Matthias van Rossum

• E-mail: mvr@iisg.nl
• Department: Research

Matthias van Rossum is Senior Researcher working on Global Labour History with expertise in the dynamics of coercion, diversity, conflict and social strategy.

Matthias completed his dissertation at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in 2013. In his dissertation, he studied social and intercultural relations between European and Asian sailors working for the Dutch East India Company in the seventeenth and eighteenth century. This resulted in the study Werkers van de wereld (Amsterdam 2014). Earlier he received the J.R. Bruijn award (2009) for his Research Master Thesis which was published as Hand aan Hand (Amsterdam 2009). Matthias worked as lecturer in early modern social history at Leiden University (2012-2015), project leader of the Dutch Ships and Sailors project (Huygens ING, VU, 2013-2014) and as postdoc on the Labour Camps project (2014-2015).

He was awarded the Veni Grant of the Dutch Science Foundation (NWO) in 2015 for his research project Between local debts and global markets: Explaining slavery in South and Southeast Asia 1600-1800 (NWO Veni Grant, 2016-2019). He was co-applicant to the research projects Resilient diversity: The governance of racial and religious plurality in the Dutch Empire, 1600-1800 (NWO Vrije Competitie Grant, 2017-2021) and Digital Forensics for Historical Documents (KNAW Onderzoeksfonds, 2018-2020) and Exploring Slave Trade in Asia (NWO Internationalization Humanities, 2018-2021).

Books

A Global History of Runaways: Workers, Mobility, and Capitalism 1600-1850 (University of California Press: Berkeley 2019). With Titas Chakraborty and Marcus Rediker. (More information)

Writing history! A guide for historians (Amsterdam University Press: Amsterdam 2018). With Jeannette Kamp, Susan Legêne and Sebas Rümke. (More information)

Geschiedenis schrijven! Wegwijzer voor historici (Amsterdam University Press: Amsterdam 2016). With Jeannette Kamp, Susan Legêne and Sebas Rümke. (More information)

Desertion in the Early Modern World: A Comparative History (Bloomsbury: London 2016). With Jeannette Kamp. (More information)

Kleurrijke tragiek. De geschiedenis van slavernij in Azië onder de VOC (Verloren, De Zeven Provinciën reeks: Hilversum 2015). (More information)

Werkers van de wereld. Globalisering, arbeid en interculturele ontmoetingen tussen Aziatische en Europese zeelieden in dienst van de VOC, 1600-1800 (Verloren: Hilversum 2014). (More information)

Hand aan hand (Blank en Bruin): Solidariteit en de werking van globalisering, etniciteit en klasse onder zeelieden op de Nederlandse koopvaardij, 1900-1945 (Aksant: Amsterdam 2009). (More information)

Other Selected Key Publications

‘Labouring Transformations of Amphibious Monsters – Globalization, Diversity and the Effects of Labour Mobilization under the Dutch East India Company (1600-1800)’, International Review of Social History s64 (2019) 19-42.

‘Dutch East India Company in Asia, 1595-1811’, in: C. Anderson (ed.), A Global History of Convicts and Penal Colonies (Bloomsbury: London 2018) 157-182.

‘The Carceral Colony – Colonial Exploitation, Coercion, and Control in the Dutch East-Indies, 1810s-1940s’, International Review of Social History s63 (2018) 65-88.

Precaire polder: rapport in het kader van het onderzoeksproject Historische Verkenningen Vakbeweging (Amsterdam 2018). With Moira van Dijk, Loran van Diepen, Rosa Kösters and Bob Scholte.

‘Private slave trade in the Dutch Indian Ocean world – a study into the networks and backgrounds of slavers and enslaved in South Asia and South-Africa’, Slavery and Abolition 38:1 (2017) 95-116. With Linda Mbeki.

‘Redirecting Global Labor History?’, in: C. Antunes, K. Fatah-Black (red.), Explorations in History and Globalization (Routledge: London 2016) 47-62.

‘A profitable debate?’, Slavery and Abolition 37:4 (2016) 736-743. With Karwan Fatah-Black.

‘Beyond profitability. The Dutch transatlantic slave trade and its economic impact’, Slavery and Abolition 36:1 (2015) 63-83. With Karwan Fatah-Black.

‘“Amok!” Mutinies and Slaves on Dutch East Indiamen in the 1780’s’, International Review of Social History 58, Special Issue (2013) 109-130.

Educational material

Lespakket: Geschiedenis van slavernij in Azië onder de VOC (2018). With Paula van Rooij. The material is openly available on: https://socialhistory.org/nl/educatie/slavernij

For Full CV see pdf