Alicia Schrikker is Professor of the History of the Netherlands in the World and Director of Research at the Leiden University Institute for History. She is an expert in the history and legacy of Dutch colonialism. She supervises BA, MA and PhD research in the fields of socio legal history, colonial politics and heritage across the 18th-20th century. Her regions of expertise are Sri Lanka, Indonesia and The Netherlands, while she also published more broadly on the Indian Ocean and Dutch colonial worlds.

More information about Alicia Schrikker

Alicia Schrikker is Professor of the History of the Netherlands in the World and Director of Research at the Leiden University Institute for History. She is an expert in the history and legacy of Dutch colonialism. She supervises BA, MA and PhD research in the fields of socio‑legal history, colonial politics and heritage across the 18^th-20^th century. Her regions of expertise are Sri Lanka, Indonesia and The Netherlands, while she also published more broadly on the Indian Ocean and Dutch colonial worlds.

Current projects

Alicia Schrikker’s interest has developed over the years from questions about colonial policy in the age of revolutions, to a multidisciplinary focus on sites of negotiation and colonial engagement, such as judicial courtrooms, colonial workplaces, and post‑disaster sites. Heritage, colonial collections and questions of repatriation have become a new focus point in her work since she joined the Colonial Collections Committee in 2022.

On behalf of the university board she chairs the advisory committee on the university’s history of colonialism and slavery. As chair of the Vereniging KITLV and member of the scientific board, she closely collaborates with this KNAW institute.

At present she is involved in the following projects:

• Traumascapes (NWA, 2026-2031), project lead case study Makassar
• Koloniaal en Slavernijverleden Leiden (Gemeente Leiden, 2026-2028), project leader, with Ariadne Schmidt, Judi Mesman, and researchers Emma Sow and Sjoerd Ramackers
• Unpacking the Asian Library, (KITLV, 2025-2026) project leader with Marieke Bloembergen (KITLV) and and researchers Mirjam Shatanawi and Otto Stuparitz
• Banjarmasin unravelled (2026-2028), a personal bookproject that takes a decentred approach to the turbulent frontier history of the town Banjarmasin in South Kalimantan, across the 19^th century.

Past projects

‘Institutional Memory in the Making of Colonial Culture: History, Experience and Ideas in Dutch Colonialism in Asia, 1700–1870’ (NWO VIDI, 2018-2025) This project is, in essence, a critical analysis of colonial mentality within colonial officialdom in Asia. Researchers involved: Philip Post, Alexander van der Meer and Sanne Ravensbergen. Project results, among others: Nederlands kolonialisme van archief tot geschiedschrijving. Een gids voor onderzoekers. - Universiteit Leiden 

Between 2017-2024 she was PI of ‘Colonialism Inside Out: Everyday Experience and Plural Practice in Dutch Institutions on Sri Lanka, 1700–1800’. (NWO OC L) This project combined life-writing with a socio‑legal approach to the history of colonialism and was carried out in collaboration with Radboud University Nijmegen and the Sri Lanka National Archives. Researchers involved: Luc Bulten, Bente de Leede, Nadeera Rupesinghe, Dries Lyna and Jan Kok. See also: Everyday Lankan History – Forgotten Lives under Colonial Rule

Transvaal in Leiden - Things That Talk (Research Traineeship project 2021-2023, with Ariadne Schmidt)

Virtual Slave Island (Kompanna-veediya) (Dutch Culture Matching Grant 2020, With Varuna de Silva, Iromi Perara, Dries Lyna and Sanayi Marcelinne)

Provenance Research on Objects of the Colonial Era - NIOD  (OCW/NIOD/Rijksmuseum/World Museum 2020-2022), workpackage leader Sri Lanka, in collaboration with various researchers from Sri Lanka and the UK, the National Museum Colombo and Rijksmuseum)

Being a slave. Histories and legacies of European slavery in the Indian Ocean. (Research traineeship project with Nira Wickramasinghe, 2017-2020)

Between 2014 and 2020 she was counterpart in a multilateral interdisciplinary linkage project on climate, natural hazards and social change in the Indian Ocean and Western Pacific, funded by the Australian Research Council and led by Jim Warren, Murdoch University (Perth). She was co‑PI  for the NWO/AHRC‑funded interdisciplinary research network ‘The Cultural Politics of Catastrophe’ (2012–2014), which examined the political and cultural representation of natural disasters in island Southeast Asia and the Caribbean.     

From 2006 to 2016 she served as managing editor and editor‑in‑chief of the journal Itinerario. She was expert reviewer on colonial history for Geschiedenis Magazine; editor of the book series Dutch Sources on South Asia (Manohar Press, New Delhi); and from 2016-2021 editor of the fully open‑access journal BMGN / Low Countries Historical Review. 

As a PhD student she participated in the multilateral TANAP project and obtained her PhD cum laude in 2006 with a study of Dutch and British colonial policy in Sri Lanka between 1780 and 1815. After this she worked as project coordinator and lecturer at Leiden University for the multilateral Dutch–Asian education and research project ENCOMPASS. In 2007 she was awarded the KNAW Praemium Erasmianum dissertation prize.

Publications

Activities