indonesia, still regarded as a colony by the majority of the Dutch people. In a publication for students of the United Faculties at Leiden, De Josselin de Jong again stressed the fundamental change in the relationship with Indonesia, which called for a new attitude from the Dutch (1946d: 75). Accordingly, JPB set himself a new task as well. Having trained a first group of talented students before the war, resulting in nine doctorates between 1926 and 1940, he gathered around him a new group of students who were motivated to complete their studies by obtaining a Ph.D. Thirteen of them were awarded a doctorate before his retirement at the age of seventy in 1956. This generation was prominent in influencing post-war developments in anthropology, both at the Leiden museum and the university of Leiden, and beyond (Prager 1999). Dedicated students again became a member of the ethnological debating club W.D.0. 10 In 1950 they were joined· by Rodney Needham from Oxford who discovered structuralism in Leiden while studying sources on Indonesia (Needham 1963). In 1995, twelve of these second-generation anthropology students looked back on their careers embarked upon when studying under JPB in 1945-50 (Van Wengen, Wassing & Trouwborst 1995). Just as before the war, JPB was giving two courses a week, one on General Ethnology (algemene volkenkunde) and one on Comparative Ethnology of the Netherlands Indies (vergelijkende volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indie). He held a seminar for advanced students (werkcollege), in which he developed subjects introduced during the lectures, providing students with the opportunity to discuss their master's theses (scripties). His lectures were no longer attended only by students interested in ethnology as such; they were compulsory for Indology and Indies law students. A fourth, and much smaller, group of students following ethnology lectures were those studying Indonesian Languages and Literature (Indonesische taal- en letterkunde) in the Faculty of Arts. This training could lead to the position of Language Officer

8

10

Post-War Anthropology

A note on.Dutch anthropologists during the war was published by Herskovits (1946). J.P.B. de Josselin de Jong to G.W. Locher, dated Oegstgeest, July 11, 1945. In: G.W. Locher Collection, KITLV Leiden, H 1032, box 18.

9

A photograph taken in November 1949 shows the members of W.D.O., seated amongst professors de Josselin de Jong and Hofstra, in a Leiden restaurant (Vermeulen 1997: 17).



(Taalambtenaar) in the Netherlands East lndies (Teeuw 1973). This fourth group included P.E. de Josselin de Jong (see below), J.C. Anceaux (19221997) and Els Postel-Coster, who had switched to ethnology after acquiring her BA in Indonesian languages in 1947. In 1949, one of the last years during which these degree programmes were offered in Leiden, the number of students acquiring their BA in Indies Law had been seventy-eight, while forty-five were awarded their MA. The numbers for the Indology programme had been sixteen BAs and eight MAs. By contrast, the total number of students receiving their BA in Indonesian languages and literature was four, none acquiring their MA in 1949, while only a single student graduated in ethnology that year (Jaarboek der Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden 1949: 115). These numbers are small indeed in comparison with those of theology, medicine and Dutch law, focusing on careers in The Netherlands and Europe. Nevertheless, student interest in a career in the East had been relatively stable for quite some time. The total number of civil servants making .up the colonial bureaucracy of the Netherlands East Indies in 1940 numbered 750 Indologists and 800 lawyers out of a total of 5,000 Dutch graduates (Fasseur 1993: 476; Sutherland 1979). Ethnology was not a mainstream subject for most students, probably because ethnologists, at that time, had limited job opportunities. Only a few positions existed in ethnological museums and research institutes. (Another possibility was to become a high-school teacher in geography, a programme provided in Amsterdam and Utrecht, but never in Leiden.) In 1937-38, Duyvendak and Held had developed plans to establish an Ethnological Bureau (Ethnologische Dienst) in the East ·lndies, but this failed to materialise due to increasing international tensions. Such a Bureau was eventually established by Jan van Baal in Netherlands New Guinea (now West Papua) in 1950-51, an area attracting many students after the war, when the interest in ethnology increased. While the teaching was light, the examination demands were high: the list of books set for the final examination of students majoring in ethnology (Schoorl 1995: 145-8) is impressive. It- consisted mostly of American literature by students of Boas, such as Lowie, Linton and Herskovits, but also included works by British social anthropologists. Cultural relativism was making an impact, but the major focus was on fieldwork in the Malinowskian tradition. Around 1947, because of his many duties, JPB was envious of the fact that the anthropological staff at the University of Oxford consisted of three scholars (E.E. Evans-Pritchard

and two lecturers), whereas in Leiden he was working entirely on his 11 His frrst assistant was appointed almost two years later. As we have seen, JPB had initiated an MA in ethnology in 1929 in order to accommodate the growing number of students. Between 1931 and 1954, twenty-one students had obtained such a doctoraal (ten between 1931 and 1949, eleven between 1950 and 1954), despite the fact that it was not recognised nationally. 12 Moreover, it was not yet possible to acquire a BA in Ethnology. This changed when a national agreement was reached and the degree programme Culturele Anthropologie, involving both a BA and an MA, was formally announced in the Nederlandsche Staatscourant (Royal Decree dated December 19, 1953). 0 wn.

From General Ethnology to Cultural Anthropology The transition from ethnology to cultural anthropology (CA) had been prepared by a national committee, including J.J. Fahrenfort, J.P.B. de Josselin de Jong and H.Th. Fischer, the main professors of ethnology at Amsterdam, Leiden and Utrecht respectively, during the frantic months following the transfer of sovereignty to the Republic of Indonesia on December 27, 1949. The independence of The Netherlands' largest and most important colony shattered the basis for the lndology training programmes that previously attracted many students looking for job opportunities in the colonies and for the scholarships these programmes provided. De Josselin de Jong was instrumental in the development of the new programme in 'cultural anthropology' by advocating the primacy of culture in the general, non-selective sense of the term, 13 and by introducing this concept in The Netherlands. His definition of culture was: 'the system of non-hereditary expressions of life of a self-conscious human community' (De Josselin de Jong 1946c: 177), including 'the [material] products of 11

J.P.B. de Josselin de Jong to G.W. Locher, dated Oegstgeest, December 1, 1947. In: G.W. Locher Collection, KITLV Leiden, H 1032, box 18. 12 Rudolf Eysink, a student from Utrecht who had acquired his doctoraal at Leiden in January 1946, obtaining his Ph.D. at Utrecht in June that same year, considered the arrangement for the MA in ethnology (varying according to university) as 'unsatisfactory' and called for a 'uniform settlement' at all universities in the Netherlands (Eysink 1946: Stelling 10). 13 G.W. Locher, during the Ph.D. defence of David S. Moyer in 1975, contra Moyer's Stelling 10 regarding the equivalence of Dutch cultural anthropology and British social anthropology. In: G.W. Locher Collection, KITLV Leiden, H 1032.

Tales from Academia - Part I 111


these expressions' (1951: 161). In the East lndies, at Batavia and Makassar, the term culture studies (cultuurkunde) was used in teaching assignments for Held, Van Wouden and H.Th. Chabot during the late 1940s, probably with JPB' s consent and under his influence (Locher 1973b: 10). The new political context had serious consequences for Indology students, who were adversely affected by the transfer of sovereignty to Indonesia during their studies. These trainee civil servants were discharged, first by the Dutch authorities, then by the Indonesians who had 'inherited' them. Now they had to take a decision on how to continue their studies. In this predicament they were assisted by a temporary provision for taking an MA in ethnology, in the Faculty of Arts. Herman Frese, for instance, was examined in General Ethnology, Ethnology of Indonesia, and Indonesian Economics (July 1951). This also applied to Tom Zuidema (1951), Lex van der Leeden (1951), F.C. Kamma (1952), Renc.~ Wassing (1952), Dick Downs (1953), Felix Tan Fay Tjhion (1953), and Jan Ave (1954). Others, such as Albert Trouwborst, Jan Pouwer, and Pim Schoorl, continued their studies in lndology, as they held a position as trainee civil servants and received a scholarship for this reason. Moreover, they had started earlier and finished their studies in 1950-51, when it was too late for them to switch. An exception was Ger van Wengen who had studied Indology (1945-50) without a contract as trainee lndologist. He had been ch(}irman of W.D.O. twice, had given guided tours in the Leiden museum, and was appointed as JPB's first assistant in October 1949. One of Van Wengen's duties was to examine East lndies Law students in ethnology. The question of whether one was allowed access to a degree in either Ethnology or lndology depended on one's secondary education: the Gymnasium, a six-year classical course, was required for studying East Indies law (in the United Faculties) and Indonesian languages (in the Faculties of Arts); HBS, a five-year course, sufficed for studying lndology (in the United Faculties). JPB apparently did not approve of this situation and argued for a dispensation so that students with an HBS certificate could also acquire a degree in Ethnology. 14 Between 1945 and 1954 no fewer than sixteen students profited from this temporary regulation. The shift from ethnology to cultural anthropology was thus a gradual process. The first to obtain a degree in 'Culturele Anthropologie' rather than in ethnology was presumably Peter Suzuki (b. 1928 in Seattle). After his MA in anthropology from Columbia University, New York, Suzuki studied at Yale and then transferred to The Netherlands in 1953. He 14

Personal communication A. C. van der l.eeden, 2000.

studied for two years under JPB in Leiden, passing his doctoraal CA in December 1955. Suzuki was appointed as an assistant to JPB's successor in June 1957, obtaining his Ph.D. at Leiden in February 1959.

From lndology and Indies Law to Non-Western Sociology During the same period in which anthropology was restructured at Leiden, a new programme titled 'non-western sociology' was introduced in The Netherlands. Originally defined as a degree programme in non-western social sciences (niet-Westers sociale studierichting), it was set up to complement the so-called Western social science programme centring around (western) sociology. The term non-western (niet-Westers) to denote this new brand of social studies was probably invented by anthropologists from Utrecht during the early 1950s, as Leiden orientalists continued to favour the term Eastern (Oosters) for their own studies (Kloos 1988: 124). The curriculum of non-western sociology was composed by selecting subjects from both the lndology and the Indies Law programmes; statistics, economics, and sociology, subjects formerly taught in the Faculty of Law, were looked upon as especially promising. 15 The study programme of nonwestern sociology was, in principle, not regionally but theoretically oriented. In practice it remained largely regional - students at Leiden had to select a region for their BA and to learn its main language. The main reasons for this new programme were twofold. The official argument was that Dutch expertise on the tropics should be maintained, a view endorsed both by the Minister of Education and by curators at the universities of Leiden, Utrecht and Amsterdam (Kloos 1988, 1989). Already in March 1950, J.H. Boeke, Dean of the United Faculties at Leiden, reported on Dutch plans to contribute to European and American assistance to 'underdeveloped countries.' In these projects technical engineers would frrst and foremost be recruited, but there would also be some need for 'social engineers' (J.H. Boeke, March 19, 1950; quoted in Kloos 1988: 129). In order to prevent a brain drain, attempts were made to link up with international development programmes. In October 1949 the Dutch government had already decided to contribute to development aid by joining the United Nations scheme for international technical assistance (Nekkers & Malcontent 1999). While this contribution was modest in the

15

Personal communication R.A.J. van Uer, 1980-81.



beginning, the new programme in non-western social sciences was designed to train social scientists for work in the developing aid circuit. There was another, largely implicit argument, at least in Leiden. Even before World War Il, those who wanted to intervene in local affairs on behalf of 'development' had opposed those who refused to do so on moral grounds. J.P.B. de Josselin de Jong was by and large against such intervention. After the war, however, former students such as Locher, R.A.J. van Lier and J.W. Schoorl disagreed with this view, maintaining that if social intervention was to take place, this ought to be done professionally. Cultural anthropology had to be complemented by a sociology of non-western peoples, i.e. of societies in development. The latter subject had to be based in principle on a solid combination of culture and language studies. For this reason the Institute established at Leiden in 1955-56 included both subjects. Non-western sociology, like its predecessor Indology, was initially not a single discipline but a multi-disciplinary subject. The requirements were not light. Students had to pass their candidaats in two stages. Having studied comparative ethnology, sociology and economics during the first stage, they had to select a region of interest (any culture area or beschavingsgebied in the non-western world) and, during the second stage, study its sociography, ethnography, economics, religions and history, supplemented by language studies. In order to pass an MA, one had to deepen one's knowledge of the chosen region, as well as study two subsidiary subjects, one of which was again related to this region (Academisch Statuut, Royal Decree dated December 13, 1952). In response to these challenges, to provide training for the students in these new degree programmes, and to cope with the pending loss of the largest Dutch colony, De Josselin de Jong stimulated the Faculty of Arts to contract three new professors, each specialised in a regional branch of learning. After 1945 he intended to convert his own chair, defined in theoretical and regional terms since 1935, into one central chair in general anthropology, complemented by three extraordinary chairs aimed at specific regions: Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. 16 There was to be a chair in the ethnology of Africa (to which S. Hofstra was appointed in 1946), a chair in the ethnology and language studies of Surinam and the Netherlands Antilles (occupied by C.H. de Goeje 1946-49), later transformed into a chair in sociology and culture studies of the same region (occupied by R.A.J. van Lier 1950-80), and a chair in sociology and culture studies of Indonesia (held by G.W. Locher 1954-56). 16

Personal communication G.W. Locher, 1996-97.

