Session 3: Unlearning Modern-colonial Institutions with Nancy Jouwe

Session 3: Unlearning Modern-colonial Institutions, and Book Situation “Sites For Unlearning in the Museum” with Nancy Jouwe In this especially designed boat tour through the city center of Utrecht, we shared a mostly untold part of local history: Utrecht’s connectedness to Dutch colonial history and slavery. Utrecht is usually not mentioned in relation to Dutch colonial history. But when we start to read the city as an archive, material remnants appear, stories that are hidden behind the facades come to life, and unknown traces are found. In our boat tour we travelled through time while connecting these dots. In an attempt to decolonize history, we focused on several of the institutions of the city, and how they are implicated in and connected to the central theme of the tour. The tour guide was Nancy Jouwe. She is project leader of Mapping Slavery, a public history project that maps the Dutch history of slavery by building a growing database of locations that serve as a perfect baseline for city tours, publications, digital maps, and educational modules. www.mappingslavery.nl Nancy Jouwe is a cultural historian and has worked 20+ years in the NGO sector as a managing director and curator on the crossroads of women’s rights, transnational movements, and art, culture and heritage. As a researcher, curator, and project manager, she focuses on cultural and social movements in postcolonial Netherlands and lectures at HKU University of the Arts, Willem de Kooning Academy, Amsterdam University College, and CIEE. Jouwe is project leader of Mapping Slavery.