In Memoriam Gerrit Grootenhuis (1930-2019)

The African Studies Centre Leiden is sad to report that Gerrit Grootenhuis died on 18 April 2019. Grootenhuis led the African Studies Centre as general secretary from 1969 to 1990.

Gerrit Willem Grootenhuis was born in Ommen on 11 July 1930. He studied anthropology in Utrecht, and worked as a Dutch colonial official in what was then the Netherlands Indies and New Guinea. From 1962 to 1967 he worked at the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) in Amsterdam. He published two books: one on the Wege movement in New Guinea, and one about an agricultural project in Suriname.

Grootenhuis will be remembered for his managerial qualities rather than for his research and publications. He steered the African Studies Centre through a difficult period, in which the societal upheaval of the 1960s was also felt in scientific institutions. The African Studies Centre had been scientifically professionalized by his predecessor, Prof. Hans Holleman. But Holleman had difficulty with the new spirit of democratization that had reached Leiden, and retreated to the security of his academic work.

Grootenhuis came to Leiden in June 1967, as the more practical second man (general secretary) to director Holleman. He travelled to Africa in 1967, and wrote a report on social-medical research in East Africa in 1968. After Holleman left the African Studies Centre as director, Grootenhuis took over as general secretary (“cum director”, as the ASC Annual Report for 1969 put it).

With Grootenhuis the ASC entered a new period, in which research became paramount. This was in complete accordance with what Grootenhuis wanted, in which the organization was arranged in such a manner that the scientific leadership of the institute was placed in the hands of the researchers at the ASC. Grootenhuis was able to read the sign of the times. He was a kind and helpful man, who steered the African Studies Centre through two volatile decades. When he retired in December 1990, he received the book Eten met Gerrit, a book about eating and drinking experiences of Dutch africanists. Our thoughts are with his children and grandchildren.