In my capacity as curator of the Jaap Kunst sound archive at the University of Amsterdam, I participate in an international team of Indonesian and Dutch musicologists, historians, anthropologists, sociologists and performance studies scholars who aim to investigate, disclose and critically approach the material and intellectual legacy of ethnomusicologist Jaap Kunst (1891-1960) and his successors, kept at the University of Amsterdam (photographs, film, correspondence, manuscripts, field notes, teaching material), the Phonogrammarchiv Berlin (sound recordings) and the Museum Nasional in Jakarta (musical instruments) from the Indonesian archipelago. This initiative has culminated in the JPICH-funded research project Decolonizing Southeast Asian Sound Archives (DeCoSEAS) [2021-2024], coordinated by me and meLê yamomo as well as the NWO-funded research project Restituting, Reconnecting, Reimagining Sound Heritage (Re:Sound) [2025-2028].

By disclosing, critically investigating and restitutingJaap Kunst’s intellectual legacy that is now partly available online, I intend to contribute to debates about the Dutch colonial past and the role of (music) scholarship in the sustenance and legitimation of coloniality.