The Leiden Institute was founded in this context of decolonisation, educational reforms, and international plans for development aid. Its founding expressed a new view of anthropology and its role in the world.

Institutional Anthropology The Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Sociology of Non-Western Peoples (ICA) officially started in the year that J.P.B. de Josselin de Jong retired (1956). This was not a coincidence. Its foundation was prepared a year before his retirement, during negotiations about his succession (see below). A strategic role in this process was played by Godfried Locher (Vermeulen 1997, 1999a). Locher was appointed extraordinary professor of 'sociology and culture studies of Southeast Asia and the South Pacific' at Leiden in November 1954. This chair had originally been formulated as a chair in 'sociology and culture studies of Indonesia' in 1952, and Locher had been nominated for it. However, due to the political developments he was appointed only in 1954. Locher accepted this part-time job after resigning as director of the National Museum of Ethnology, as this prestigious position left little time for research and teaching. Having started lecturing in January 1955, Locher was contacted by the Secretary of the University, Klaas Wiersma, who informed him that funds were available for establishing an Institute. Such institutes already existed for psychology and sociology, subjects hardly taught in Leiden before the war. 17 The advantage of such an institute was that funds could be channeled for hiring academic and administrative personnel. This was becoming important during the first economic boom The Netherlands were experiencing, ten years after World War Il, especially as academic work in the humanities was still conducted by professors and a few assistants at home, rather than by an elaborate laboratory staff as in the natural sciences. Originally, the Institute would be connected to Locher's chair, but in November 1955 he suggested a more general name: lnstituut voor Culture le Anthropologie en Sociologie der Niet- Westerse Volken. His close colleagues, De Josselin de Jong, Hofstra and Van Lier, agreed with this

17 The first chair in psychology was created in 1947 and occupied by A.M.J. Chorus. The first chair in sociology was held by F. van Reek from 1948.


name, while some of its terms were already used in teaching assignments at other universities in The Netherlands (Vermeulen 1997: 20, 47, note 6). 18 The appointments of Hofstra and Van Lier signalled a change in attitude with regard to Indonesia, until its independence the main region of interest at Leiden. With their appointments the regional focus was broadened to include Africa and the Netherlands West lndies, including Surinam. Locher' s plans also fitted well with other expansion schemes, in particular for the Oriental (Oosterse) studies at Leiden. In November 1954 plans were developed to concentrate all such studies in Leiden within new offices to be built in the garden of the National Museum of Ethnology. These ideas were first formulated by the secretary of the Faculty of Arts, E.M. Uhlenbeck, and its Dean, Th.J.G. Locher, historian and successor to Huizinga. They also devised plans to develop the Faculty of Arts into a fully fledged Faculty in the next twenty-five years (Ontwikkelingsplan, December 1954). Awaiting the realisation of such a centre of oriental studies, the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Sociology of NonWestern Peoples (ICA) was set up in a small wooden building on the museum's premises and students were invited to follow courses (Vermeulen 1981, 1997). Although meant to be a temporary location, the Institute would reside here for eight years. By 1963, however, winds had changed and plans to link up with initiatives furthering the social sciences were favoured over the previous plans to assemble all non-western studies in Leiden in a single building. As we shall see, the idea resurfaced in 1988, when the Centre of Non-Western Studies (CNWS) was founded. Meanwhile, supported by his. supervisor and mentor JPB, G.W. Locher had succeeded in persuading the Faculty of Arts to transform his extraordinary professorship into a full professorship as from January 1956. At the same time, his teaching assignment (leerojJdracht) was changed from a regional to a general formulation. His new teaching assignment was 18 The term 'culturele anthropologie', surfacing in the lecture notes of J.P.B. de Josselin in 1948 and in Hofstra (1952), occurred officially in 1953 in the Royal Decree and, in 1955, at the University of Groningen when A.H.J. Prins (1921-2000) was appointed reader (lector) in this subject. Locher's second teaching assignment, signed in 1955, followed suit. That same year, A.J.F. Kobben was appointed professor of ethnology (volkenkunde) at Amsterdam; his brief was changed into cultural anthropology in 1963 and extended to include non-western sociology in 1966. The term 'niet-westerse sociologie' occurred in 1955 as well, when J. Prins (1903-1995) was appointed extraordinary professor in this subject at the University of Utrecht. However, the first to hold a chair in the sociology of a non-western region was W.F. Wertheim, who was appointed professor of the history and sociology of Indonesia at the University of Amsterdam in December 1946, widened into 'non-western peoples' in 1966.


'cultural anthropology, in particular sociology of non-western peoples.' This indicated that Locher saw the new discipline as a special form of anthropology, concentrating on acculturation studies and on transcultural change, both founded on a broad study of culture (Locher 1955, 1973). The transformation of his regional chair was directly related to the independence of Indonesia and to JPB's successor, who had to concentrate on the anthropology of Indonesia, now expanded to include Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Several candidates, including Frans van Wouden and J an van Baal, were available but the main candidate, Jan Held, had died in September 1955 after a heart attack in Tanjung Priok while preparing to accept a new post at the Royal Tropical Institute. Locher insisted on his own full chair and on having it defined as revolving around both anthropology and non-western sociology. He recommended JPB's younger brother's son, Patrick Edward de Josselin de Jong (1922-1999), who had studied Indonesian languages at Leiden and Utrecht. Continuing in anthropology, he had obtained his Ph.D. cum laude at Leiden in December 1951, and then served as Reader of Malay Language and Culture in Singapore (1953-56). He was expected to be particularly suitable for continuing that specific combination of language and culture studies that the anthropology of Indonesia had represented. JPB is quoted (by Locher) as having expressed his predicament ('How can I help it that my nephew is the best candidate?'), but soon succumbed to the idea. In May 1956, P.E. de Josselin de Jong was duly appointed professor of 'cultural anthropology, with special emphasis on Southeast Asia and the Pacific.' Due to commitments in Singapore he was not able to take up his teaching at Leiden until January 1957. When Patrick de Josselin de Jong arrived in Leiden, he was welcomed by his uncle-cum-predecessor and by Locher, who had filled up for him, as well as by a small team of professor& who by then made up the Institute of Cultural Anthropology. Apart from his own (central) chair and Locher's new chair, professorships existed for Hofstra, Van Lier, and Willem Brand (1910-1996). The latter was appointed to the chair of non-western economics as a successor to Boeke in April 1957 (first with an extraordinary chair, from 1963 with a full chair). Patrick's view was that structural anthropology should be continued at Leiden by focusing on a holistic cognitive anthropology and on comparative structuralism of the type JPB had promoted when dealing with Indonesia as 'a field of ethnological studies,' by conducting intensive fieldwork among other things. The quotation from Malinowski's Coral Gardens and Their Magic (1935) cited at the beginning of this chapter, can be found in P.E. de


Josselin de Jong's first important article, dealing with the 'participant's view of their culture' (1956). He was convinced that structural anthropology provided the key towards understanding 'other' cultures. In his 1951 thesis, Patrick de Josselin de Jong had been one of the first to pay systematic attention to the theories of Levi-Strauss. He continued to take an interest in Levi-Strauss's ideas on the comparative study of kinship and mythology (1973). He pointed to the common factors that united Leiden and Parisian structuralism, i.e. Marcel Mauss and structural linguistics (1972). He also held Edmund Leach's work in high esteem (1982) and lectured in his seminar at Cambridge on 'Ambrym and Other Class Systems' (1963). For three decades (1957-87), P.E. de Josselin de Jong aimed at continuing structuralism at Leiden, emphasising that the Leiden tradition was cognitive, holistic, and comparative. He favoured that term (Leidse richting) over 'Leiden School', a formulation he regarded as rigid and dogmatic. His senior colleagues, building up expertise in their respective regions, were not particularly helpful in this endeavour. Locher was supportive, being a structuralist himself, but ·switched between anthropology and nonwestern sociology to combine both in a general science of culture. Sjoerd Hofstra (1898-1983) was an ethnologist trained by Steinmetz, who held a full chair in sociology at Amsterdam from 1949 to 1968. Hofstra had also studied in Hamburg and Berlin, and had participated in Malinowski' s seJDinar in London (1933-34) before carrying out fieldwork among the Mende of Sierra Leone in West Africa (1934-35 and 1936) as a research fellow of the International African Institute. As director of the Museum of Geography and Ethnography at Rotterdam from 1937 onwards, Hofstra witnessed the foundation of the Africa Institute in Rotterdam (1946). This Institute endowed a supernumerary chair in African Ethnology (Afrikaanse volkenkunde) in Leiden to which Hofstra was appointed in 1946. He held this chair until 1970, alongside his chair in theoretical sociology in Amsterdam. In Leiden, he mainly taught sociology and anthropology of Africa. Rudie van Lier (1914-1987) had been teaching non-western sociology in Leiden since 1950, and was developing a programme of applied sociology, in particular of Latin America. Having studied history and ethnology at Leiden in the 1930s, as Locher had, Van Lier had also followed lectures in sociology in Paris, given by Marcel Mauss at the Institut d'Ethnologie of the Sorbonne (1937-38). Van Lier was the last student to be examined by Huizinga before the University of Leiden closed on November 26, 1940, in protest at Nazi measures against Jewish fellow scholars. Born in Surinam,


van Lier concentrated his research on that region and wrote a social history of Surinam under the title Frontier Society, for which he was awarded his doctorate cum laude (1949). Later that year he was offered a part-time professorship at Leiden, which he accepted in January 1950. His main position was director of the Surinam Planning Office (1950-55). As such he compiled a ten-year development plan for the country, which remained a Dutch colony until November 1975. When Van Lier accepted an appointment at Wageningen Agricultural University in 1955, occupying a new chair in 'empirical sociology ahd sociography of non-western areas', he was almost lost as far as Leiden was concerned. It was Locher who persuaded him to continue his part-time position at Leiden (Locher & Speckmann 1988). Van Lier also served as president of the board of the African Studies Centre (Afrika-Studiecentrum, ASC), set up in Leiden by the Rotterdam African Institute in 1958. The introduction of African studies in The Netherlands proceeded slowly, despite their strategic concern for Dutch multi-nationals searching for alternative markets after the independence of Indonesia. It was not accidental that the Africa Institute had been founded in Rotterdam, a major European trading port (De Bok 2000). Although a supernumerary chair had been founded at Leiden in 1946, it took some time before a full chair became available. Shortly after its foundation in August 1958, the African Studies Centre endowed a chair and Kofi Abrefa Busia (1913-1978) was appointed as supernumerary professor of 'sociology and culture studies of Africa' (1960-62). Busia had studied at Oxford, was a visiting professor at Wageningen, and held a full professorship in sociology at the Institute of Social Studies (ISS) in The Hague (1959-62). Busia's early departure for London was related to his involvement with politics in Ghana, where he served as Prime Minister from 1969 to 1972. It is therefore understandable that the Minister of Education, J.M.L.Th. Cals, wrote to the Board of the University ofLeiden on June 14, 1961: 'On various occasions I have expressed my intention to encourage the concentration of Oriental and of African studies at your university. While for Oriental studies a long and honourable tradition can be continued, the development of African studies at your university is still in its infancy.' Indeed, the chair in Indonesian customary or adat law had originated in 1877, together with the central chair in. ethnology, and was re-established as a chair in 'folk law and legal development in non-western societies' in 1960. However, its occupant, Johannes (Han) Keuning (1911-1965), was an Indologist and adat law specialist, shifting his interest from Indonesia to Africa and applying for funds to study customary law in Nigeria in


1959. Therefore 'a new chair in African studies should be founded, in close co-operation with the African Studies Centre and the Institute. of Social Studies, sharing an interest in the formation of a centre for Mrican studies in Leiden.' 19 Johan Frederik (Hans) Holleman (1915-2001) was appointed to the new chair in 'sociology and culture studies of Africa', a full version of Busia's part-time position. He was the son of F.D. Holleman, an adat law scholar who had taught sociology and ethnology at the Law Academy of Batavia. As his father had done, he too attempted to combine these three subjects. Hans Holleman had obtained a Ph.D. at the University of Cape Town in 1950, was a South African by naturalisation and the author of several books on social and legal developments in southern Africa (von BendaBeckmann & Vermeulen 2002; Vermeulen 2002). He had conducted fieldwork among the Zulu in South Africa and, as a Beit Research Fellow, among the Shona of southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). As director of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Natal, Durban (195762), he wished to remain in South Africa and was therefore somewhat in doubt about accepting the call from Leiden. The fact that it reached him through Logemann, a old friend of his father's, was an extra argument for accepting the Leiden appointment as a professor and as director of the African Studies Centre. On his arrival, in 1963, Holleman was surprised to learn that, apart from fieldwork by individual researchers, 20 no research projects had yet been carried out in Africa by Dutch scholars. He therefore began promoting African studies in The Netherlands by setting up several large interdisciplinary research projects, notably in Tanzania (De Bok 2000). His students carried out research on social changes in marriage and customary law in Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo, from pre-colonial times until independence. Together with Keuning, Holleman taught African studies and law at Leiden until 1965, the year Keuning died. Holleman 19 J.M.L.Th. Cals, Minister of Education, passed on by the Proconsul of the Senate to G.W. Locher, secretary of the Faculty of Arts, July 5, 1961. G.W. Locher Collection, KITLV Leiden, H 1032. 20 The first Dutch anthropologist to conduct fieldwork in Africa was Sjoerd Hofstra, who travelled to Sierra Leone in 1934-5 and 1936, after presenting his Ph.D. thesis at Amsterdam in 1933. He was followed after World War II by A.H.J. Prins, a student from Utrecht who went to Kenya and East Africa as a British Colonial Fellow in 194850. The third was Jo Scherer, also from Utrecht, who conducted fieldwork in Tanzania in 1950-53. Next, Andre Kobben, from Amsterdam, carried out fieldwork in Ivory Coast in 1953-54. Prins, Scherer and Kobben wrote their Ph.D. theses on the basis of their field research. Albert Trouwborst conducted fieldwork in Burundi in 1958-59, having presented his Ph.D. thesis at Leiden in 1956.


shifted to the position of professor of folk law studies, as a successor to l(euning, in 1969 (see below). Their student assistants included Hans Wagerier, Rionne Ketting, and Hans van den Breemer. By these appointments, the original 'model of JPB': one central chair in general anthropology, surrounded by three extraordinary chairs aimed .at specific regions, had been transformed into a quite different model: two central chairs (held by P.E. de Josselin de Jong in anthropology and Locher in non-western sociology), with Van Lier (sociology and history of Latin America) on the third chair, and Holleman (anthropology and sociology of Africa) on the fourth. In addition, Hofstra dealt with Africa, Brand with development economics, and Keuning with customary law. As the ICA was too small to house them all, only Locher and Van Lier worked on its premises. De Josselin de Jong and Keuning shared a room in the National Museum of Ethnology, Hofstra and Holleman had offices in the ASC on the Rapenburg, and Brand in the Faculty of Law. A move to a new domicile was pending, where all seven professors were to be united in 1964.

