Dr. Freek Colombijn

Dr. Freek Colombijn graduated in cultural anthropology (with honours) and history at Leiden University, the Netherlands. He received his doctorate in social sciences from Leiden University in 1994, with a thesis on the urban development of the Indonesian city of Padang. He was employed by numerous academic institutions in the Netherlands and in 1996 he was visiting fellow at the Australian National University (Canberra). Since September 2003 he has been attached to the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology of VU University, Amsterdam.

Freek Colombijn has done extensive fieldwork in Southeast Asia (mostly Indonesia) and archive research. His research interests include urban development, the history of urban space and housing, human-environment interactions, violence, and football.

He is author of Under Construction: The Politics of Urban Space and Housing During the Decolonization of Indonesia, 1930-1960 (Leiden: KITLV Press, 2010) and co-editor of Urban Ethnic Encounters; The spatial consequences (London and New York: Routledge, 2002); Roots of Violence in Indonesia; Contemporary Violence in Historical Perspective (Leiden: KITLV Press, 2002); and The Modernization of the Indonesian City (in preparation).