Rice tables. Postcards of endless plantations. Louis Couperus’ novel ‘De stille kracht’. This is what many Dutch people seem to think about when they think of Indonesia. But aren't these all expressions of Dutch colonialism? What would Indonesia look like when viewed without that Dutch lens? Eager to gain insights, I visited The Great Indonesia Exhibition in the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam, and discussed it with a friend with Indonesian roots. Is this exhibition succeeding in what it is trying to do?

Various autistic people have found ways around singling out as a minority to actively engage in global politics. In this blog post, I will discuss three autistic influencers: Greta Thunberg, Daryl Hannah and Temple Grandin. The term 'auti-influencers' will be used to refer to a global movement of people

At a nightclub, a man offers a pretty blond woman a drink. She has obviously shown interest in him, but turns the drink down. He is confused - was she not interested? She then approaches him, frankly tells him that she's not thirsty…

“I heard of the discovery of America, and wept with Safie over the hapless fate of its original inhabitants,” so says the Frankensteinian creature in Mary Shelley’s 1818 masterpiece. As noticed by many scholars before me (eg Burkhart 2020), some of these “red flags” in

On a sunny Friday afternoon, my friend Linsey and I walked along the Linnaeusstraat in the east of Amsterdam. We enjoyed the rustling green of the Oosterpark and recognized the Burgerziekenhuis - this is the route the horse tram once rode, towards the depot, in which after the Wibra now a high class

When I published my autiethnography “The Do less travelled by'' (about the benefits and challenges of budo for people on the autism spectrum), I was overwhelmed by the reactions. Hundreds of people reached out to me. Most of the feedback I received made me very happy, as it was about my hard work

Once in a while, you come across a piece of writing that deeply resonates with what lives inside you, in words you do not have yet. That happened to me. On a sleepless night I fell in a YouTube rabbit hole and ended up at a recording of Adrienne Rich’ ‘Diving Into the Wreck’, a feminist poem from 1973. It struck me that, forty-seven years later, Rich’ comparisons and images have lost nothing of their eloquence or relevance. This rich poem offers a variety of interpretations. I have found

When the Disney studios announced that they had cast Halle Bailey in the role of Ariel, aka The Little Mermaid, for their latest live-action remake, there was a wave of reactions and most of all: criticism. Twitter hashtags #NotMyMermaid and #NotMyAriel became trending topics and Halle was ridiculed