Fieldwork J.P.B. de Josselin de Jong was convinced that the data necessary to arrive at solid interpretations of Indonesian social structures could be collected only by well-trained ethnologists in the field. Patrick de Josselin de Jong had conducted fieldwork in Malaysia before being appointed at Leiden and shared the view of his predecessor that direct field research was essential. In hi~ pioneering article on The Participants' View of their Culture (De Josselin de Jong 1956, 1967, 1997c) he had tested the main conclusions of his Ph.D. thesis in the field. One of Patrick' s first feats was the compilation of a curriculum for cultural anthropology including fieldwork, in cooperation with Els Postel-Coster (b. 1925), his assistant from 1959 onwards, and with Locher. The programme was conventional, with a substantial amount of literature, but it included two practical courses: a 'museum course', organised by Frese, Van Wengen and other staff members of the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden, and a 'fieldwork course', including an introduction to photography. Both courses were compulsory, the first for undergraduate students, the second for graduate students. The fieldwork course, dealing with 'techniques of ethnological field-work', would be given every two or three years by anthropologists



who had recently conducted such research (Studieregeling voor de Culturele Antropologie 1959: 13). Ethnography had been a pillar of anthropological studies at Leiden since Wilken, De Groot, Snouck Hurgronje, and Nieuwenhuis. J.P.B. de Josselin de Jong had carried out linguistic and ethnological fieldwork among the Blackfoot Indians (191 0-11 ), prehistoric fieldwork in the Danish and the Dutch Antilles (1922-23), and ethno-linguistic fieldwork in Eastern Indonesia (1933-34). On the last-mentioned trip, JPB was accompanied for the first six months by Henk Chabot, a student of Indies law who went along to obtain fieldwork experience. As we have seen, most of his Ph.D. students gained their doctorates without ever having set foot in their areas of research, the only exceptions being Friedericy and Nicolspeyer. By 1940, however, Nooteboom, Held, Van Wouden; Van Baal and several others were ·'in the field' managing to conduct fieldwork despite the fact that their main duties were still administrative. Locher, as a Leiden curator, had conducted fieldwork in Timor in 1940-41, where he recorded more than one hundred myths. As his fieldnotes were lost.due to the war, he was able to publish only three articles on this subject (Locher 1956, 1975, 1988a). He also assisted Herman Schulte Nordholt with his thesis on the Atoni of Timor (1966), where the latter had worked as a civil servant in the 1930s. Therefore, when JPB introduced a seminar on 'ethnological research' (1948-49), this was innovative. This seminar included a short field study on 'social interaction among student societies' in Leiden, supervised by Van Wouden, on leave from Indonesia (Vermeulen 1987: 10, Schoorl 1995: 86). Almost all participants later went on research trips in Asia, Africa, and the Pacific (Van Wengen et al. 1995). Important work was being done in Netherlands New Guinea (now West Papua). Jan Pouwer and Lex van der Leeden served there as 'government ethnologists' from 1951-52 onwards, concluding their theses on 'some aspects of Mimika culture' and 'main traits of social structure in Western Sarmi' in 1955-56. A third Leiden student, Pim Schoorl, was employed as a civil servant and presented his dissertation on the basis of fieldwork in 1957. In it he analysed 'old Muju culture' in terms of the three domains JPB had distinguished (the social, economic, and religious aspects), adding a long

section on 'western influences' (see Jaarsma 1990 and Schoorl 1996 for Netherlands New Guinea studies up to October 1962).21 Against this background, it is understandable that Patrick de Josselin de Jong and Locher included a fieldwork course in the curriculum of anthropologists. While this programme became operational, the frrst students of non-western sociology were leaving for their rites de passage: three students, Donald McLeod, Raymond Buve and Willem Buschkens, left for Spain in September 1959 in order to work in the Badajoz agrarian development project. This team was supervised by Tom Zuidema, an anthropologist from Leiden who had spent years in Spain, obtaining his frrst doctorate (Madrid, June 1953), later conducting fieldwork in Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador. In 1960, Arnout Marks travelled to Spain. Two years later four students went to Spain, supervised by Buve, who became assistant of Van Lier in 1962. In the beginning, no more than ten to fifteen students enrolled in the new disciplines CA and NWS. The frrst to pass a doctoraal exam in nonwestern sociology at Leiden were Moehammed Slamet and Donald McLeod, students from Indonesia and Surinam respectively. Slamet started with courses in Indology in 1949 and switched to non-western sociology when these were dissolved in 1951. He passed his BA degree in two stages: 1953 (candidaats I) and 1956 (candidaats II), to take his doctoraal in July 1959. McLeod arrived at Leiden in September 1955, took his frrst degree in 1958, went along with the frrst fieldwork trip to Spain, to obtain his MA degree in June 1961. They were followed by Jacob Vredenbregt (July 1961), Raymond Buve (May 1962), Willem Buschkens (May 1963), and Amout Marks (May 1964). · The frrst to pass a doctoraal exam in Cultural Anthropology (CA), after Suzuki, were Gerard H.A. van der Schuyt and Jules Lach de Bere, in October and November 1957 respectively. The first candidaats degree in CA was presented to Wilma D. Heijligers in July 1957, coinciding with the arrival of P.E. de Josselin de Jong earlier that year. Els Wittermans-Pino came to Leiden with a degree from the London School of Economics, having studied under Raymond Firth, and obtained her doctoraal degree in CA under P.E. de Josselin de Jong in 1959. She took her Ph.D. at Leiden in 1964. Henk van Dijk was the frrst student to follow a complete curriculum in cultural anthropology (1955-62), acquiring his candidaats in CA in 21

Among the first post-graduate students from Amsterdam to conduct Ph.D. fieldwork were Bonno Thoden van Velzen (Surinam, 1961-62); Chris Baks, Klaas van der Veen and Jan Breman (India, 1962-64. The first graduate student from Amsterdam to conduct fieldwork for a master's degree was Peter Kloos (Drenthe, The Netherlands, 1960-61).


November 1957 and his doctoraal in June 1962, both under P.E. de Josselin de Jong. 22 In February 1958 Van Dijk, Slamet, McLeod, Buschkens, Wagener and other students established a new dispuut (student debating club) called HAF (Hands Across Frontiers) (Vermeulen 1997: 27). It was founded in direct opposition to the ethnological dispuut W.D.O. to show that theirs was a new generation in the making. In order to receive a first degree (candidaats), these students were required to follow lectures in general linguistics (given by E.M. Uhlenbeck), physical anthropology (J. Dankmeijer), psychology (A.M.J. Chorus), sociology (F. van Heek), cultural anthropology and non-western sociology (P.E. de Josselin de Jong and Locher). Their second degree (doctoraal) had to include cultural anthropology as the main subject, the anthropology of a region as minor subject (bijvak), and one optional subject (keuzevak) (Studieregeling CA 1959). By 1961, a fieldwork training period (stage) for anthropology students had been set up as well, now in rural Scotland. This bi-annual fieldwork trip was supervised first by Rein van Wijk and, from 1965 onwards, by Chris Baks, an anthropologist from Amsterdam who had carried out Ph.D. research in India. It set a pattern, in which a collective field study was organised annually, in Spain and Scotland in alternate years. Initially, fieldwork in Spain was set up by the non-western sociology section (frrst under the responsibility of professor Van Lier, and later under that of J.D. Speckmann, see below), the one in Scotland by the cultural anthropology section. Students of both degree programmes, however, could participate either in the Spain or in the Scotland stage. The idea was to bring the students into direct contact with social complexities in the field and to investigate well-prepared research problems despite a culture shock (Baks & Meijer 1968). In 1963, a third initiative was taken, now to provide first-year students with a 'research practicum' in Drenthe, a rural province in the northeast of The Netherlands. 23 The idea of this so-called 'Drenthe-stage', held during 22

Van Dijk remembers that he had to wait for half a year (September 1954-February 1955) before he was able to commence his study of Cultural Anthropology, after Minister of Education Cals had announced the new diploma in the Academic Statute. He received the Studieregeling (1959) in January 1960. 23 This was not the first initiative in the Netherlands to train junior (pre-candidaats) students in the field. Wageningen Agricultural University had set up a research practicum in West Friesland, in the province of North Holland, during the late 1950s. Buve had, as a student, taken part in this practicum in 1958. One year later, Marks participated in this Wageningen scheme.


the summer or late autumn (later in January), was to obtain experience with research techniques such as interviews, participant observation, and social surveys in a fieldwork situation linguistically and culturally not too alien. The students spent two weeks, ·later four weeks, in a rural setting, in order to write a 'sociography' of their respective villages within two months after their return. The frrst supervisors were Speckmann and Buve. Johan Dirk (Hans) Speckmann (1928-1997) was appointed lecturer in 1962, specifically for the training of Leiden students to conduct social research. After studying sociology and social psychology at Utrecht, Speckmann was employed by Van Lier to carry out research on marriage and kinship among Surinamese of South Asian descent. Having studied for over a year under Van Lier at Wageningen, he travelled to Surinam to conduct a social survey. After his return, and his promotion in 1965, he became professor of social research (see below). His appointment as lecturer was a prelude to the next stage in the history of anthropology and non-western sociology at Leiden, that is, their transfer from the Faculty of Arts to that of Social Sciences.

Advent of the Social Sciences The Faculty of Social Sciences (FSW) was long overdue in The Netherlands when it was finally introduced as the 'seventh faculty' in the Higher Education Act (WWO) of 1960. 24 Social sciences had become relevant in the USA during the.1920s and 30s (the Chicago School) and the University of Amsterdam boasted a Faculty of Political and Social Sciences (PSF) from 1948 (Gevers 1988; Ellemers 1998). At almost all universities in The Netherlands, chairs for sociology and psychology were established after World War II, reflecting the value attached to these studies for solving problems that had manifested themselves during the war. Nevertheless, it required an amendment in the Dutch Parliament by the social geographer W.H. Vermooten to push the idea of a Faculty of Social Sciences during negotiations over the Higher Education Act in October 1960 (Heinemeijer 1998: 162). Preparations for this faculty began in 1961, it was formally announced in 1963 and became operational in Leiden in 1964-65 (Locher 1965b; Vermeulen 1999a: 22-23). Apart from non-western sociology (NWS or SNWV) and cultural anthropology (CA), it included psychology, pedagogy, sociology and, after 1966, political 24

Wet op het Wetenschappelijk Onderwijs, issued December 22, 1960.


