Peter Boomgaard appointed

(IN)BETWEEN LEIDEN AND AMSTERDAM

Since 1991, Dr. Peter Boomgaard (48) has been the director of
the Royal Institute of Linguistics and Anthropology (KITLV) in
Leiden. In May 1994, he was appointed honourary professor of
economic and environmental history of Southeast Asia,
Indonesia in particular, at the Centre for Asian Studies
Amsterdam (CASA), University of Amsterdam. 

By Mario Rutten and Henk Schulte Nordholt

Peter Boomgaard studied history at the Free University in
Amsterdam, majoring in social and economic history. His M.A.
thesis focused on demographic developments in Mexico.
Following a short-term lectureship in social history at the
Erasmus University Rotterdam, Boomgaard returned to the
Department of History of the Free University as a lecturer in
social and economic history in 1972. Due to practical reasons,
he had to change the location of his doctoral research from
Latin America to Java. His teaching load at the Free
University did not allow him a sabbatical leave to conduct his
planned demographic historical research in Latin America. He
then decided to change his focus to the demographic history of
Java, as he expected most of the data to be available in the
archives in the Netherlands. Although he soon discovered that
this was only true for a small part of the data needed, he had
by that time become senior enough to be allowed a sabbatical
leave to conduct archival research in Jakarta. Changing his
focus to Java allowed him to follow up on an earlier
discussion in the Netherlands on demographic history in Java,
conducted by Wim Wertheim, Jan Breman, Bram Peper and others.
In 1987, Boomgaard defended his PhD thesis, which was entitled
Children of the Colonial State; Population Growth and Economic
Development in Java, 1795-1880, at the Free University in
Amsterdam (published as CASA Monograph 1 in 1989).
From 1983 to 1987, Peter Boomgaard worked on secondment at the
Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam. As successor to P.
Creutzberg, he became the new editor of the series Changing
Economy in Indonesia, a selection of statistical source
material from the early 19th century up to 1940 (initiated by
W.M.F. Mansvelt), published by the Royal Tropical Institute.
In 1991, Peter Boomgaard left his senior lectureship at the
Free University to become the director of the Royal Institute
of Linguistics and Anthropology (KITLV) in Leiden and in May
1994 he was appointed honourary professor at the Faculty of
Social Sciences of the University of Amsterdam and the Centre
for Asian Studies Amsterdam (CASA).

YOUR HONOURARY PROFESSORSHIP AT THE UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM IS
LINKED TO THE KITLV, WHAT IS THE HISTORY OF THIS CHAIR?
The Royal Institute of Linguistics and Anthropology (KITLV) is
an institute linked to the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts
and Sciences (KNAW). It is a national institute, based in
Leiden. In order to strengthen the ties with different
universities in the Netherlands and with the various
disciplines taught there, the board of KITLV has an interest
in a fair distribution of chairs in different universities in
different fields, occupied by senior staff members of the
institute. One honourary professor was already appointed for
the study of Islam in Indonesia at the University of Leiden
(Dr. C. van Dijk) and one for the study of the Caribbean at
the University of Utrecht (Dr. G.J. Oostindie). The
socio-economic historical profile of the third chair matched
the Asian programme of the University of Amsterdam. As a
senior lecturer at the Free University, I had already
participated in CASA from the time of its establishment in
1987; I had been chairman of the editorial board that had set
up various series of publications. The board of CASA and of
the faculty of Social Sciences were enthusiastic about setting
up a chair in environmental and economic history of Southeast
Asia within the University of Amsterdam in order to strengthen
the historical and socio-economic components in their Asian
studies programme.

YOU HAVE BEEN APPOINTED PROFESSOR IN THE ECONOMIC AND
ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY OF SOUTHEAST ASIA, PARTICULARLY
INDONESIA. CAN YOU TELL US SOMETHING ABOUT YOUR FIELD OF
STUDY?
I consider economic and environmental history to be only part
of my future research and teaching programme. If it had not
been such a lengthy title, I would have preferred the chair to
be named a chair for 'economic, environmental, social,
medical, and demographic history of Southeast Asia'. All these
aspects are very closely interrelated and it is my ambition to
study them in connection to each other. It is very difficult,
even impossible, to study the economic history of a society
without understanding its social history; or to study the
economic development of a region without paying attention to
its environmental history. Knowledge of epidemic diseases, for
example, and of concomitant developments in the medical
profession, are very important in understanding economic and
demographic changes in a specific country over time. The
emphasis on traditional medicine within medical anthropology
today is strongly in need of a historical component.
Traditional medicine in Indonesia today is different from what
was in the 1880s for example. Traditional medicine in
Indonesia is not something static, but has developed in
interaction with Western and Chinese medicine. 
In my new position I would therefore like to initiate
interdisciplinary research projects along the line of the
so-called EDEN project (Economy, Demography and Ecology in
Nusantara) of the KITLV. This project gravitates around the
study of ecological history in Indonesia, but at the same time
has a clear emphasis on demographic and economic changes. As a
professor at the University of Amsterdam, I can therefore
envisage guiding PhD students in social, economic,
environmental, and medical history of Southeast Asia.

