Inequality and violence are the two biggest issues in South Africa. What is the underlying cause? Could they be linked to rivalling groups, economic factors, government policy or all of the above? To understand social issues, it is important to study them within their context. The extended case study…

The Laiseang archiving project ensures the preservation of unique records of languages in the region which have been gathered by more than two dozen linguists at, and in collaboration with Dutch universities over the last 40 years.

This book sheds new light on domestic forced migration by examining the experiences of American-born slave migrants from a comparative perspective.

Study information

Study information

Study information

At the end of March, the first coronavirus infections were detected in southern Africa, which resulted in country after country rapidly closing their borders. Tycho van der Hoog witnessed this process at first hand during his PhD research in Namibia. He analyzes the state of the corona crisis from his…

Baleseng Maeneche (University of the Western Cape) has won the Africa Thesis Award 2024 with a master's thesis on media representation of male perpetrators of violence against women and children in South Africa. Her research challenges dominant narratives and emphasises the need for fair media representation…

Archaeologist Dr Gerrit Dusseldorp's research project was covered by a South African newspaper. Dusseldorp and his team investigate the evolution of human behaviour through artefacts dug up in South African caves.

COUNTERRR examines domestic responses to jihadist armed groups in Africa, analyzing variation in state repression, community resistance, and the evolution of security across Mali, Nigeria, and Mozambique.

Van Vollenhoven Lecture 2025

The Khoesan were the first people in Africa to undergo the full rigours of European colonisation. By the early nineteenth century, they had largely been brought under colonial rule, dispossessed of their land and stock, and forced to work as labourers for farmers of European descent.

Commission on Legal Pluralism - Keynote Lecture

Arts and culture

Research how ‘custom’, ‘traditions’ and ‘heritages’ take on new meanings in the uplands of South and (mainland) Southeast Asia.

This study seeks to partially fill the knowledge gap about national culture in Africa, basing its research on data on ethnolinguistic groups (instead of administrative regions).

This project aims at describing the Khoisan languages !Ora (Korana/Griqua) and !Ui of South Africa.

This book is about the workings of networks of the mobile in Africa, a continent usually associated with the ‘global shadows’ of the world.

South African professor Lungisile Ntsebeza will receive an honorary doctorate on the Foundation Day of Leiden University on Friday 7 February. Ntsebeza is an authority in the democratisation of rural South Africa and poverty reduction.

This book explores how changes in the patterns of cooperation and conflict among states, regional actors and transnational non-state actors have affected the rise of emerging global powers and the suggested decline of US leadership. Scholars, students and policy practitioners who are interested in the…

On 8 February 2021 Leiden University celebrated its 446th anniversary.

In this book, Vanessa Newby provides the first detailed examination of credibility’s essential place in peacekeeping.

Taught from primary school to the university level – where new courses on the globalization of the Arabic writing system have cropped up (Abdallah 2014) – the Arabic script, with all its orthographic peculiarities and multiple facets, continues to shape languages other than Arabic, their communities…

The first comprehensive and authoritative history of work and labour in Africa; a key text for all working on African Studies and Labour History worldwide.

What categories exist in the languages of pastoralists? Do these semantic concepts reflect universal or languagespecific tendencies? What (environment? culture?) governs the similarities (or the differences) attested crosslinguistically in cattle colour systems?

The VVI seeks to develop and disseminate socio-legal knowledge and theory regarding the interaction between law, governance and society. More specifically, the Institute studies the emergence, functioning, and evolution of legal institutions.

As part of the Paris Agreement, countries across the world agreed to support developing countries to invest in climate mitigation and adaptation through a Green Climate Fund. However, developed countries have failed to meet funding commitments for the Green Climate Fund–the flagship program financing…

This project examines the notion of sacred fertility and sacred landscapes, associated rituals and material culture, both archaeological and ethnographic manifestations in the Horn of Africa.

Procedural administrative law in a constitutional comparative law perspective

Amazing discoveries by Jean Jacques Hublin of Early modern Humans in Morocco.

Promotores: G.R. de Snoo, B. Sinsin, Co-Promotor: H.H. de Iongh

Combining approaches from intellectual history, philology and the study of Arabic manuscripts, this study places the Bornu scholar Muḥammad al-Wālī within his intellectual environment on the one hand, and it portrays him as someone who responded to the concerns of ordinary Muslims around him on the…

Social science research helps us understand human behaviour and social structures. These are determined by various factors, which makes the research complex and increases the likelihood of drawing the wrong conclusions. The choice of research method and analysis is therefore extremely important. It…

On 25 January 2024 H.J. Pak successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

This book questions the accepted origins of the field of International Relations (IR). Commonly understood to have emerged from the horrors of WW1 with the goal of bringing about world peace, the authors argue that on the contrary, IR came from a somewhat less noble tradition – that of the Round Tab…

Forgotten Lineages explores the paths through which generations of formally enslaved and their descendants gradually forgot their past of enslavement under Dutch and British imperial rule and became local subjects in Sri Lanka and South Africa. It explores why and how forgetting rather than memory became…

At Leiden University College (LUC), engagement with international societal partners occurs through research, education, and internships, fostering mutually beneficial collaborations with NGOs, public service institutions, and international counterparts.

Roundtable