Book projects
- Managing land, creating territory. A history of space in the Dutch East Indies and British Malaya. This project was supported by the Harvard Asia Center (2018-2019) and the Center for the Study of Manuscript Cultures (2021-2025). It stemmed from two converging research topics and evolved into a book project.
– Affirming rights over land and resources: Originals and authoritative documents in the legal culture of the Malay Peninsula (c. 1780-c. 1910). Supported by the Center for the Study of Manuscript Culture (2021-2025).
– “Euro-Asian encounters and inter-Asian diplomatic relations in the Malay speaking world (17th-20th century)”. Supported by Harvard Asia Center (2018-2019)
2. 1965-1966 in Indonesia. Remembrance and communities of memory
This book project examines various cultural productions (books, documentaries, artworks) created predominantly since 1998, delving into the mnemonic mechanisms involved in their creation and the potential triggers they activate. The study sheds light on groups, individuals, and initiatives engaged in memory work, highlighting the intricate nature of the 1965-66 mass murders’ memory as more complex than the traditional ‘official’ versus counter narrations dichotomy. By presenting private and national history, the book reveals overlaps as well as distinctions within individual and collective memory.
Other projects
1.The Philippines in Austronesian studies
Working in collaboration with my colleagues Vincent Wonghaiham-Petersen, Adonis Elumbre, Malaya Ragrario, and Myfel Paluga, I have started a Filipino component within the Austronesian studies section at the University of Hamburg. Since 2022, we have organized the Austronesian Research Seminar, which gathers scholars and students of Indonesian, Malay, and Philippine studies to look at local phenomena from a broader regional perspective.
2.Digitization of manuscripts: enlarging possibilities
Since 2026, I am a principal investigator, with Prof. Jan van der Putten an Prof. Oman Fathurahman, for the program DREAMSEA (Digital Repository of Endangered and Affected Manuscripts in Southeast Asia), a joint project between the CSMC and PPIM (UIN Jakarta), financed by the Arcadia Foundation, which aims to safeguard the diversity of manuscript cultures in Southeast Asia. Before that, I have supervised the first phase of the program, from 2022 to 2025.
Over the past few years, we have learned a great deal about the diversity of situations surrounding private collections in Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos, as well as the practices surrounding them. We are in constant communication with our local partners in order to strengthen the existing ecosystem that enables the preservation and transmission of diverse manuscript cultures, and we are working to improve our understanding of the material culture, history of knowledge, and techniques that underpin manuscript production in the region.
Elsa Clavé 