Resilient diversity

In this PhD project, Alexander Geelen studies the impact and reach of the Dutch East India Company and the Dutch West India Company in the eighteenth century and how this is visible through the regulation of and interference with local practices related to forced labour and bondage. This study takes two case studies as its focus: The Gold Coast in West Africa (in present day Ghana) and the Malabar Coast in south India (in what is today the state of Kerala in India). The research is primarily based on court records, as these display the depth of the impact on the individual level, through the eyes of local people most affected by it.