The symposium is part of the Indonesia Spice Week, organised by the Negeri Rempah Foundation and the Indonesian Embassy in The Hague, to foster promotion and international cooperation for the acknowledgement of the historic spice route, including between Indonesia and Amsterdam, as intangible cultural heritage.

Preliminary programme

9:30 Walk-in (including sensory event)

10:00 Start of the programme 
Welcoming words:

• Marieke de Goede, Dean of the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Amsterdam
• H.E. Mr. Mayerfas, the Indonesian Ambassador to the Netherlands
• Explanation of the sensory event around spices & smell heritage by Inger Leemans (Meertens Institute)

Public lecture ‘Beyond Independence: the Challenges of Decolonisation’ by Hassan Wirajuda, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Negeri Rempah Foundation, followed by a Q&A moderated by Prof Fridus Steijlen of the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV)

11:00 Coffee break

11:15 Panel discussion: ‘The material dimension of immaterial heritage’, moderated by Prof. Fridus Steijlen

Part 1: What tangible heritage can be found in Dutch archives that reflect on the Spice Route? What food print has the Spice Route made in the Netherlands?

Part 2: How can and do we use this spice heritage in actual research and how does this impact projects like food culture, (family history) storytelling, textile, literature etc.? How is the Spice Route still relevant today? And how is this heritage constantly in motion and development?

Panelists and speakers include: Louie Buana (Leiden University), Tom Hoogervorst (KITLV), Margriet Hoogvliet (Allard Pierson), Lisa Kuitert (UvA), Manpreet Janeja (Meertens Institute), Lilis Mulyani (Center for Research on Society and Culture, Indonesia, BRIN), Lodewijk Petram (Huygens Institute), Reinder Storm (Allard Pierson), Suze Zijlstra (UvA).

13:00 Lunch

13:45 End of programme