studies. Before the war, sociology had been taught only occasionally in the Faculty of Law. Political studies, established in the Faculty of Law as late as 1963, became one of the four main subjects in the 'Subfaculty of SocioCultural Sciences', with CA and NWS, and sociology. This decision put sociology and non-western sociology on a par with cultural anthropology. In this context the Institute (ICA) moved from its premises at the National Museum of Ethnology to another temporary residence in July 1964. In a modem office building, Stationsplein 242, two floors were reserved for the anthropologists and non-western sociologists. It was here that all the professors of CA and SNWV, and their assistants, first met to develop gradually into a team. The sociologists occupied the larger part of this building, but mutual contacts never seem to have been warm. Sociology had now become an important subject attracting many students, including Crown Princess Beatrix. The anthropologists saw most sociological theories as 'ethnocentric' and as disregarding the rest of the world in their generalisations. Non-western sociologists generally profited from the charisma of sociology and freely quoted from classics by Merton, Parsons and Mannheim. Hard times followed for the anthropologists, particularly for P.E. de Josselin de Jong. His closest colleagues in the Faculty of Arts included E.M. Uhlenbeck (professor of Javanese and of general linguistics), A. Teeuw (professor of Indonesian and Malay language and literature), and J.C. Anceaux (professor of comparative Austronesian linguistics). In the early 1960s, P.E. de Josselin de Jong and R.A.J. van Lier clashed, expressing the great divide between anthropology and sociology. In a staff meeting, Van Lier stated that he was in favour of closer relations with sociology but would not mind 'allowing anthropology to continue for a while.' De Josselin de Jong then caustically replied that the progress of anthropology did not depend on Van Lier, who had spoken as if 'he could prevent the sun from rising.' This dispute, recalled by P.E. de Josselin de Jong during interviews before retiring (Vermeulen 1987: 24-25), is characteristic for the ambience of the time. Debates were fierce, not only between anthropologists and non-western sociologists in Leiden, but also between scholars from Leiden and Amsterdam. After the inaugural lecture of Pouwer as professor of cultural anthropology at Amsterdam (Pouwer 1962), Peter Kloos wrote a critique on kinship studies (1963) to which P.E. de Josselin de Jong reacted (1964), followed by a reply by Kloos (1964). Two years later, Pouwer and Andre Kobben clashed on the structural and functional approach (Pouwer 1966a-b; Kobben 1966a-b). Earlier, G.W. Locher and W.F. Wertheim had been involved in a polemic on history (Locher 1961,


1971a; Wertheim 1962, 1966, 1976). In November 1963, during a symposium on the differences between anthropology and non-western sociology organised by W.D.O., discussions had been strong (see Kula 1964). All this led Locher (1967a) to plead for methodological tolerance in a comment on Kobben's article on comparative functionalism (1967) quoted at the beginning of this chapter. Patrick de Josselin de Jong continued to stimulate students in Leiden by setting high standards, by studying the history of Leiden anthropology in order to develop the structural paradigm, and by publishing in Dutch and English (he was bi-lingual). His work during the 1960s included an introduction to anthropology, Contact der continenten (1969, reprinted three times). He widened the 'field of ethnological study' concept, introduced by his predecessor, by pointing to the relations between insular and mainland Southeast Asia (1965a). During his professorship (1957-87) he continued the international debate on exchange in kinship and mythology. His international reputation stimulated many students from abroad (USA, UK, Canada, Japan, France, Denmark, Germany, Indonesia) to select Leiden for Ph.D. research. Within the ICA, however, the sociological impetus provided by Locher, Van Lier, Speckmann and their students left little space for anthropology during the 1960s. Moreover, relationships between The Netherlands and Indonesia had deteriorated due to the New Guinea crisis (1961-62), making it impossible for Dutch anthropologists and linguists to carry out research in Indonesia. Van Lier, on the other hand, was very confident. Standing for a nonwestern sociology that began with cultural anthropology, he moved beyond it to concentrate on 'total structures' rather than on partial problems as dealt with by (western) sociology. The new subject would include a great deal of economics and statistics, nevertheless forming a theoretical unity with cultural anthropology. Its aim was to study 'sociology and cultural anthropology, obtain insight into statistics, acquire a reasonable amount of knowledge of economics and social psychology, based on extensive readings in politics, philosophy and history' (see the interview with Van Lier in Kula, 1966). Regarding methods, it would begin with in-depth studies, such as are conducted by anthropologists, and continue with the social surveys usually made by sociologists. Such a non-western sociology would be a temporary measure and constitute an intermediate phase until the huge 'blind spot' in western sociology was remedied (Van Lier 1964: 22-24; see also Wertheim, this book). Locher, striving for an intermediary position between Van Lier and De Josselin de Jong, rejected the distinction between 'western' and 'non-


western' on principle (e.g. Locher 1955: 7), but did not resist a de facto division of labour. He therefore supported the new study of non-western sociology, soon called sociology of non-western peoples (Sociologie der Niet-Westerse Volken) in the Higher Education Act (WWO) of 1960. As we have seen, Locher combined both studies in one teaching assignment, a view endorsed by Pim Schoorl after he was appointed professor at the Free University of Amsterdam in 1962. Locher agreed with his former classmate Wim Wertheim that (western) sociology was neglecting large parts of the world, which would therefore have to be complemented by a separate discipline. He shared an interest in the emerging 'new nations' with Wertheim, but began a polemic with him on 'possibilistic' versus 'finalist' approaches to their history (Locher 1961, 1971a). Locher emphasised the importance of 'transculturation' as a radical transformation of culture and a special case of acculturation (Locher 1960: 8; Van Lier 1956). He defined acculturation as a change of culture or, following Alfred Kroeber, as 'the effect on cultures of contact with other cultures', a phenomenon that had occurred in the West only during the past 150 years. The concept of 'oecumene', originating from the Protestant church shortly before World War Il, was central to Locher's teaching in the 1960s. Lecturing on the links between concepts such as 'people' (volk), 'state' and 'oecumene' (1966-68), he criticised Steinmetz's and Mtihlmann's views, in order to arrive at more dynamic views of 'plural society in a broad perspective of world history.' In this way, Locher tried to account for clashes of civilisations not only in 'the outer-European world' but also in the Western. world and between these worlds (Locher 1978a). Van Lier' s views were more pragmatic. As a member of the Harvard Advisory Group he had carried out surveys and consultancies in the Sudan (1958), Iran (1958-59), later also in Ethiopia and Thailand. In addition, he was a consultant for large development projects in Syria (the Euphrates project, mid-1960s) and the Central African Republic, as well as in Tanganyika (1966), now Tanzania. Preceded only by Wertheim in Amsterdam, Van Lier occupied the first chair in the sociology of a nonwestern region. Moreover, he set up non-western sociology at Leiden and Wageningen (see Den Ouden, this book). On this basis, Van Lier strove for the institutionalisation of applied social research, and in 1965 his Leiden teaching assignment was changed to 'sociology and culture studies of Central and South Amercia, including applied sociology of developing countries.' Thus the region was expanded to include Latin America as a whole, rather than only the Dutch colonies in Surinam and the West Indies.


He stimulated research in Latin America that led to Ph.D. theses by Hoetink (1958), Speckmann (1965), Galjart (1968), Buschkens (1973), Marks (1973); and Buve (1977). Even more important was the addition of 'applied sociology', as this reflected V an Lier' s change in position. It also led to the formation of three fields of applied non-western sociology in 1971-72 (see below). Speckmann was by and large in favour of Van Lier' s ideas. After finishing his Ph.D. with Van Lier in 1965, Speckmann was appointed professor of 'empirical sociology of non-western peoples, in particular methods of field research' in November 1966. He started building up a section for Methods and Techniques of Social Science (M&T), a subject introduced as one of the requirements for the BA degree (candidaats) in the Academic Statute of October 1967. Leiden was one of the frrst universities in The Netherlands to comply with this demand, but Speckmann was not the only scholar in Leiden with this research interest in mind. Adriaan A. Gerbrands (1917 -1997) was appointed professor of 'cultural anthropology, in particular of ethnography' in May 1966, a few months prior to Speckmann's promotion to professor. Both the expansion of Van Lier' s teaching assignment and the appointments of Speckmann and Gerbrands were the result of Locher' s efforts as Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences from September 1965 to January 1968. During this period Locher consistently strove to provide the ICA with more personnel. Gerbrands had studied ethnology and Indology at Leiden in 1935-41 and served as curator for Africa and America (later also of Oceania) at the Museum of Ethnology in 1947-66. He defended his Ph.D. thesis on art as an element of culture in Africa under J.P.B. de Josselin de Jong (1956). Having set up the museum's ethnographic film library from 1951 onwards, he assisted museum curators with photography and film advice in the field (Trouwborst 1995: 101). When the ICA organised its frrst photography and film course in 1959, it was provided in the Leiden museum. Four years later the photography course was renewed, in co-operation with the museum (Anonymous 1963). Gerbrands had become deputy director of the museum in 1960, and was especially concerned with its film collection and with large exhibitions. He conducted fieldwork among the Asmat of West New Guinea (1961-62) and the Kilenge of West New Britain (1967-68). He produced several celebrated film documentaries on these people,



including Matjemosh (1963). 25 Gerbrands followed in Locher's footsteps by leaving the museum for the university when he became professor. of anthropological research (Vermeulen 1985; Locher 1990; Nijland, this book). With Gerbrands's and Speckmann's promotion to professor, and the move of the Institute to a more permanent location in the same year, a new phase began in the institutionalisation of anthropology and non-western sociology at Leiden. 26

TheNewiCA A decade after its foundation, the Institute moved far the second time to occupy three, later five floors, in a much larger building (Stationsplein 10) in the autunm of 1966. The move was a big operation as the staff now consisted of twenty-one members, including seven professors, six lecturers, six student assistants and two secretaries. The ICA would remain there for more than twenty years and experience both its heydays and its downfall, due to shrinking budgets since 1979. In the same office building, the ICA staff met up with the members of the Department of Indonesian Languages and Literatures (including Uhlenbeck, Teeuw and Anceaux) and of the Department of African Linguistics. This facilitated mutual contacts, particularly in the field of Southeast Asian and African studies. The African Studies Centre (ASC) moved into the same premises and the Royal Institute of Linguistics and Anthropology (KITLV) set up its offices there as well, in 1967. Especially the fact that the KITLV, previously located in The Hague, was also housed there was a major feat to the credit of both Uhlenbeck and G.W. Locher (Uhlenbeck 1967; Kuitenbrouwer 2001). In this way, they succeeded in assembling all Indonesian and African studies in Leiden~ as Uhlenbeck and Th.J.G. Locher had planned for all oriental studies in 1954. Other nonwestern studies, including Hebrew, Arabic, Turkish, Persian, Indo-Iranian, Chinese and Japanese, remained within the Faculty of Arts, located either 25

A.A. Gerbrands was an impressive ethnographer. He conducted fieldwork in Africa, Indonesia, New Guinea and West New Britain. His ethnographic collections (kept in the National Museum of Ethnology) comprise 900 objects from the Asmat,. the Kilenge and from the Sepik areas, 4,000 b/w photographs, 10,000 colour slides, seven documentary films, as well as video and sound tapes with interviews (Jaarverslag Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde, Leiden 1997: 20-21). 26 A parallel move of anthropology and non-western sociology also occurred in Amsterdam during 1966, when Wertheim and Kobben decided to merge both degree programmes in a common institute.

on the Rapenburg, or in a wing of the former hospital building also housing the National Museum of Ethnology. The first course calendars of non-western sociology appeared in 196566, focusing on three main regions: Southeast Asia (written by De Josselin de Jong and Buschkens), Latin America (written by Van Lier and Buve), and Africa (written by Holleman). In 1959, six regions had been on offer, including the areas mentioned as well as New Guinea and the Pacific, North America (dealt with by Locher), North Africa and the Middle East. The prospectus indicated that the staff was not sufficient to cover them all (Studieregeling 1959: 17). For regions not covered by the ICA's own staff, colleagues from the Faculty of Arts stepped in: J. Brugman and G.W.J. Drewes for the Middle East, J.C. Heesterman for South Asia, E. Zlircher and F. Vos for East Asia (China, Japan and Korea). The interaction between theory and practice was central to all three programmes, still including a heavy emphasis on language studies. The prospectus on cultural anthropology compiled by Gerbrands in 1966 was up-dated by Locher and De Josselin de Jong the following year. All was set to accommodate the rising number of students resulting from the post-war baby boom and an increasing political interest in Third World developments. These student numbers, in turn, gave rise to an increase in lecturers: after the appointments of Raymond Buve (1962), Willem Buschkens (1963), Jan Kaayk (1963) and Chris Baks (1964), those of Arnout Marks (1966), Rice Bergh (1967), Hans van den Breemer (1968), Joke Schrijvers (1969) and Henk Ruiter (1970) followed. The general optimism also expressed itself in the first student monthly, Antropropos (1968), issued in 150 copies. It continued as Antro (1970) and, since 1975, as ICA-Nieuwsbrief (ICA Newsletter), distributed in 380 copies. Under the new Higher Education Act (WUB) of December 1970, 27 the ICA was dissolved and new sections (Vakgroepen) were introduced within a Subfaculty CA/SNWV, a situation lasting until1986. The dualism in the Institute's name extended into two sections: (1) cultural anthropology (CA) and (2) sociology of non-western peoples (SNWV), plus a Werkgroep in Methods and Techniques of social scientific research (M&T), becoming a third section (Vakgroep) in 1978-79. The introduction of these sections was a bureaucratic response to the student protests of 1969-71, which were milder in Leiden than in Amsterdam and Nijmegen. Although the Academy Building (Academiegebouw) was occupied as a sign of protest, as was the Sociological Institute (SIL), anthropologists and 27

Wet Universitaire Bestuurshervorming, by Royal Decree of December 9, 1970 (Staatsblad 601).


