Biography
My research interests are based on the idea of (inter)subjectivity, the notion of agency, and entangled history. Following the idea of Nicholas Thomas (Entangled Objects, 1991: 4), where he argues that ‘objects are not what they are made to be but what they have become,’ these ideas can be extended towards people, where knowledge of ourselves and others is culturally dependent and in constant need of recontextualization. With the ideas set forward by R.G. Collingwood (The Idea of History, 1946), Thomas Kuhn (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 1962), and with the notion of refracted modernity (Kikuchi, Refracted Modernity, 2007), research has proven how historiographical and public discourses have objectified ourselves and others, denying our agency and humanity today and historically, leading to some of the largest issues in contemporary and past times; in here lies a paradox that history struggles with, as these discourses are the product of combined agency.
These ideas are further developed in my Ph.D. studies in History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison under the supervision of Prof. Louise Young, from September 2024 onwards, where I specialize on Japanese migrants in Southeast Asia since 1854 and their impact on the imagination of Southeast Asia in Japan (Nanyō/南洋). Here, in particular, I aim to develop historical tools to reassess and reframe our current understandings of migrants by centering historical agency, tackle Eurocentrism within East- and South East Asian history, and to show the discrepancies and holes within our understandings of humans caused by hegemonic frameworks of ‘nation’ and ‘modernity.’
Education
M.A., Cultural Anthropology – National Taiwan University.
M.A., Asian Studies – Leiden University.
B.A., History – University of Groningen.
Field
- East Asian History
- Southeast Asian History
Selected Publications
- Pietersma (2023), ‘From Crafts to Agency: The Legacy of Colonial Discourses in Exhibiting the Ainu in the Tokyo National Museum and National Museum of Ethnology at Osaka between 1977 and 2017′ Museum and Society 21 (3), 22-35. https://doi.org/10.29311/mas.v21i3.4324
- Pietersma and Harrison (2023), ‘The Broken Coloniser: Ruptures of Homecoming and Belonging in Nyckle Haisma’s Peke Donia, de koloniaal’, Indonesia and the Malay World 51 (151), 364-381. https://doi.org/10.1080/13639811.2023.2278951
Selected Awards
- International Institute of Asian Studies (February 2019): IIAS Grant for participation in the Double Degree program “Critical Heritage Studies of Asia and Europe”.
- Taiwanese Ministry of Education (September 2018 to February 2019): Huayu (Mandarin) Enrichment Scholarship for studying Mandarin at National Taiwan University, Taiwan.
- University of Groningen (September, 2014 to August 2015): Marco Polo Grant for studying abroad at Osaka University, Japan.