dr. B. (Barbara) Henkes

Barbara Henkes is an associate researcher (fellow) at the History Department in Groningen. In her research, she focuses on forms of inclusion and exclusion based on nationalistic and racial categories, with particular attention to colonialism and national socialism. Her approach is driven by the question of how personal and collective memories of violent forms of exclusion and repression permeate contemporary society. She is currently leading two projects: an investigation into the meaning of race and nationality for Dutch-South African relations, and a study of the (post)colonial rise and fall of a multinational family business in the 19th and 20th centuries.

I studied History and Criminology at the University of Groningen (MA, ‘doctorat’ in 1980). After finishing my studies I worked for the Groningen University Weekly and became a free-lance publicist/researcher during the 1980s. In these years I published a book and produced an exhibition on Dutch maidservants in the first half of the 20^th Century (Nijmegen 1985) and I was a visiting lecturer at the University in Olden­burg (1986-’87). In 1990 I became junior researcher at the Cen­tre for Modern History at the University of Amsterdam. This resulted in a PhD. (cum laude) for my thesis on German maidservants in the Netherlands 1920-1950 that was published in Dutch (1995) and German (1998). I continued my research as a post-doc at the University of Groningen with an Oral History project on the academic community in confrontation with national-socialism. In 1998 I started a Dutch-Flemish collaboration on the history of folklore-studies in the Netherlands and Flanders, working as a fellow of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences (KNAW) at the Meertens Institute in Amsterdam. Since 2000 I returned to the University of Groningen to work as an assistant professor in Modern History - and later in Contemporary History - at the History Department. Since 2022 I am affiliated with the RuG as an associated reseracher (fellow). I always combined my position at the university with free-lance activities in- and outside the academy.

I held a visiting scholarships at the Zentrum für Niederlande-studien an der University of Münster (2007). From 2007-2009 I was involved in the assessment of a national Oral-History projects about the Second World War. I have been member of various editorial boards, such as the Dutch Yearbook of Womens History (Jaarboek voor Vrouwengeschiedenis), the series Migratie- en Etni­sche Studies, the Biografisch Woordenboek van Nederland and the editorial board for humanities of the Amsterdam University Press.