non-western sociologists suffered less from the 'contestation.' Of interest is their reaction to the student protests afflicting Leiden in the spring of 1969. Locher instructed his staff members, as Marks recalls, to continue the discussions until the students grew tired. This tactic was apparently successful: the ICA was never occupied, although some fifteen students of non-western sociology switched to western sociology, where debates on marxism and bourgeois sociology were the order of the day. At the ICA, meetings took place indefinitely. After Keuning's untimely death in 1965, Holleman moved to the chair of customary law (volksrecht) and legal development; He wished thus to follow in the footsteps of his father, F.D. Holleman, who had begun comparing Indonesian adat law and folk law in southern Africa. Having persuaded the faculties of Law and of Social Sciences that for mutual benefits the chair should be financed by both faculties, Holleman accepted his new chair in September 1969. At the same time, he resigned as director of the ASC. John Beattie succeeded him in the African chair in 1971 (see below). Holleman remained active in teaching African customary law, changes in marriage systems and legal pluralism. Although he revisited Indonesia only in 1983, the country never left his mind. He continued, as best he could, the tradition of adat law established by C. van Vollenhoven, F.D. Holleman and V.E. Kom. Together with Geert van den Steenhoven, a former law student from Leiden and professor of customary law and legal development in Nijmegen from 1972 onwards, Holleman laid the foundations of modem legal anthropology in The Netherlands by linking anthropology with law in southern Africa and Indonesia (Vermeulen 2002). By 1968, after surgery, Patrick de Josselin de Jong had resumed his work at the university concentrating on the study of kinship systems and myths, in particular on a genre he called 'political myths' (1980c). Relations between Indonesia and The Netherlands had improved after the bloody coup leading to the takeover of power by Suharto in 1965. A cultural agreement was signed in 1968 and ratified two years later. Under its impact, fieldwork could again be undertaken in Indonesia, at first by Speckmann and an interdisciplinary team of researchers in the Serpong project (1971-75), then by De Josselin de Jong and colleagues in the Minangkabau project (1973-74). The latter project was well prepared. Two teams of researchers (one male, the other female) would work on matrilineal society and migration in Sumatra. However, due to governmental restrictions on fieldwork in villages, the project was cancelled a few months after fieldwork began (Vermeulen 1987: 32). The


cum laude thesis of David S. Moyer on legal codes from Bengkulu (1975) was still based on library and archival studies. Fieldwork was resumed after the cultural agreement came into effect in 1975, and this also had the positive effect that advanced Indonesian students came to study in Leiden (Teeuw 1976, 1986). Together with Indonesian counterparts, fieldwork was carried out by Anke Niehof and Roy Jordaan in Madura (1977-79), by Jos Platenkamp and Leontine Visser in Halmahera, and by Sandy Niessen in Sumatra (1979-80). De Josselin de Jong was keen on incorporating their findings in the 'field of anthropologiaal studies' (FAS) model designed by J.P.B. de Josselin de Jong, which he critically evaluated, expanded and redefined as a heuristic tool. In retrospect, this must be considered one of P.E. de Josselin de Jong's most important contributions to the Leiden tradition (1977b, 1980b). The results of the international FAS conference, held at Leiden in November 1982, were published in a volume of essays on Unity in Diversity in Indonesia (De Josselin de Jong 1984). The fact that a team of female researchers participated in the Minangkabau project was significant. Although the project was cancelled before this team could commence, apart from a reconnaissance trip (PostelCoster & Schrijvers 1973), the preparations had been important on the theoretical level. In 1975 Els Postel-Coster was invited by Jan Pronk, Dutch Minister of Development Co-operation, to write a policy report for the Dutch delegation to the UN conference in Mexico, taking place in the first International Women's Year. This report was written in a short period of time, in co-operation with Joke Schrijvers, Mary Boesveld-Omstein and Claudine Helleman-Toxopeus (Postel-Coster & Schrijvers 1976). In the same period, Schrijvers coined the term 'viricentrism', bringing a blind spot ia male perception to the fore (Schrijvers 1975, 1979). After the conference, in 1976, the team launched a long-term research project on Women and Development (VENO) in order to conduct policy research on the changing roles of women in Sri Lanka, Egypt and Burkina Faso (Postel-Coster 1985b). The Dutch Ministry of Development Co-operation funded this project, which formed the basis for the Research and Documentation Centre on Women and Autonomy (VENA) in Leiden (1985-95). In 1973, Claude Levi-Strauss visited the ICA, after receiving the Erasmus Prize for the humanities in Amsterdam on May 28, 1973. On that occasion, Levi-Strauss elucidated the relationships between Leiden and Paris as far as structuralism is concerned (1973, 1987). At the end of his visit he remarked: 'I am now beginning to understand why, besides Paris, Leiden also developed into a centre of structural anthropology. This must


have been due to Leiden anthropologists' work in Indonesia. It is not the Leiden anthropologists but the Indonesians who are the great structuralists' (quoted in Vermeulen 1987: 31). Levi-Strauss later affrrmed that the collected essays of Rassers (1959) led him to understand Leiden anthropologists' interest in Indonesian structuralism (Suzuki & Vermeulen 1999). Leiden structuralism was reinforced by Levi-Strauss's book of 1949, which built on at least one Leiden study (Held 1935), without UviStrauss's being aware that this was a Leiden thesis. He may also have been influenced by another Leiden thesis (Van Wouden 1935) through the. work ofMarcel Granet (Leach 1951; Levi-Strauss 1967; Reran 1998). Over the years, the structural inclination of Leiden and Parisian anthropologists developed into what Georges Condominas has, only halfjokingly, called 'le mouvement structuraliste Paris-Leyde~' The conferment of an honorary degree to the filmmaker Jean Rouch in May 1980 is also indicative of these international connections on the part of Leiden. Introducing the honorary graduand, Gerbrands emphasised that Rouch had 'made an exceptional contribution to the development of ethnocinematography as an integral part of anthropological teaching and research' (Roels 1980; Geschiere 1980). A few years earlier, in May 1973, Godfried Locher, the founder of the ICA, retired at the age of 65. He had completed several important articles, including two lectures for the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) (Transformation and Tradition, 1971; Dialectical Structuralism, 1973) and continued sharing his views on culture, structure and development. His farewell lecture on 'Development Sociology and Culture History' (June 1973) was published as the frrst issue of a new series called ICA Publications. V an Lier presented him with a parchment naming him 'Commander in the Order of Knights of Social Change' and P .E. de Josselin de Jong promised him a volume of translations of Locher' s essays, which was later published with a preface by P.E. de Josselin de Jong (Locher 1978a). Benno F. Galjart (b. 1933) was selected to be Locher's successor. Having studied rural sociology under Van Lier in Wageningen, Galjart conducted research among small farmers in Brasil and obtained a doctorate at Wageningen in 1968. After researching political mobilisation and solidarity among peasants in Chili, Galjart was appointed professor of 'general sociology of non-western peoples' in September 1974, a subject he interpreted as 'theoretical development sociology.' The appointment was politicised, reflecting the tension between CA and NWS on the one hand, and the participation of students on the other. Galjart felt that


cultural anthropology had little to offer sociologists for solving problems a sociology of development was facing. He had no difficulty saying this publicly, which did not help to broaden his support base in the Institute. AnY reference to culture or culture studies was absent from his teaching assignment. This was a programmatic statement, as that aspect had been central to the teaching of both Locher and Van Lier, even if Van Lier favoured macrosociology and social survey analysis over holistic theories and participant observation. In his teaching, Galjart concentrated on structure and process, as well as on the participation of the poor in development (Galjart 1982, 1986, 1998). The Leiden anthropology section was strengthened by the appointment of Henri J.M. Claessen (b. 1930), Peter van Emst (1924-2001) and Peter Kloos (1936-2000), all three students of J.J. Fahrenfort and Andre Kobben in Amsterdam. Claessen and Van Emst were appointed in 1970, specifically to instruct frrst-year students. Claessen and Kloos were very productive, co-operated on several book projects (Kloos & Claessen 1985, 1981, 1991) and set up a research project on neo-evolutionism and cultural materialism (Claessen & Kloos 1978). Claessen was appointed as senior lecturer and in 1984 promoted to a personal chair in 'cultural anthropology, particularly in the development and functioning of early states', reflecting his interest in political anthropology. Together with Peter Skalnfk, an exiled anthropologist from Czecho-Slovakia, Claessen edited several books on this subject (Claessen & Skalnfk 1978, 1981; Claessen et al. 1985). Kloos began working as a lecturer in 1974 and was promoted to senior lecturer in 1984. He was the author of a major introductory textbook on anthropology (1972), which went through six editions. In the summer of 197-7, Kloos launched the 'ICA Festival', a week during which staff and students joined in intensive discussions on their (field) researches. The ICA Festival would continue to attract considerable interest until1986. Other anthropological subjects added to the curriculum in this period were economic anthropology, taught by J.P.M. (Hans) van den Breemer (b. 1940) since 1968, and religious anthropology, developed by Jarich G. Oosten (b. 1945) from 1970 onwards. After fieldwork in the Ivory Coast (1972-74), Van den Breemer worked out a combination of economic anthropology, environment and development studies, seen from a structural perspective (1984, 1991). Oosten had studied comparative religion in Groningen and, while writing his Ph.D. thesis on Inuit religion (1976), developed an interest in structuralism. Oosten set out to strengthen anthropological structuralism in Leiden, in co-operation with P.E. de Josselin de Jong, later writing on Indo-European mythology (1985).


Together with audio-visual anthropology (Gerbrands and Nijland), political anthropology (Claessen and Skalnik) and feminist anthropology (Postel-Coster and Schrijvers), these subjects attracted many students. A further, and final expansion, of the staff took place during the 1970s: Dirk Nijland, Hans Heijmerink, Wim van Zanten and J .A. Zevenbergen were appointed in 1971; Joke Lammers-Schwencke in 1972; Peter K.loos, Peter Nas and Jan Slikkerveer in 1974; Wim Dechering in 1975; Arie de Groot, Coen Holtzappel and Laurens van Vroonhoven in 1976; Bouwe Grijpstra in 1977, and Martin van Bakel in 1978. Internal battles continued over scarce resources, particularly in the one field central to both degree programmes, research. Gerbrands and Speckmann jointly organised the Methods and Techniques section (M&T). Often Speckmann had the better hand, also because most staff members of the section were non-western sociologists. A positivist, advocating the empirical cycle of A.D. de Groot (1961) and Karl Popper's refutationism, Speckmann set up several large-scale research projects in Africa (Niger 1965, Senegal 1969) and Asia (Indonesia: family planning in Serpong 1971-75, education in Malang 1976-81; Pakistan). In these projects students of non-western sociology or anthropology co-operated with medical doctors, technical engineers, and social scientists. Speckmann held the view that non-western sociological knowledge should be applicable, striving for a dialogue with representatives of the medical and technical disciplines. Many of his students found employment in these sectors, especially during the prosperous 1960s and 1970s. Following the change of Van Lier' s teaching assignment to include applied sociology of developing countries (TSO) in 1965, three fields of applied non-western sociology were added to the curriculum during 197172: medical sociology, sociology of education, and urban sociology. Medical sociology was taught by Willem Buschkens (from 1972), later with Jan Slikkerveer. Educational sociology was taught by Jan Kaayk, and also dealt with by the Centre for the Study of Education in Developing Countries (CESO) in The Hague, where several Leiden alumni worked. Urban sociology was initially taught by Rice Bergh, later specialising in habitat and environment; from 1974 Peter Nas (from Nijmegen) did the same, later adding applied sociology. Two years later, rural sociology enhanced the programme, for which Laurens van Vroonhoven, from Tilburg, was appointed (1976). The non-western sociologists, led by Van Lier, Speckmann and Galjart, devised a research project 'Access and Participation', that was active in 1979-84 (Nas, Prins & Shadid 1982). It was later continued in 'Linkages' (Schakelingen) (Nas 1987; Nas et al.


