Starting from G.E. Rumphius’ Het Amboinsche Kruid-Boek, written on Ambon in the late 1600s and published in Amsterdam from 1741 onwards – how to research historical plants, analyze botanical material culture, and write about the coloniality of a botanical regime?
Esther Helena Arens is historian and works on colonization/decolonization, knowledge production, and material culture, especially in places and spaces between the Netherlands and Indonesia. Her current research project is focused on the cultural biography of Rumphius’ Ambonese Herbal from the 17th to the 21th century.