David Kloos

David Kloos received his BA (2005) and MA (2008) degrees from the VU University of Amsterdam (both in history). He has been employed as PhD candidate at the same department since 2008. In 2009 he joined the Amsterdam School of Social science Research (ASSR) as a guest researcher.

David’s partly historical, partly anthropological research focuses on the relationship between Islamic education and religious practice in Aceh, Indonesia, since the early 1920’s. While the historical part concentrates mainly on the ways in which so called ‘official’ forms of Islam have been constructed, strengthened, standardised, and canonised since the late colonial period, the anthropological fieldwork will deal with specific case studies (schools, life histories, small communities, specific rituals), all of which containing information about the everyday practices of ‘ordinary Muslims’.

The research is funded by the Faculty of Arts, VU University Amsterdam. Travel grants and fellowships were granted by the Aceh Research Training Institute (University of Melbourne) and the Australia-Netherlands Research Collaboration (Canberra/Leiden).