News from Amsterdam
The IIAS branch office Amsterdam has a new co-ordinator, John Kleinen. He replaces Mario Rutten who is currently spending one year at NIAS, Copenhagen, as a Nordic-Netherlands Fellow. Kleinen is a member of the Anthropology Department of the University of Amsterdam and the Amsterdam School for Social Science Research (ASSR). He studied Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam, and in 1998 obtained his PhD with a study on Peasant Movements in Colonial Vietnam (1880-1941). Since then he has continued to publish books on Vietnam and Cambodia and has contributed various articles to journals and books of essays.The book Facing the Future, Reviving the Past: A study of social change in a Northern Vietnamese village, based on his fieldwork in Vietnam, will be published by ISEAS in Singapore. At present, John Kleinen is engaged in a study of the local use of natural resources and environmental change in the Ba Lat estuary of Vietnam. Apart from lending his assistance to the daily routine at the IIAS Branch Office Secretariat, headed by Annelore van der Lint (MA), Kleinen sees it as his task to stimulate various activities to do with Asian topics in the bustling city of Amsterdam. The branch office is involved in the organization of the Fourth Euro-Japanese International Symposium on Mainland Southeast Asian History, and of the next Asia Update, co-organized with the European Institute for Asian Studies in Brussels. Plans are also being discussed to organize a joint workshop with the Amsterdam-based Maison Descartes and the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation concerning French and Dutch decolonization policies in Indochina and Indonesia. Asian Studies at the University of Amsterdam offers great opportunities to students, academics, and the interested public to follow the developments in Asia seriously. The IIAS and its branch in Amsterdam are working hard to integrate their activities with those at the University of Amsterdam. Being an 'institute without walls', the IIAS Branch Office in Amsterdam is tailor-made for co-operating with both the University and the town in activities on Asia.
Dr John Kleinen University of Amsterdam / Anthropological Department O.Z. Achterburgwal 185 1012 DK Amsterdam The Netherlands Tel.: + 31-20-525 2742 Fax: + 31-20-525 3010 E-mail: kleinen@pscw.uva.nl