Willem van Schendel Papers

Period 1974-1979, 1991-2000
Total size   1.37 m.
ConsultationNot restricted

Biography

Born in Amsterdam 1949; read Social Sciences at the University of Amsterdam and published a dissertation on peasant mobility in rural Bangladesh (1980); taught at the Erasmus University Rotterdam 1980-1996 (from 1990 as Professor of Comparative History); since 1996 Professor of Modern Asian History at the University of Amsterdam and senior research fellow at the International Institute of Social History.

Village studies in Bangladesh 1974-1979; this collection consists of detailed field and archival notes, maps and background papers of research on the socio-economic mobility of rural households in Bangladesh over several generations; the project was carried out in two phases, 1974-1975 (Willem van Schendel) and 1977-1978 (willem van Schendel, Aminul Haque Faraizi and Md. Mahbubar Rahman); it covered seven villages in Rangpur district (1974-1975 and 1977), Comilla district (1977-1978) and Bogra district (1978); the research resulted in a book: Willem van Schendel, Peasant Mobility. The Odds of Life in Rural Bangladesh (1981).

Content

Documents concerning village studies in Bangladesh 1974-1979: field notes on Gobrogari village (Rangpur) 1974-1975; field and archival notes 1977-1979 on Goborgari village (Rangpur), the villages of Ghorshal, Hatshohor, Noupara, Manipara and Oar (Bogra) and Dhoneshor village (Comilla), index, village maps, background papers, project documentation 1977-1979.

Correspondence with and documentation of the International Centre for Bengal Studies (ICBS) in Dhaka, Bangladesh 1991-2000.

Finding aid

A simple list of the content of the 8 boxes (nos. 1-8) with documents on the village studies is enclosed in box no. 1; the documents on the International Centre for Bengal Studies (ICBS) are kept in the boxes nos. 9-11.