1989) and 'Trust.' A small research Institute for Development Studies and Consultancy Services (LIDESCO) was founded by Peter Nas, Wil Prins and Ed Maan in 1982. Gerbrands gave courses in ethnographic fieldwork, material culture and the anthropology of Oceania and the Pacific. In 1971 he acquired an assistant in Dirk J. Nijland (b. 1938), who had studied anthropology in Utrecht and .ethno-cinematography in Paris. Nijland was attached to the Methods and Techniques section to teach and carry out research in visual anthropology; Gerbrands had a seat in the CA section, but also participated in the M&T section. In addition, Nijland assisted in editing Gerbrands's footage shot during fieldwork in West New Britain. From the mid-1970s Gerbrands promoted a field he designated as 'ethno-communication', defining it as 'the study of non-verbal communication in non-western societies', or as 'the study of the way human beings communicate by means of non-verbal signs' (Gerbrands 1977, 1990). Gerbrands and Nijland developed ethno-communication into an important part of anthropology at Leiden by linking up with international developments in visual anthropology and material culture studies. They also built up a photography and film centre unique to The Netherlands, leading to what is now known as the Leiden tradition in visual ethnography. Anthropological films were screened every month by a student initiative, Antrocine, from 1975 onwards. This resulted in SAVAN, the Foundation for Audio-Visual Anthropology in The Netherlands, founded on the occasion of Nijland' s promotion at Leiden in March 1989. SAVAN has developed into a national society organising the annual Beeld voor Beeld (Image by Image) festivals in Leiden, Rotterdam and now Amsterdam. After Holleman had switched to the chair of customary law, he had been succeeded on the African chair by John H.M. Beattie (1915-1990) in 1971. Beattie was an Irish philosopher and anthropologist from the universities of Dublin and Oxford with ample field experience in Africa, notably in Tanzania and Uganda. He had acquired his Ph.D. at Oxford under EvansPritchard and held the study of 'processes of social change' and 'systems of beliefs and values' in high regard. Although his textbook Other Cultures (1964) was required reading, and his teaching subtle and balanced, he never had much impact on anthropology at Leiden. He kept aloof from the academic protests and retired early to England in 1975. After an interlude, during which Wim van Binsbergen provided lectures (1975-76), Beattie was succeeded by AdamJ. Kuper (b. 1941) as professor of sociology and culture studies of sub-Saharan Africa in 1976. Kuper, born in South Africa, had studied at the University of the Witwatersrand


(1959-61) and conducted fieldwork in the Kalahari desert, Botswana during 1963, 1966 and 1967. He had left South Africa in protest a~ apartheid policies in 1961 and took UK citizenship, obtaining his Ph.D. under Meyer Fortes at Cambridge in 1966 (Kuper 1970). Before joining the ICA, he had served as a lecturer at Kampala, Uganda (1967 -70) and University College, London (1970-76). International anthropology in Leiden was strengthened when Kuper arrived in September 1976. Having made his name, among other things with a history of British social anthropology (1973) and a volume of essays of Radcliffe-Brown (1977a), he was welcomed by Gerbrands, Holleman and De Josselin de Jong in the anthropology section. Kuper began teaching 'Social Anthropology ofSouthern Africa' and almost immediately after his arrival was invited to write a research proposal for the anthropology of Africa. He extended the paradigm of Leiden comparative structuralism into Africa in his inaugural address (1977b, 1979) and named his research programme 'Fields of Anthropological Study in Africa South of the Sahara.' This request to formulate a research programme was part of a restructuring process in the Faculty and consequently in the Subfaculty and its three sections. In 1976 so-called Core Research Programmes (Kern Onderzoek Programma's, KOP) were introduced, in which most research by temporary or permanent staff members was included. Originally six programmes were devised, while three others were added later: (1) Cognitive Anthropology and Structural Anthropology (CASA); (2) Evolutionism and Materialism (EVOMAT); (3) Fields of Anthropological Study in Africa South of the Sahara (AFRIKA); (4) Women and Development (VENO); (5) Applied Sociology of Developing Countries (TSO); (6) Emancipation in Latin-America and the Caribbean (EMILAC); (7) Development Theory (OT); (8) Indonesia (IN); (9) Participant Observation (M&T). Numbers 1-4 and 8 were instituted by the CA section; the others by the SNWV (NWS) section; TSO was a co-operative project between the M&T and SNWV sections; numbers 7-9 were still in statu nascendi during 1981 (Maan & Nieuwenhuizen 1981-82). The idea was to render research more coherent and regroup it in clusters. Programmes were prepared by members of the three sections, but could be carried out by members of different sections. Thus, the anthropology section consisted of P.E. de Josselin de Jong, Holleman, Kuper and Gerbrands, and numerous lecturers; the latter also participated in M&T and in the KOP Indonesia. The non-western sociology section comprised Van Lier, Galjart, Brand and


SpecJanann, and numerous lecturers; Speckmann participated in both TSO andM&T. Important work was being done by CASA, the research group Cognitive Anthropology and Structural Anthropology headed by Patrick de Josselin de Jong from 1976, later by Jarich Oosten and Jos Platenkamp. By organising symposia and by publishing books CASA stimulated students in conducting fieldwork for their Ph.D.'s and in discussing their results during weekly seminars (Oosten 1979). Gradually, this group took over the function earlier fulfilled by W.D.0., celebrating its fiftieth anniversary in November 1978 (De Josselin de Jong et al. 1981). In the 1980s and 1990s CASA' s international relationships included scholarly exchanges with ERASME in Paris, the Equipe de Recherche d'Anthropologie Sociale: Morphologie, Echanges building on Louis Dumont and led by Daniel de Coppet (Platenkamp 1991). The foreign fieldwork training period (buitenlandse stage) remained a highlight for Leiden students, providing them with an opportunity to test their newly-acquired skills. Extending from two to three months, these periods were often seen as an introduction to later fieldwork outside Europe. Although the fieldwork training periods in Spain and Scotland were organised by the Leiden department, it was also possible to participate in those of other universities, e.g. by going to Ireland (Free University Amsterdam and University of Nijmegen), Lapland (University of Groningen) or Tunisia (University of Amsterdam). There was a preference among students to conduct individual fieldwork rather than to participate in collective fieldwork trips: Jan Brouwer went to India, Bert van den Hoek and Sjoerd Zanen to Lebanon; Leontine Visser conducted fieldwork in Ivory Coast, Gerard Geurten in Ghana; Anke Niehof set off for East Java, Francis Kettenis and Derk van Groningen a Stuling went to Papua New Guinea; lneke Smeets and Jan Heijboer carried out fieldwork among North American Indians. Later, Kuper trained students to conduct research in Botswana and another group of five students for fieldwork on Mauritius, where they resided for six months (1984-85) (Kuper & Kouwenhoven 1987). Africa and Indonesia remained the most important research foci at the department, although Latin America and the Caribbean continued to attract interest. A Caribbean Department was added to the KITLV and set up by Buve in 1972 (Mevis 1974). However, the national plan for 'Co-operation and Division of Labour' (Nota Samenwerking en Taakverdeling, 1975-76) no longer recognised Latin America as a Leiden specialisation at the level of a full professorship. On the positive side, the regions of Southeast Asia 1


and sub-Saharan Africa were allocated to Leiden in the same plan, strengthening the research interests in these fields (see Claessen & Schoorl, this book). All seemed set for a splendid future. But in 1979 a period of restructuring commenced, and this would cast its shadow over the department for more than twenty years.

Economic and Social Crisis When the budget cuts started in 1979, the Subfaculty CNSNWV consisted of three sections with eight professors and one reader, nine lecturers with a Ph.D. and thirty without a Ph.D., seventeen student assistants and fifteen library or administative staff members, including six secretaries. That year there were 470 students. The frrst victim of the cutbacks was the chair of Customary Law, discontinued in 1979. Its occupant, Holleman, had retired one year earlier, in order to finish his overdue translation of Van Vollenhoven on Adat Law (Holleman 1981b). His chair, established in 1877 (as was that of Veth), was 'handed in' to both funding faculties: the faculties of Law and of Social Sciences. In his farewell lecture, Holleman (1981a) was very critical of the decision, taken by the department and by Speckmann as Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences (1979-80) in order to comply with demands from the University to cut back on personnel costs. It was the beginning of a long, ongoing list of cutbacks. To cope with the economic crisis of the late 1970s up to the mid-1990s, the budgets for research and (higher) education .were reduced causing a significant loss of 28 employment both at the universities and in the museums. In 1980 Van Lier retired, first in Leiden, and then in Wageningen. He was presented with a Festschrift (Galjart et al. 1982) and the guarantee that his Leiden post would be continued as a full professorship in 'praxeology.' This reflected the position he had recently adopted in applied non-western sociology (Van Lier 1979; Nas et al. 1982) and the importance attached to a second full chair in non-western sociology. Although several candidates were available, the vacancy had to be cancelled in 1985, after two rounds 28

By 1980, The Netherlands had built up a national budget deficit of close to 10% and there were nearly one million jobless people out of a population of almost fifteen million. The social-democratic government of Prime Minister Joop den Uyl (1973-77) received the blame for being a 'big spender.' It took five coalition cabinets of Christian democrats and liberals to re-arrange the national budget (Dries van Agt 1-2, 1977-82; Ruud Lubbers 1-3, 1982-94). Under Prime Minister Wim Kok (1-2, 1994-2002) the policy of reducing the costs of higher education and research was continued.


of severe budget cuts in Dutch academia: Taakverdeling en Concentratie ('fVC, 1983) and Selectieve Krimp en Groei (SKG, 1985-86). In the process, the Department of Sociology in Leiden was dissolved in 1987, as was the Department of Anthropology at Groningen in 1989 (see Papousek & Kuiper, this book). When Brand retired in September 1980, his teaching was taken over by Hans J.M. Duller (b. 1925), an assistant of Brand since 1963. Duller had been appointed reader (lector) in economic sociology in 1973 and was promoted to professor of economic sociology in 1980. He combined that subject with development economics and macroeconomics. When Duller retired in 1988, a vacancy remained for the subject Van Lier had judged of vital importance for development studies (it was only partly filled by Leo Schmit as a lecturer on a temporary basis). The same problem arose when Gerbrands retired in 1983 (see Boeren et al. 1985; Ter Keurs & Smidt 1990). In protest against the termination of his chair, Gerbrands retired one year earlier than the prescribed age (sixtyfive). He succeeded in negotiating a replacement at the level of lecturer for the period of two years. Ad Boeren concentrated on material culture, only half of Gerbrands's field. The other subject, visual anthropology, was continued by Nijland. Their interest in non-verbal communication was strengthened by the participation of Wim van Zanten who, having taught statistics since 1971, began conducting research into ethno-musicology, especially in West Java, from 1980 onwards (Van Zanten 1987, this book). In this period, the name 'sociology of non-western peoples' (SNWV) was replaced by 'sociology of.non-western societies' (SNWS) due to a decision of the Section CNSNWV in the Academic Council of The Nethetlands (1983). By that time, the restructuring was having social consequences as well. The Faculty offices were occupied as a sign of protest when recently appointed lecturers in women's studies were threatened with dismissal (Schrijvers et al. 1983). During the second round of budget cuts (SKG) staff members were invited to apply for reformulations of their own positions. Some were promoted, others demoted. This caused several staff members to find employment elsewhere. Arnout Marks, providing courses in theoretical sociology, was appointed director of the Social Science Documentation Centre (SWIDOC) in Amsterdam (1982). Raymond Buve left in 1985 to become professor of the economic and social history of Latin America in the Faculty of Arts at Leiden University. Peter Kloos occupied the post of professor of development sociology at the Free University in Amsterdam, as successor to Schoorl, in 1988 (Kloos 1988b).


Joke Schrijvers became director of the Institute of Development Research, Amsterdam (InDRA) in 1989 and professor of development studies in 1991 (Schrijvers 1991, 1992; Lammers 2002). The only new positions in Leiden went to Els Postel-Coster, the first occupant of a supernumerary chair in women's studies (1986-90), Patricio Silva, a Ph.D. student of Galjart who became lecturer in political processes and structures in 1987, and to Franklin Tjon Sie Fat and Jos Platenkamp, who shared a lecturership equally from 1987 until 1993, when Platenkamp left for a chair in MUnster, Germany. Another consequence of the economic restructuring was that many young researchers never found an opening in the scientific establishment at the universities and museums. In a farewell volume for P.E. de Josselin de Jong, Arie de Ruijter made this a final point for his contribution. He deplored 'that most of the authors in this collection ... find themselves on the outside of Academia. It is a great pity that these researchers, a sort of vagrant, marginal research proletariat, are blocked in their development rather than being encouraged in it' (De Ruijter 1987: 95). Meanwhile, the general climate regarding development studies was also changing. In the 1980s, optimistic expectations of development prospects gave way to scepticism concerning the effectiveness of development cooperation. The belief in the 'makeability' of society withered and the role of sociology in Dutch society changed accordingly (Ellemers 1982). The abandonment of modernisation theory was not followed by an overall new development paradigm. Debates on development were dominated no longer by sociologists but by economists. Following the policies of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the Dutch Ministry of Development Co-operation joined in the promotion of 'structural adjustment programmes' in developing countries. To counterbalance the negative effects of structural adjustment, new strategies of poverty alleviation sprang up in the international donor community, initiated by UNICEF. UNESCO launched a debate on the 'Cultural Dimension of Development' in The Hague (Van den Hoek 1985, 1988), and this was picked up by the Dutch Ministry in October 1985 (Niehof 1986, 1993). This led to many a deja vu in Leiden, as this dimension was part and parcel of Locher's and Van Lier's original set-up of non-western sociology (Speckmann 1994; Holtzappel, this book). In the Ministry followed a brief period of attention to the 'cultural dimension',· under the influence of Prince Claus, amongst others, and several Leiden anthropologists were assigned to development projects (cf. Zanen 1996).


