Early modern Southeast Asia’s connections to European empires, including the often overlooked Swiss dimension, were the focus of a recent Zürich workshop that gathered scholars to discuss conflict, trade, migration and diplomacy across the archipelagos.
Considering its geographical location, Switzerland may not primarily be associated with colonialism in Southeast Asia. At a closer look, however, there are wide-ranging connectivities, which have been studied extensively within the framework of ‘colonialism without colonies’ in the past decade (in particular the work by Patricia Purtschert, Bernhard Schär, and most recently an exhibition at the Landesmuseum). One aspect of Swiss involvement in colonialism are mercenaries and other individuals who took employment with seafaring European powers. This was part of the inspiration for an international workshop at the University of Zürich on 11-12 May 2026. Entitled “Entangled Archipelagos of Southeast Asia: Conflict – Trade – Migration – Diplomacy (16th-18th Centuries)”, it gathered around 25 participants during two days of intense discussions about Southeast Asian history, with emphasis on Indonesia in the early-modern era. Among the eleven presenters were project members Birgit Tremml-Werner and Hans Hägerdal and scholars based in the Netherlands, Indonesia, Spain and Germany. New digital methods of accessing the resources of the Dutch archives, developed by the GLOBALISE project of Amsterdam, were presented by Manjusha Kuruppath. These possibilities will no doubt facilitate the work on early colonialism that has recently been taken up by Swiss scholars. Myriam Schmidt, one of the organizers of the workshop, presented her study of a bulky and unpublished travelogue by the Swiss mercenary Johann Heinrich Sulger who fought for the VOC in Malukan waters in the 1680s. His narrative provides a grassroots perspective of warfare, diplomacy, slaving and indigenous societies in the era when European powers tried to subordinate the region and exploit its resources. Similarly, Philip Hahn presented his findings about Albrecht Smidlapp, a German soldier in Maluku who also left an unpublished narrative of his career as a VOC employee and slave owner. Overall, Malukan studies were very well represented at the workshop with contributions by Henk Niemeijer, Roelof van Gelder, José Escribano Páez and Hans Hägerdal – a testimony of the importance of this region for early Iberian and Dutch trade and diplomacy. Other presentations focused on diplomacy in the Philippines (Birgit Tremml-Werner), Balinese legong dance (Ni Ketut Putri Minangsari), and social change in Depok on Java (Bondan Kanumoyoso), while Susanna Burghartz.made an effort to situate the Swiss town Basel in broader global economic structures.
Overall, the workshop was nicely organized by Myriam Schmidt, Roberto Zaugg and Susanna Burghartz. The venue in the university complex offered a spectacular panorama over the old city and the surrounding mountainscape.
Hans Hägerdal
Birgit Tremml-Werner
