Inward Outward Symposium

Archives, assumed to be containers of memory, are vested with a particular power to constitute and define who is and who is not included in (his)stories. We explore what “decolonizing” the archive - within and beyond the walls of established institutions - could offer for the production of new bodies of knowledge. 

The symposium offers dedicated sessions focused on investigating coloniality, identity, memory and race. While these themes are broadly explored in the context of sound and moving image collections across geographies, the symposium also emphasises the position of Dutch identity in its various manifestations.

Keynote Speakers

The programme includes special keynote lectures from prof. dr. Deborah Thomas and prof. dr. Gloria Wekker.

Deborah A. Thomas

Deborah A. Thomas is the R. Jean Brownlee Professor of Anthropology, and the Director of the Center for Experimental Ethnography at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of Political Life in the Wake of the Plantation, Exceptional Violence, and Modern Blackness. Thomas co-directed the documentary films Bad Friday, and Four Days in May, and she is the co-curator of a multi-media installation titled Bearing Witness: Four Days in West Kingston. She is the editor of American Anthropologist.

Gloria Wekker

Gloria Wekker is a social and cultural anthropologist and professor emerita in gender studies at Utrecht University. Among her many publications is The Politics of Passion: Afro-Surinamese Women’s Sexual Culture in the Black Diaspora (Columbia University Press, 2006), for which she won the Ruth Benedict Prize of the American Anthropological Association. Her most recent book is White Innocence: Paradoxes of Colonialism and Race (Duke University Press, 2016).

Speakers & Moderators

We’re delighted to welcome the following speakers and moderators to Inward Outward: 



Bas Agterberg (Sound & Vision), Samuel Baumgartner (British Library), Alessandra Benedicty-Kokken (RCMC/Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen), Marieke Bloembergen (KITLV), Sadiah Boonstra (University of Melbourne/Curator Public Programs Asia TOPA), Mette Charis Buchman (Danish Broadcasting Corporation), Andrea Zarza Canova (British Library), Esther Captain (KITLV), Collence Chisita (University Of South Africa), Brecht Declercq (Flemish Institute for Archiving), Moira van Dijk (IISH), Mitchell Esajas (The Black Archives), Giovanna Fossati (UvA/Eye Filmmuseum), David Frohnapfel, Tao Leigh Goffe (Cornell University), Charissa Granger (Erasmus University Rotterdam), Matthias De Groof, Clemens Gütl (Phonogrammarchiv of the Austrian Academy of Sciences), Gerda Jansen Hendriks (NTR Dutch Public Television), Wigbertson Julian Isenia (UvA/Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis), Sebastian Jackson (Harvard University), Charles Jeurgens (UvA), Nancy Jouwe, Michael Karabinos (UvA), Vincent Kuitenbrouwer (UvA), Rizki Lazuardi, Sri Margana (Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta/University Leiden), Rachel Somers Miles (Sound & Vision), Jonas Van Mulder (KADOC), Leila Musson (IISH), Hetty Naaijkens-Retel Helmrich (Filmmaker Scarabeefilms), Nthabiseng B. Ncala (University of South Africa), Alana Osbourne (KITLV), Jeftha Pattikawa (Nationaal Archief/Verloren Banden), Elif Rongen-Kaynakçi (Eye Filmmuseum), Sim Chi Yin (Magnum Photos/King's College London), Eliza Steinbock (Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society), Eef Vermeij (IISH), meLê Yamomo (UvA).

Programme Committee

Bas Agterberg (Sound & Vision) 

Esther Captain (KITLV) 

Alana Osbourne (KITLV) 

Rachel Somers Miles (Sound & Vision) 

Eleni Tzialli (Sound & Vision) 

More Information

Registration for the symposium is open and is free of charge. 

Stay informed about the programme via this page or follow us on Facebook. 

Please feel free to contact us if you need any further information. 

The Inward Outward symposium is organised by the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies and the Netherlands Institute for Sound & Vision, and is support by the Research Center of Material Culture.