The department's contract research institutes were still doing well during the 1980s. VENO was transformed into VENA, the Research and Documentation Centre Women and Autonomy, which thrived from November 1985 until December 1995. VENA, at its peak, employed some thirty female scholars carrying out research on women and development (see Postel-Coster & Van Santen, this book). LIDESCO, founded in 1982, also continued to conduct contract research in development studies. Supervised by Galjart and Speckmann, this instititute provided a place for many Leiden graduates, some of whom went on to complete a Ph.D. (Schmit 1991; Prins 1994). There were other positive developments, too. First of all, both the chairs for African and Indonesian studies were maintained under the protection of National Disciplinary Plans (De Ruijter 1982, 1984). Kuper, having left for Brunei University, London in September 1985, was replaced by Peter L. Geschiere (b. 1941 ), who was appointed professor of the anthropology and sociology of sub-Saharan Africa in June 1988. Geschiere had studied history and anthropology in Amsterdam and conducted fieldwork in Cameroon (1971-72, 1973). He was interested in marxist anthropology and involved in the debate on modes of production in Africa (1985). He served as a lecturer at the Free University in Amsterdam (1969-88), as professor of non-western history in Rotterdam (1985-88) and was almost permanently affiliated with the ASC in Leiden. In his inaugural address, Geschiere identified culture and development in Africa as a viable subject of research, not to be left to non-western sociologists. Indeed, the cultural dynamics of African societies should be studied by anthropologists par excellence (Geschiere 1989). He published on the 'modernity of witchcraft' in postcolonial Africa (1995, 1997) and directed a research project on globalisation funded by NWO/WOTRO in 1994-99 (Geschiere & Meyer 1999), set up in co-operation with Wim van Binsbergen. He supervised many Ph.D. students, including several from Africa, and plans an early retirement in September 2002. In August 1987 P.E. de Josselin de Jong retired. In his honour a symposium on the 'Leiden tradition' was organised and no fewer than three Festschriften were published (De Ridder & Karremans 1987; Moyer ·& Claessen 1988; Claessen 1989). 29 Reimar Schefold (b. 1938) was selected as his successor and appointed professor of cultural anthropology 29

For P.E. de Josselin de Jong's achievements, including his work as a supervisor of foreign visitors coming to Leiden for Ph.D. research and as a diplomat of Dutch anthropology, see Vermeulen 1987; Oosten 1999a-c; Visser & Moyer 1999; Suzuki & Vermeulen 2000; Fox 2000.


and sociology of Indonesia in March 1989. Born in Basle, Switzerland, he had conducted extensive fieldwork on Mentawai, Indonesia (1967-69) and had also lectured at the Free University in Amsterdam, from 1973 onwards. Taking with him a train of Ph.D. students who had been inspired by his teaching on Southeast-Asian symbolism in Amsterdam, Schefold continued the Leiden tradition by co-ordinating studies of Indonesia as a field of anthropological study (Schefold 1986, 1990). He inaugurated a project on architecture in Western Indonesia, funded by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Scienc((s (KNAW) in 1996-2001. Together with Gerard A. Persoon (b. 1951), he added the subject of ecology and development in Southeast Asia to the curriculum of the department CNSNWS. Schefold has also supervised many Ph.D. theses and plans to retire in March 2003. Both Schefold and Geschiere were active in administrative functions: Geschiere was president of the board of the ASC (1988-96) and chair of the Department CNSNWS (1996-2000), Schefold was also chair of the Department (1994-96, 2000-02) and has been chairman of the KITLV from 1996 onwards. Shortly before they were appointed in Leiden, the work of Ph.D. students regained importance. The reason for this revival lay in a new law (Tweefasenstructuur), introduced in 1981-82,30 under which academic degree programmes were shortened from five to four years. To compensate for this reduction, new forms of (inexpensive) Ph.D. scholarships were created in 1986: Assistants in Training (Assistenten in Opleiding), funded by the universities, and Researchers in Training (Onderzoekers in Opleiding), funded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). In this context, the Centre of Non-Western Studies (CNWS) was created.

The Research School CNWS The idea of linking cultural and social studies with linguistic and historical studies relating to the non-western world was first put forward in November 1985, when representatives from the Subfaculty CNSNWS (the former ICA) and the Subfaculty Non-Western Languages and Cultures met 30

Tweefasenstructuur was issued in March 1981 (Staatsblad 137) and implemented in September 1982. The system was unorthodox, with one year of preparatory studies, resulting in a propaedeuse, and three years of studies leading to a doctoraal (MA). The BA degree (candidaats) was abolished. The system lasted for twenty years, until the introduction of the BNMA model (2002).


(Oosten 1991 ). In response to continuing budget cuts, the emeritus professor E.M. Uhlenbeck wrote a report on past and present non-western studies in The Netherlands (March 1986). The following year, agreement was reached on a plan of research and funding enabling the Centre of NonWestern Studies (CNWS) and its first Ph.D. students to commence in 31 September 1988. The first CNWS director was the sinologist Wilt Idema, appointed as a representative of the non-western language and culture studies in the Faculty of Arts. His deputy was the anthropologist Jarich Oosten on behalf of the department of CA/SNWS in the Faculty of SociaJ Sciences. In a way, the foundation of the CNWS implied a partial return to the plans for concentrating oriental studies as developed by E.M. Uhlenbeck and Th.J.G. Locher in 1954. Their idea had been to unite all oriental studies at Leiden in a single building. The CNWS was set up as a Centre to stimulate and co-ordinate non-western studies in Leiden, which gradually came to include all non-western studies in the Faculty of Arts and the Faculty of Social Sciences (later also in the Faculty of Law). All lecturers and professors remained in their respective departments and only the Ph.D. students were assembled in the CNWS, administered by the Faculty of Arts. Minister of Education W.J. Deetman opened the CNWS in January 1989, stating that although 'Leiden had been a centre of non-western studies in The Netherlands since its foundation,' it could not claim 'a monopoly on these studies', at least not in the humanities and social sciences, because Utrecht and Amsterdam also had important contributions to offer. In the field of arts, however, Leiden was to continue its promiJlence in non-western studies. When, two years later, a report titled Baby Krishna was produced by a commission presided over by Frits Staal (1991), Leiden received the financial means to effectuate all this. Under the directorship of Dirk Kolff~ and with Jos Platenkan1p as deputy director, the CNWS continued to grow and developed into a Research School (recognised as such in 1992) in which Ph.D. students wroti! their doctoral dissertations and to which most scholars conducting non-vvestem research in Leiden were connected. It also started its OV.'Iill series of CNWS Publications, a continuation of the ICA Publications. 32 In 1993..:94, the term 'non-western' was questioned again, now by Geschiere and Jose van Santen, deputy director of the CNWS. Their 31

In Amsterdam, the Centre for Asian Studies in Amsterdam (CASA) and the Postdoctoral Institute for Sociology (PdiS) merged in 1987. 32 For a list of the ICA Publications, see Vermeulen (1991).

144 Tales from Acadernia - Part I

African colleagues had objected to the exclusive character of the term. After long negotiations, a compromise was reached: the abbreviation would remain in the short name 'Research School CNWS', but the full name would be an enumeration: 'School of Asian, African and Amerindian studies.' It was a typically Dutch compromise in line with the prevailing polder model, a system of policymaking by consensus. Today, fifty years after its coinage, the term 'non-western studies' will be difficult to replace in The Netherlands. It has become a household term, especially in the Faculty of Arts in Leiden, and the funding of its 'Minority Subjects' (Kleine Letteren) depends on the fact that these studies are considered to be a separate field (Van Delft 1998). In the CNSNWS department the focus has been mainly on the non-western world, even if P.E. de Josselin de Jong and G.W. Locher have consistently emphasised that the study of the non-western world necessarily involves taking a critical look at the western world. This principle is anchored in the current degree programme, stating that students must 'acquire skills and expertise to analyse cultural and social problems in both non-western and western societies.' Since 1996, staff members of CA and SNWS participate in seven of the fourteen research clusters of the Research School CNWS: (1) Culture and Development in Africa; (2) Cultural Studies of Southeast Asia and Oceania; (3) Amerindian and Latin American Studies; (4) Intercultural Study of Literature and Society; (5) Intercultural Gender Studies; (6) Art and Material Culture of the Non-Western World; and (7) Law, Administration and Society in the Non-Western World.

The Sun Setting The department CA/SNWS settled down in its current location, Wassenaarseweg 52, in July-September 1989, after moving its three sections to a renovated building of the former academic hospital. Here all social and behavioural sciences, previously spread over several locations in Leiden, were united. The ASC was housed in the same building, but the KITLV had already moved out in 1983, to occupy new offices in the Faculty of Arts 'campus' elsewhere in Leiden. The integration of the social sciences and their accommodation in one large building was co-ordinated by Claessen, Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences (1989-91). The department suffered from an ever-increasing lack of space, as well as


estrangement, but the research and teaching programmes were more or less as strong as they· had been in its former residence. In December 1991, Els Postel-Coster retired. Her (supernumerary) chair and senior lectureship were continued. Carla Risseeuw (b. 1947) was appointed as her successor in both functions in July and September 1992. After completing her studies at Leiden, she had conducted fieldwork in Western Province, Kenya (1974-77) and in Sri Lanka (1977-80). Her thesis (1988), inspired by Bourdieu's theories, dealt with power and resistance among women in Sri Lanka. During the first years of her appointment, VENA was dissolved when the Ministry of Development Co-operation in The Hague ceased to sponsor it in 1995. This marked the end of a oncepowerful group of female researchers, although Risseeuw managed to keep the VENA library within the department, with the support of the CNWS. Redefining her position, she set up research on intercultural gender relations and social policy in Africa and South Asia, as well as in The Netherlands. In 1992, a new programme in 'Environme~t and Development' studies was created in co-operation with the Centre of Environmental Science in Leiden (CML). The anthropologist Gerard Persoon was, and still is, active in pursuing this subject within the CML. This degree programme has been very successful in enabling students to carry out graduate research and to find employment after graduation. The head of the M&T section, Speckmann, retired in 1993. Despite pressure from the department, and a Festschrift (Shadid & Nas 1993), his chair was discontinued. His duties were taken over by Wasif A.R. Shadid (b. 1944), who had been the second man in the M&T section since 1970. Shadid had defended his Ph.D. thesis on the Moroccan minority in The Netherlands (1979) and was promoted to senior lecturer (UHD) in Methods and Techniques in 1984. Apart from his job in Leiden, Shadid was appointed a supernumerary professor of 'intercultural communication' at the University of Tilburg in May 1994 (Shadid 1994, 1998), a chair intended for the University of Leiden. In this way an opportunity was missed by Leiden to stimulate the study of interethnic relations. In December 1994, Claessen retired as professor of political anthropology (cf. Van BakeI et al. 1994) and, although he remained active as a research fellow until 1999, his post was discontinued. When the ICA celebrated its fortieth anniversary, a symposium was organised in December 1996, with more than three hundred Leiden graduates and some forty current and former staff members participating. The papers were published in Claessen and Vermeulen (1997), including a


table of at least 889 students who had graduated during these four decades. It shows that about half of them (423) had selected CA, while the others (460) had chosen SNWV/SNWS (Vermeulen 1997: 43). Three years earlier, in 1993, graduate students had founded a new student society, 'Itiwana', open to all students of CA and SNWS, aiming to co-ordinate all their activities, including the mentoring of first-year students and W.D.0. 33 In June 1997, Rogier Bedaux (b. 1943), curator at the National Museum of Ethnology, was appointed supernumerary professor of material culture, especially of Africa. Before that, Bedaux had been head of research in the museum, specialising on architecture in Mali. He also accepted a part-time lectureship in 'non-western art and material culture' in September 1997, both at the CNSNWS department in the Faculty of Social Sciences and in the Faculty of Archaeology. These appointments were part of an attempt to restore and strengthen the once productive relationship between anthropology as practised at the department of CNSNWS and at the museum. Jarich Oosten was appointed full professor of cultural anthropology, with special emphasis on oral traditions, and director of the CNWS (September 1997). Oosten's chair is in the faculties of Social Sciences and of Arts, while he is also a supernumerary professor of religious and cognitive anthropology at Utrecht University (April 1998). In his two inaugural addresses he stressed the comparison of values, respect for other cultures and the value of cultural differences, with special attention to Inuit culture (Oosten 1999d). As director of the CNWS, Oosten feels that anthropology and language studies should co-operate in order to gain access to culture and society in the field (quoted in Vermeulen 1997: 45). Apart from good assessment and publication records, these were the only highlights in a period during which the budget cuts continued, despite the relative success of financial reforms in The Netherlands. Two more rounds of budget cuts followed within the Faculty of Social Sciences (MOT 1995, FIT 1999). Under the new Higher Education Act (MUB 1997),34 staff numbers were cut and the democratic principles in Dutch university government were abrogated. To counterbalance this pressure, Geschiere and other staff members devised a non-regional research 33

For a list of activities and publications of W.D.O., see De iosselin de Jong (1987c), Vermeulen (1991: 101-102) and Waar Dromers Ontwaken (Van Wengen et al. 1995, Annex 2). For Itiwana, see http://www.itiwana.nl. 34 Wet Modemisering Universitaire Bestuursorganisatie (MUB), issued in 1997 (Staatsblad 117).