YOUR MAIN FIELD OF STUDY IS THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC HISTORY OF
INDONESIA. WHAT IS YOUR OPINION ABOUT THE STUDY OF INDONESIA
IN THE NETHERLANDS?
Dutch scholars on Indonesia have always studied Indonesia in
isolation from Southeast Asia. Over the years, I have become
more and more convinced that the different societies located
in Southeast Asia should be studied in relation to each other.
The fact that my chair for the study of economic and
environmental history deals with Southeast Asia is not just a
matter of window-dressing; it is something I really would like
to pursue. Indonesia is located in Southeast Asia and should
be studied as such.
The study of Indonesia in the Netherlands is not only
characterized by a narrow focus, but also by a lack of
theoretical reflection. To the extent that Dutch scholars have
attempted to make theoretical analyses, they have almost
always fallen back on the same few authors, such as Boeke and
Geertz. Within the literature on Indonesia, there have been
hardly any references to theories on economic development that
have developed with regard to Africa and Latin America. In
general, the study of Indonesia in the Netherlands has been
rather parochial. In my new position, I hope to contribute to
a broadening of the perspective in the study of Indonesia,
first by studying Indonesia as part of Southeast Asia and
second by putting more emphasis on theoretical reflection.
The study of Indonesia in particular and of Southeast Asia in
general is heavily biased towards to the study of peasants.
This is mainly the result of our pre-occupation with the
Cultivation System which resulted from a fascination with rice
cultivation, with sawahs. Our interest in Southeast Asia stops
at the border of the village. Most of us have never considered
the 'modern' sector to be an interesting topic of research. In
my view, this is the result of the dominance of Boeke's
concept of the dual economy, a concept which has done much
harm to the study of Southeast Asia. It has given us a
pre-occupation with the study of peasants because we have
always been under the impression that peasant society in
Southeast Asia has been unaffected by outside influences. It
gave us the idea that if you wanted to study Asian society,
you had to study peasant society, because all other sectors of
the economy were considered to be a western Fremdk”rper and
therefore an alien part of Asian society. We now realize more
and more the one-sidedness of this approach and the damage it
has done to our understanding of Southeast Asian society. We
should do away with the concept of the dual economy once and
for all and put more emphasis on the study of the urban and
non-agricultural sectors of the economy, and of those people
living in the forests, the so-called tribal people.
One final way in which I want to broaden the perspective in
the study of Southeast Asia is to bring in my background as a
European trained historian. I have always been interested in
the debates on the differences in developmental paths in
Western Europe and Asia. The historical study of European
economic development is far more advanced than that of Asia.
Maybe this is less so in the case of India, China, and Japan,
but it certainly is in the case of Southeast Asia. As a
European-trained historian, I hope to contribute to a new
comparative perspective within the study of history of
Southeast Asia by bringing in the comparison with European
history. I am therefore particularly looking forward to future
collaboration with colleagues within the Amsterdam School for
Social Science Research (of which CASA forms a part), which
concentrates on the study of Asian and European societies in
comparative perspective. In order to make such a comparison
successful, however, we do need to have much more knowledge on
the history of Asia in general and that of Southeast Asia in
particular.

WITH YOUR APPOINTMENT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM AND YOUR
DIRECTORSHIP OF THE KITLV IN LEIDEN, YOU OPERATE
SIMULTANEOUSLY IN THE TWO MAIN CENTRES FOR ASIAN STUDIES IN
THE NETHERLANDS, BOTH HAVING A DIFFERENT ACADEMIC TRADITION.
IS THIS AN INTERESTING OR A CONFLICTING COMBINATION?
I Certainly feel that my present position is a very
interesting one. Leiden has a tremendous know-how with regard
to the study of linguistics and culture of Asia. In this, it
has a clear advantage over Amsterdam. In terms of library
facilities, Leiden is also much better equipped than
Amsterdam, even if we include the collection of the library of
the Royal Tropical Institute. Theoretically, however, Leiden
is much less interesting. An exception to this might be the
study of anthropology, which is able to compete with the
French anthropologists. If I compare the academic tradition in
Amsterdam and Leiden, however, I find Amsterdam theoretically
more interesting. I am therefore looking forward to the
possibility of increasing interaction with my colleagues in
Amsterdam. You can say that by working in Leiden and Amsterdam
simultaneously I definitely have the best of both worlds in
terms of Asian studies in the Netherlands. The only problem is
that, having my home in Amsterdam, I am too often not only
academically but also physically in between Leiden and
Amsterdam.