Dew Baboeram

Sandew Hira, a.k.a Dew Baboeram, studied economics at the Erasmus University Rotterdam. In 1982 he published his first book on the history of struggles against colonialism in Suriname from 1630-1940. Since then he has published more than 20 books and numerous reports and articles on the history of Suriname and the position of migrants in Holland. He initiated the web-based database on indentured labour in Suriname, a digitized version of the immigration register containing detailed data on 70,000 immigrants from India, Java and China to Suriname between 1853 and 1939. He co-produced three historical documentaries on Suriname with director Ivette Forster. He is currently involved in a programme Decolonizing the mind that aims to produce alternative knowledge for eurocentric science. Hira is director of the International Institute for Scientific Research (IISR) in the Netherlands.