programme for the department, which was divided in two subthemes: 'Culture and Identity' (CA) and 'Culture and Development' (SNWS) (Geschiere 1998). This programme was included in the Faculty plans (FIT 1999). It was proposed to separate the main regions, Indonesia and Africa, from their monodisciplinary set-up in the curriculum, but the third region of interest, Latin America, suffered most. Not only Van Lier, Buve, Marks and Galjart, but also Van Vroonhoven and Silva, in fact most Leiden nonwestern sociologists, had conducted their research in Latin America. When Galjart retired in November'1998, a symposium was organised in his honour and a Festschrift was presented to him (Nas & Silva 1999). But his chair was not continued. With his departure, development sociology landed in troubled waters. Contrary to Van Lier' s optimism in the early 1960s, the position of non-western sociology deteriorated after 1985. To avoid the term non-western, several Leiden non-western sociologists began to present themselves as anthropologists, which would have been unthinkable in the 1970s and 1980s. The department's staff was now stabilised at two structural chairs (Indonesia, Africa), one personal chair (Oosten), four senior lecturers (three of whom also acted as supernumerary professors) and ten lecturers. The pattern continued: full professors retired and were not replaced, while new posts were created for {inexpensive) supernumerary professors. Students were especially attracted to South and Central America for their graduate field research. Collective fieldwork trips to Costa Rica and Chili were and are supervised by Patricio Silva, to Senegal/Gambia by Hans van den Breemer (from 1986 onwards), and to West Indonesia by Martin van Bakel. Individual fieldwork trips to the Philippines, in cooperation with the CML, as well as to Sri Lanka, Cameroon, and Greece are also possible. All fieldwork trips by students fall under the responsibility of Shadid of the M&T section. L. Jan Slikkerveer (b. 1941), senior lecturer in the anthropology and sociology of sub-Saharan Africa from 1994, was appointed supernumerary professor of 'ethnobotanical knowledge systems in developing countries' (September 1999). The chair was endowed by the Martha Tilaar Foundation in the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences and is hosted by the National Herbarium at Leiden. Slikkerveer conducted fieldwork in Ethiopia (Ph.D. thesis 1983) and has been teaching medical sociology from 1974. Since 1986 he has been working on 'indigenous knowledge systems' in both Africa and Indonesia (Slikkerveer 1995), combining Leiden anthropological ideas with Van Lier' s insistence on applied development sociology (Slikkerveer 2000). In November 2001 he


started _a MSc in Medical Anthropology and Ethnobotany, jointly organised and taught in Bandung (Indonesia) and Leiden. In September 1999, Dirk Nijland retired and was honoured with an international conference on visual ethnography. The small centre he and Gerbrands had created was positively reviewed by assessment committees during the 1990s. Despite Nijland's successful co-operation with fieldwork anthropologists, resulting in ethnographically valuable films (1985, 1997, 2000), he was only temporarily replaced as a lecturer (0.3 for three years). Two of his staff members remain on part-time positions in the department, remunerated by the Staal funds held at the CNWS (Nijland, this book). This was all that was left of a unique and lively research group focusing on ethno-cinematography and museum anthropology, after being systematically downsized by the economy measures of the previous decades. By the time the national budget had been put right in the late 1990s, anthropology in Leiden had lost six of its eight chairs, more than half of its lecturers, and all of its student assistants (collectively abolished in 1987). 35

Entering a New Millennium In a meeting held on January 21, 2000 the department of CA/SNWS decided to merge the two degree programmes (CA and SNWS) into one joint curriculum, as from September 2000. Given the fact that these programmes had existed since the foundation of the ICA and that over the years considerable competition over scarce resources, as well as over theory and methods, had occurred between anthropologists and nonwestern sociologists, it is remarkable to observe that the decision to merge was taken in relative harmony. Only Laurens van Vroonhoven protested. When he retired in April 2001, after having taught rural sociology for 35

This includes six of the eight full chairs, including Customary Law (held by Holleman until 1979), Ethnography and Material Culture (Gerbrands 19~). Praxeology (Van Lier 1980/1985), Development Economics (Brand/Duller 1980-88), Methods and Techniques (Speckmann 1993), and Development Sociology (Locher/Galjart 1998), as well as a personal chair in Political Anthropology (Claessen 1994). More than seventeen lectureships were cut away, including those of Marks (1982), Zevenbergen (1982), Buve (1985), Van Emst (1985), Kloos (1988), Schrijvers (1989), Buschkens (1991), Platenkamp (1993), Bergh (1997), Draisma (1997), Nijland (1999), Moors (2000), Van Vroonhoven (2001), Holtzappel (2002), Van den Breemer (2002), and half of Silva's position (May 2002), totalling at least twenty-six teaching positions of a staff consisting of over fourty members in 1979 (Vermeulen 1997: 54-55).


twenty-five years, he was honoured with a seminar on 'Oppression and pevelopmenf, but not replaced. Anticipating this retirement, CA and sNWS programmes were combined for financial reasons, in alliance with the MOT (1995). They merged with the programme 'Environment and Development' into a common degree programme CNSNWS. A chair in 'the anthropology and sociology of contemporary Indonesia' was occupied by Patricia Spyer (b. 1957) on February 1, 2001. She was educated at Chicago, specialising in eastern Indonesia from 1984 (Spyer 2000), and was a lecturer at the Research Centre Religion and Society, University of Amsterdam (1993-2000). A new paradigm, of post-modern anthropology, now entered the Leiden scene, somewhat belatedly. Spyer arrived under bleak financial prospects and found 'a department in transition.' Within a year, she took up administrative duties in the department including the implementation of the Bachelor/Master's model, as of September 2002. This new degree system, based on the Anglo-Saxon system, has to be introduced in all twenty-nine countries of the European Union in accordance with the Bologna Agreement (June 1999). In the case of The Netherlands, this involves a return to the earlier 'candidaats/doctoraal' system (1922-82), minus one year in the MA phase. As the result of a new facultary allocation model the department of CA/SNWS was confronted with a deficit of half a million guilders in September 2001. To cope with the situation, a facultary committee was installed to find possible ways out, including a transfer of CNSNWS back to the Faculty of Arts. Spyer and Oosten were the CNSNWS members of this committee (Andeweg 200.1 ). Intense discussions among staff and students followed (see Mare February 21, 2002), leading to the establi'shment of a committee from CA/SNWS (NTC) that opposed such a transfer and proposed a further reduction of the staff (NTC 2002). On the positive side, Patricio Silva was appointed professor of modem Latin America in both the Faculty of Arts and that of Social Sciences on May 1, 2002. Where does this leave anthropology and non-western sociology at the University of Leiden? In 2002, after huge financial profits for trade and industry in the previous years, The Netherlands still feels the necessity to reduce the costs of research and (higher) education. As a consequence of continuing financial pressures and of student-staff ratios, in the Faculty of Social Sciences (now a Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences) the larger departments (psychology, pedagogy) 'eat up' the smaller ones (anthropology, political science, administrative studies). The Department of Indonesian Languages and Cultures has ·to shrink from ten staff


members to four, the Department CNSNWS from fourteen to ten. The NTC has emphasised the need to preserve a disciplinary profile in combination with the regional specialisations Indonesia and Africa. Therefore, anthropology at Leiden · will continue to be area-oriented. Oosten feels that the future of anthropology will be a combination of language and culture studies and Schefold, former chair of the Department, tends to agree. How the combined degree programme will evoive is too early to tell. The position of anthropology seems stable while development sociology has been reduced. Student numbers will probably continue to rise, now over ninety new students per year. The number of staff members may stabilise at eight lecturers and two professors for culture and development in Southeast Asia and in sub-Saharan Africa. Arguably, at least five professors are needed for anthropology, for development sociology, and one each for Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America, in order to teach theories before applying them to a particular society. Despite the fact that in Leiden the field has been regionally divided, the relation between theory and practice remains crucial. The present study shows that general theories are most powerful when put to the test in specific fields of study. The National Museum of Ethnology (RMV) in Leiden is divided into nine culture areas. The frrst prospectus of the ICA (1959) opened up six regions to students. The current department has trouble covering three: Southeast Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, South and Central America. Consequently, the main challenge for anthropologists is to encourage anthropology in new directions, despite bureaucratisation and rising student numbers. It may be reassuring that anthropology, a study of peoples and cultures that has developed since the eighteenth century (Vermeulen 1996), has grown into a 'mature' profession, rather than the 'young' science it has long been considered to be. For eighty years structural anthropology in Leiden has been productive and distinguished, internationally seen. During the past fifty years, anthropology at Leiden has had a symbiotic relationship with its junior sister, the sociology of ~ developing countries. ICA staff members have been very productive in terms of publications, fieldwork, memberships of advisory boards, and student output. In the past fifty years, over a hundred lecturers and professors have trained thousands of undergraduate students, more than a thousand doetoraal students, and have supervised well over a hundred Ph.D. candidates. Many Leiden graduates, especially in the 1960s and 1970s, obtained positions as (assistant) expert in development co-operation. Others were successful in


obtaining employment in Dutch ministries and museums. In the 1980s and 1990s, the broad basis of the two degree programmes crumbled to give way to specialised degree programmes with more students and less opportunities for in-~~pth studies. Recent attempts to integrate both programmes are pronnsmg. Three generations of Leiden anthropology students may be distinguished. The first included Locher, Van Baal, Held, Van Wouden, Chabot, Van Lier, who were promoted professor after World War 11 (Duyvendak before the war). The second generation, including P.E. de Josselin de Jong, Gerbrands, Trouwborst, Pouwer, Van der Leeden, Schoorl, Zuidema, Postel-Coster, Buve, consisted of professors who were influential in Dutch and international anthropology from the 1950s onwards (as well as museum curators such as Frese, Van Wengen, Wassing, and Ave). The third generation of anthropologists and nonwestern sociologists includes former Ph.D. students who were appointed professor mainly in places outside Leiden: Peter Suzuki (USA), Jacob Vredenbregt (Indonesia), David Moyer (Canada), Joke Schrijvers (Amsterdam), Anke Niehof (Wageningen), Leontine Visser (Wageningen), Isa Baud (Free University Amsterdam), Danielle Geimaert (Paris), Victoria Baker (Florida, USA), Jos Platenkamp (MUnster, Germany), Koji Miyazaki (Tokyo), Jan Brouwer (Shillong, India), Wasif Shadid (Tilburg), Ruben Gowricham (Tilburg). The only Leiden students of this generation who became professor in Leiden are Carla Risseeuw, Cees van Dijk, and Jan Slikkerveer (the last two outside the department CNSNWS). This list shows that Leiden has become .an export centre of expertise: of all third generation students only one (Risseeuw) has been appointed professor in the home department.

Conclusions Anthropology in Leiden has become important because of: (a) its orientation toward Indonesia from the 1870s, (b) its structuralist outlook since the 1920s, and (c) the development of African studies from the 1960s. After the early beginnings of an ethnographic museum (1837) and the founding of a frrst university chair in ethnology (1877), anthropology was redefined in the 1920s by J.P.B. de Josselin de Jong and Vv.H. Rassers. In JPB 's view, ethnology was a study of culture and society in at least four domains, the 'social, religious, and economic aspects', as well as the domain of art (homo ludens). He was successful in teaching this holistic


approach, building on Durkheim and Mauss, Boas, and Malinowski, as well as on structural linguistics, to two generations of students who later occupied influential positions in museums and at universities in The Netherlands, Indonesia and elsewhere. Leiden structuralism was reinforced and enhanced by the French structuralism of Levi-Strauss from 1949 onwards, developing from the same intellectual currents. JPB' s successor, P.E. de Josselin de Jong up-dated the Leiden paradigm of comparative structuralism by emphasising the importance of theory, promoting fieldwork, and by continuing the debate on culture and social exchange. When Indonesia became independent .in 1949, Leiden ethnology lost its main field of study. Facilities for Caribbean studies were created from 1946. African studies came to the foreground from 1958. Fieldwork in Indonesia became possible again for Leiden students during the 1970s. Ethnology, renamed 'cultural anthropology' in 1953, was complemented by a new study called 'non-western sociology' (NWS), or 'sociology of non-western peoples (volken)' (SNWV). This study originated from the former Indology and Indies Law degree programmes in 1952 and was renamed 'sociology of non-western societies' (SNWS) in 1983. It was gradually transformed into a sociology of development, becoming dominant during the 1960s and 1970s, but losing some of its momentum in the 1980s and 1990s. Latin America has been the main field of research for most Leiden non-western sociologists, but the region was not allocated to Leiden in the national Nota (1976). By 1972 non-western sociology in Leiden covered four sectors: rural, urban, educational, and medical sociology. After the failure to attract a professor of praxeology in 1985 (as a successor to Van Lier) and the retirement of Galjart in 1998, development sociology lost its institutional basis. 'Intercultural communication' as conceived by Shadid (1998) seems promising as an interface. Looking back, one is struck by the relative liberalism in a department full of ambitions and pressured by an increasing stress on output. This was due mainly to P.E. de Josselin de Jong and G.W. Locher who remained interested in fundamental contributions to the stud~ of humanity, regardless of their theoretical direction. From 1970 anthropOlogy and nonwestern sociology developed in separate sections (Vakgroepen) within a common Subfaculty. After being regrouped as sections within a single Department (Vakgroep) CAISNWS in 1986, their opportunities were greatly reduced and competition over scarce resources increased considerably.


Anthropology's position in the field of non-western studies at Leiden is central, at least since 1954 when the idea of a School of Oriental Studies was first launched. Since its foundation in 1988 the Centre of Non-Western Studies has provided an institutional context for the co-operation of all non-western studies in Leiden, today presenting about 180 courses on .six regions in the four faculties of Arts, Law, Social Scien~es, and Theology (Nas et al. 1999b). Its position in the Faculty of Social Sciences has become less prominent, due among others to the primary interest of this Faculty in western studies and the~ loss of (western) sociology in 1987. Therefore, in the years to come the Research School CNWS will remain important for cultural anthropology and development sociology amidst many other western and non-western studies in Leiden.

Acknowledgements This is a substantially rewritten and up-dated version of a paper in Dutch, dealing with the period 1955-97 (Vermeulen 1997). I am indebted to Peter Richardus and to Stuart Robson for their work on the English manuscript. I am grateful for valuable comments to Jean Kommers, James McAllister, Dirk Nijland, Jarich Oosten, Els Postel-Coster, Wasif Shadid, and Sjoerd Zanen (Leiden, 22 August 2002).

References Unpublished

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