Anti-auxiliary in the German Wehrmacht during World War II, second lieutenant US Army Nurse and Dutch defector in the Indonesian armed forces forces during the Indonesian War of Independence. Visual anthropologist Lise Zurné has played these roles during fieldwork for her research on historical re-enactments, with which she obtained her PhD from Erasmus University Rotterdam in December 2023. She was recently interviewed by NRC about her experiences at the 'front', her future, and the setbacks she faced during her research.
Lise had always been interested in colonial history, reenacting and dressing up. Via YouTube, she came across Indonesian videos of hobbyists re-enacting battles against the Netherlands in 1949. After graduating, she travelled to Indonesia twice to experience it herself. She noted that the difference between the two times was illustrative of the fluidity of the historical imagination. "That is also the point with such performances: who are they meant for? They have an educational function, sometimes a political or nationalistic one. But for the participants, it's often also about fun."
Making research visual
Her research fits with the growing interest in 'affective history'. In that approach, feeling, smelling, and hearing the past is central. During the re-enactments she participated in, Lise shot a large amount of material. There is no film of her research yet, that is her dream. Although images are still taken less seriously than text in academia, in past years, this has gained more attention. Lise believes in the future of such multimodal approaches and founded the collective 'ethnovision' with four others, which runs workshops on visual methods in anthropology.
Unwanted behaviour
The fieldwork in Indonesia ended abruptly as Lise unfortunately faced unwanted behaviour. Her research was delayed because of it; she spent some time at home sick after returning. She thinks other female fieldworkers will recognise themselves in this and argues that too little attention is paid to these common experiences during fieldwork. As a result, she and a college decided to set up a working group for women researchers in the field, which is now part of the LOVA Network for Feminist Anthropologists and Gender Studies (Landelijk Overleg Vrouwenstudies in de Antropologie). She hopes to spread more awareness and achieve better aftercare in incidents like the one she experienced. A battle that is still being fought - not a game.
You can read NRC's full Dutch article below:
