The postdoc project examines the impact of international crises on the experience of, and social dialogue about, Dutch and (post)colonial traumascapes. In the face of global crises such as the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, migration, and systemic injustice, traumascapes in the Netherlands play a crucial role in connecting historical memory to contemporary international crises and societal challenges. Key Dutch collective memories, such as the Holocaust, resistance during the Second World War, and the colonial legacy of the Netherlands, particularly in Indonesia and Suriname continue to shape both national and international discourses of heritage, memory, and trauma. This means that considering Dutch traumascapes solely from a national perspective would limit the possible interpretations and meanings these places carry. Building on this transnational framing, the project approaches Dutch and (post)colonial traumascapes as sites of agonistic memory: spaces in which historical meaning is not settled but continuously negotiated, contested, and rearticulated (Hansen, Bull 2016). Rather than treating memory as a consensual or stabilising force, the project foregrounds contestation as a productive and constitutive element of democratic memory cultures, and equally destabilising of liberal norms.

Traumascapes are understood not only as lieux de mémoire that commemorate past suffering, but as arenas in which conflicting interpretations, moral claims, and political demands coexist and come into tension. From this standpoint, memories of the Holocaust, colonial violence, and slavery cannot be fully integrated into a single, coherent narrative without obscuring the asymmetries of power, responsibility, and historical experience that continue to shape contemporary debates. Agonistic memory acknowledges these asymmetries while insisting on the legitimacy of conflict as a mode of engagement with the past.

Within the Dutch context, such contestation is increasingly visible. Public debates around colonial monuments, apologies and reparations for slavery, the interpretation of resistance and collaboration during the Second World War, and the place of Holocaust memory in multicultural society reveal how traumascapes function as flashpoints for broader struggles over identity, belonging, and historical accountability. These struggles are further intensified by global developments, such as ongoing wars, migration flows, and international justice claims, which reframe local memory sites within wider geopolitical and moral horizons. The project, therefore, examines how Dutch traumascapes mediate this context rather than resolve it.  In doing so, the project contributes to ongoing debates on democratic memory cultures by demonstrating how agonistic approaches to heritage and remembrance can foster critical engagement without collapsing into relativism or denial.

This is what you will be doing:

• Designing and conducting research under the guidance of the project leader, resulting in at least three peer-reviewed academic publications (co-authored or single-authored) in (inter)national scientific journals, edited volumes, and/or monographs;
• Conducting historical and ethnographic fieldwork research, presenting intermediate research results at workshops and conferences;
• Participating with the project leader in project’s meetings and activities of the sub-projects and research groups and developing a shared database;
• Co-organising with the project leader knowledge dissemination activities; expert meetings and an international conference;
• Participating in committees and working groups, as well as performing project-related administrative tasks.
• Actively contributing to the research activities of AHM and developing national and international research networks and other forms of cooperation.

The deadline for applications is 21 March 2026.