Matthias van Rossum

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

Bio
Matthias van Rossum is specialized in global labour history, the history of slavery, colonialism, resistance and social strategies.
He completed his dissertation at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in 2013. 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). Since 2016, Matthias works as Senior Researcher at the Research Department of the International Institute of Social History and is professor of Global Histories of Labour and Colonialism at Radboud University Nijmegen.

Matthias was awarded various individual grants, such as the Veni (2015) and Vidi (2022) Grant of the Dutch Science Foundation (NWO), and the Consolidator Grant of the European Research Council (2023). He has collaborated in various successful research and infrastructure grants that have explored histories and sources of the histories of colonialism and slavery.

Publications: Matthias van Rossum – Research output — Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW)

Current projects
GLOBALISE, NWO Groot (research infrastructure) (2022-2026), project leader (PI)
Resisting Enslavement, NWO Vidi (2023-2028), project leader (PI)
Voices of Enslavement, ERC Consolidator (upcoming: 2024-2029), project leader (PI)
Exploring Slave Trade in Asia (2017-), co-coordinator
Staat en Slavernij (2022-2024), coordinating committee member and editor

Current PhD supervision
Jens Aurich, IISH and University of Amsterdam, with Maartje van Gelder
Camille Le Brettevillois, IISH and Radboud University, with Filipa Ribeiro da Silva
Britt van Duijvenvoorde, IISH and Radboud University, with Filipa Ribeiro da Silva
Alexander Geelen, IISH and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, with Ulbe Bosma
Philipp Huber, IISH and Radboud University, with Filipa Ribeiro da Silva
Pascal Konings, IISH and Radboud University, with Sanne Muurling
Rosa Kösters, IISH and Leiden University, with Leo Lucassen
Alisha Ma, IISH and Radboud University, with Sanne Muurling
Iliana Tintori Reyes, IISH and Radboud University, with Filipa Ribeiro da Silva
Hanna te Velde, IISH and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, with Ulbe Bosma
Wouter Raaijmakers, Radboud University Nijmegen, with Dries Lyna and Kate Ekama
Stefan Reyes, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, with Inger Leemans and Erika Kuijpers

Selected committees and activities

• Committee on Colonial Archives, Council of Culture (Raad voor Cultuur) (2022-2024)
• Committee on National slavery museum, Council of Culture (Raad voor Cultuur) and Amsterdam Arts Council (Amsterdamse Kunstraad) (2021)
• Advisory member, ‘Ons Koloniale Verleden in Vijftig Voorwerpen’, de Volkskrant (2021-2022)
• Advisory member for the Slavery Exhibition, Rijksmuseum (2018-2021)

Selected past projects

• Between local debts and global markets: Explaining slavery in South and Southeast Asia 1600-1800, NWO Veni Grant (2016-2019), Project Leader (PI)
• Resilient diversity: The governance of racial and religious plurality in the Dutch Empire, 1600-1800, NWO Vrije Competitie Grant (2017-2021), Co-Applicant
• Historische Verkenningen Vakbeweging, FNV (2017-2018), Project Leader (PI)

Past PhD supervision
Angus Dalrymple Smith, Wageningen University, 2017, with Ewout Frankema and Elise van Nederveen Meerkerk

Selected publications
Books

• Staat en slavernij. Het Nederlandse koloniale slavernij en haar doorwerkingen (Athenaeum: Amsterdam 2023). With Rose Mary Allen, Esther Captain and Urwin Vyent. Open Access here.
• Slavery and Europe: Exploring the Economic Impact of Atlantic Slavery (Routledge: New York 2023). With Tamira Combrink.
• Slavery and Bondage in Asia, 1550–1850: Towards a Global History of Coerced Labour (De Gruyter: Berlin/Boston 2022). With Kate Ekama and Lisa Hellman. Open Access.
• Revisualising Slavery: Visual sources on slavery in the Indonesian Archipelago & Indian Ocean (LM Publisher and University of Washington Press: Amsterdam and Seattle, WA 2021). With Nancy Jouwe, Wim Manuhutu and Merve Tosun.
• Testimonies of Enslavement: Sources on Slavery from the Indian Ocean World (Bloomsbury: London 2020). With Alexander Geelen, Bram van den Hout and Merve Tosun.
• De slavernij in Oost en West: Het Amsterdam onderzoek (Uitgeverij Unieboek Het Spectrum: Amsterdam 2020). With Pepijn Brandon, Guno Jones, Nancy Jouwe.
• A Global History of Runaways: Workers, Mobility, and Capitalism 1600-1850 (University of California Press: Berkeley 2019). With Titas Chakraborty and Marcus Rediker.
• Writing history! A guide for historians (Amsterdam University Press: Amsterdam 2018). With Jeannette Kamp, Susan Legêne and Sebas Rümke.
• Desertion in the Early Modern World: A Comparative History (Bloomsbury: London 2016). With Jeannette Kamp.
• Kleurrijke tragiek. De geschiedenis van slavernij in Azië onder de VOC (Verloren, De Zeven Provinciën reeks: Hilversum 2015).
• Werkers van de wereld. Globalisering, arbeid en interculturele ontmoetingen tussen Aziatische en Europese zeelieden in dienst van de VOC, 1600-1800 (Verloren: Hilversum 2014).
• 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).

Key articles

• ‘Towards a global perspective on early modern slave trade: prices of the enslaved in the Indian Ocean, Indonesian Archipelago and Atlantic worlds’, Journal of Global History 17:1 (2022) 42-68. Open Access.
• ‘Corvée Capitalism: the Dutch East India Company, labour regimes and (merchant) capitalism in early modern Asia’, Journal of Asian Studies 80:4 (2021) 911 – 932. With Merve Tosun.
• Slavery and its transformations: prolegomena for a global and comparative research agenda’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 63:3 (2021) 566-598. Open Access.
• ‘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.
• ‘The Carceral Colony – Colonial Exploitation, Coercion, and Control in the Dutch East-Indies, 1810s-1940s’, International Review of Social History s63 (2018) 65-88.
• ‘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.