Ph.D. Mikko Toivanen

Biography

Mikko Toivanen is a historian specialising in global and colonial history with a focus on the British and Dutch colonies in nineteenth-century Southeast Asia. His current research investigates the development of urban culture and ideas of public space in Singapore and Batavia in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Toivanen defended his PhD, on colonial travel and tourism in Southeast Asia, at the European University Institute (Florence, Italy) in 2019. He also holds a MA from Leiden University (2014) and a BA from the University of Warwick (2012). His further research interests include the history of Nordic colonial entanglements and the transnational circulations of imperial knowledge.

Most important publications

The travels of Pieter Albert Bik: writings from the Dutch colonial world of the early nineteenth century

Most important scholarly articles

‘Putting imperial time on show: visual culture in the mid-nineteenth-century anniversaries of Singapore and Batavia’, Early Popular Visual Culture (pre-print 2022) [https://doi.org/10.1080/17460654.2022.2065727].
‘The colonial city in motion: managing ethnic diversity through public processions in Singapore and Batavia, 1840-1870’, Asian Ethnicity (pre-print 2022) [https://doi.org/10.1080/14631369.2022.2084360].
‘Kinderen van het imperium: Hugo en Corry Loudon op reis naar Indië’, Indische letteren, 36:4 (2021), 301–319.
‘Disconnectivity in the age of globalisation: coastal ecology, telegraphy and empire in the Sunda Strait, 1863-1883’, Arcadia: Explorations in Environmental History (e-journal), Summer 2021:28. [https://doi.org/10.5282/rcc/9343]
‘Java on the way around the world: European travellers in the Dutch East Indies and the transnational politics of imperial knowledge management, 1850-1870’, BMGN – Low Countries Historical Review, 134:3 (2019), 47–71. [https://doi.org/10.18352/bmgn-lchr.10742]