The oil pipeline in Dakota, the widening of the motorway near Stonehenge, the construction of dams in Turkey and Iraq: newspapers and social media are full of alarming articles about threats to heritage as a result of large-scale construction work. Heritage experts at Leiden University have developed…

Recently, Ingrid Leijten’s book Core Socio-Economic Rights and the European Court of Human Rights was published with Cambridge University Press. The monograph was published in the series Cambridge Studies in European Law and Policy (edited by Laurence Gormley and Jo Shaw) and deals with the protection…

Attitudes towards cultural heritage have long been characterised by an ‘endangerment sensibility’ concerned with preventing losses. Recently, however, critical heritage scholars have argued that loss can be generative, facilitating the formation of new values and attachments. Their arguments have focused…

Study information, Student for a Day

Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology at Leiden University is known for its student-centred teaching and world-leading faculty.

Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology

This research project analyses the use of different, often competing, stereotypical images of Rome in Humanist Latin Poetry, by considering it as strategic appropriation of the classical heritage.

Violent conflicts all over the world pose a great threat. Not only to the region’s inhabitants, but also to the cultural heritage in the area. This is the subject of the Europe Lecture in The Hague on 13 June.

Melanie Fink, Postdoctoral Researcher at the Europa Institute of Leiden University, has published her book Frontex and Human Rights, Responsibility in 'Multi-Actor Situations' under the ECHR and EU Public Liability Law. This work is based on her doctoral dissertation, which she defended in December…

Thanks to its early civilisation and continuous mix of influences, the Muslim world has a rich and varied culture. The study of material culture, books, stories, films and increasingly television series teaches us about the structure of modern-day Muslim societies.

Are predictive archaeological maps a reliable tool to play an important role in the spatial planning? One of the goals of this project was to develop best practices for the production and application of the models.

Corinne Hofman accepted her appointment as professor of Caribbean archaeology with special attention to those regions with which the Netherlands maintain historical ties.

What is the effectiveness of (booklet or online) self-help programmes for people with somatic stressors and depressive symptoms? What works best for whom? How to improve motivation and adherence?

Caribbean archaeological heritage is threatened by natural impacts but also increasingly by economic developments, often resulting from the tourist industry. The continuous construction of specific projects for tourists, accompanied by illegal practices such as looting and sand mining, have major impacts…

Together with four European partner universities heritage specialist Dr Monique van den Dries has been granted an Erasmus+ project (EU-CUL) by the European Commission. This project sets up a unique cooperation between educational scientists and academic heritage specialists. It will study how universities…

Amy Strecker assesses the institutional framework for landscape protection, analyses the interplay between landscape and human rights, and links the etymology and theory of landscape with its articulation in law.

We are pleased to announce a call for papers for a workshop within the project 'Human Development and Its Outliers' on 26 and 27 March 2026 at Leiden University.

Studying one another’s languages and cultures fosters understanding between groups of people, which leads to more equality, along with increased economic, administrative, and cultural cooperation.

On 1 October 2019 the Hazelhoff Centre for Financial law hosted its 19th guest lecture starring Paul Sharma, managing director at Alvarez & Marsal and co-head of the European Financial Industry Regulatory Advisory Services practices.

UNESCO has recognized a large collection of handwritten letters and the archive of Raden Ajeng Kartini (1879-1904) as documentary world heritage. Kartini opposed gender inequality in feudal Javanese society, including forced marriages, polygamy and lack of education for women.

This article discusses the degree of independence that is required for national human rights institutions to function successfully.

This PhD project investigates how grammatical features and lexical elaboration in Fulfulde Juguureere reflect aspects of cattle culture.

Pressing Matter: Ownership, Value and the Question of Colonial Heritage in Museums is a large-scale research project funded through the Dutch National Research Agenda, and led by Wayne Modest and Susan Legêne (Vrije Universiteit). Work Package 3 on “Value” phrases its main research question as follows:…

A core interest of our cluster members concerns processes of reception, transformation and (interlingual and intermedial) translation in medieval and early modern art, literature and media from diachronic and synchronic perspectives (in time, space, and between media).

Ian Simpson is a relatively new face at the Faculty of Archaeology. Starting as an assistant professor in the Heritage and Society department in 2018, he is one of the faculty’s members in critical heritage studies and looks both at the past as well as the future. ‘I study how heritage can be employed…

Are you an interdisciplinary researcher working on or with heritage? Do you struggle with faculty fragmentation and finding relevant colleagues to collaborate with? How can we at Leiden facilitate interfaculty knowledge exchange? These were some of the questions which inspired eight Leiden University…

A team of Leiden researchers has won the Ammodo Science Award for innovative humanities research on perceptions of cultural heritage.

What do Master Card, the UN High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR) and Leiden University have in common? They all work on new sets of guidelines for responsible data use.

Heritage protection is increasingly understood by nations and other actors as playing a critical intersectoral role in supporting wider development and diplomacy outcomes through soft power and cultural relations.

Port cities develop at the intersection of international trade and commerce and at the interface between sea and land. What does the future of port cities look like with urbanization, sea level rise, new migrant flows and the disappearance of old industries? This is addressed in the minor (Re)Imagining…

From Apartheid in South-Africa to 9/11 in the United States: there is not a single culture that is not shaped by the memory of war or conflict. The minor Cultural Memory of War and Conflict focuses on how such memory cultures influence and shape societies today.

On Friday 20 September, the first Sector Plan Conference for the theme Cultural Heritage and Identity will be organised in Rotterdam. The conference is intended for all staff and national partners working in the field of Cultural Heritage and Identity. In particular, those involved in the Sector Plan…

How can we best protect cultural heritage in times of war? In an interview with LeidenGlobal, cultural heritage law specialist Evelien Campfens talks about her current research project on cultural heritage protection in Ukraine for the European Parliament (EP).

Central to Nuranisa’s PhD project is the cultural diplomacy practiced by the Javanese courts of central Java (Surakarta, Yogyakarta, Pakualaman and Mangkunegaran) in response to the increasing Dutch colonial power in the 19th and early 20th century.

On Thursday 26 June 2025, the Pavilion of the Wereldmuseum Leiden featured the first joint meeting of Leiden University and the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam around the shared research theme Collecting Global Heritage. Some 50 researchers, students and collection managers came together to share knowledge,…

The project contends that in Late Antiquity (c. 300-500 AD) both the figure of Christ and those of Pythagoras and Socrates underwent a parallel process of metamorphosis facilitated not least through an intellectual exchange between Christian theologians and Neoplatonic philosophers. From Iamblichus…

Which plants in the Mediterranean garden were already known to the ancient Greeks and Romans, and how were they utilized?

As museums face more scrutiny and are being demanded to decolonize, there are opportunities for Dominican museums to adopt a critical perspective and turn their collections and exhibitions into connections to our cultural past, present, and future.

What are the social, cultural, and/or educational consequences and challenges linked to the introduction of the international bachelor's programme in Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology?

Festival, Graduation Ceremony

It is integral to many cluster members’ research to use Medieval and Early Modern Arts as a lens for studying the medieval and early modern periods at large:

The war in Ukraine is leading not only to human suffering. Ukraine's cultural heritage is also experiencing the consequences of the war: museums are being bombed and 'Russification' in the occupied territories means children no longer learn Ukrainian. Researcher Evelien Campfens was commissioned by…