We are proud to announce that Erasmus University Rotterdam’s Executive Board has appointed prof.dr. Tâm T. T. Ngô as endowed professor of Historical Anthropology of War Legacies at Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication from September 2026 to September 2031. Professor Ngô is a senior researcher at Senior Researcher at the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, an international centre of expertise of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). Through this interview, professor Ngô introduces herself to the EUR community.
What is your endowed chair about?
Wars do not end when the fighting stops. Their consequences continue to shape lives, landscapes, and societies for generations. The new chair focuses on how societies live with the long-term legacies of war. A distinctive feature of the chair is its attention to both human and environmental consequences of war. The recovery and identification of missing soldiers and civilians are studied alongside the lasting ecological damage caused by conflict. Questions of responsibility, repair, and remembrance therefore extend not only to people, but also to damaged ecosystems. War leaves traces that extend far beyond the battlefield.
Can you tell a little bit about your field of work? What makes your research stand out?
My research has always been a rich combination of anthropology, history, memory studies, and environmental humanities. My work examines how different forms of accounting for war losses shape post-war societies; human, ecological, and cultural. Much of my research focuses on Asia, particularly Vietnam, while placing these experiences in a broader comparative and global perspective.
Another important focus is the role of media and popular culture. Films, literature, digital media, museums, memorials, and battlefield tourism all influence how societies remember violence and imagine possibilities for reconciliation. Memory is not only produced in archives and official commemorations. It is also created through films, photographs, social media, museums, and everyday acts of remembrance. These cultural forms shape how new generations engage with difficult histories.
How did you get into this field?
I am from Vietnam and was born in the far north, close to the border with China. Growing up in this ethno-culturally rich region made me curious about how historic events continue to shape the present-day politics and local life there. This curiosity has directly affected the kind of research I do and have done. My first PhD research on cultural change among the Hmong (an ethnic group in Vietnam) brought me face-to-face with the legacy of political violence in the region. This led me to study the political legacy and social memory of the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese Border War. Ever since, my research has been about memory and commemoration of war in a culture. This also brought me to the subject of the Vietnam War, which is at the core of commemorative politics in Vietnam today. It all led me to study the treatment of human remains, as a way of understanding war and its effect on people.
What societal significance does it demonstrate?
The chair has direct international relevance. I advise the Vietnam Martyr Families Association and Vietnam Veteran Association, serve on the expert panel of the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP), and participated in a transnational project on war commemoration and peacebuilding comparing East Asian and Balkan cases, sponsored by Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
What specific contribution do you make to ESHCC through your endowed appointment?
My endowed chair strengthens Erasmus University's interdisciplinary expertise in heritage, memory, media, and global history. It also further expands the long-standing collaboration between ESHCC and NIOD. Through research, teaching, and public engagement, the chair aims to contribute to international debates on war, memory, environmental justice, and post-conflict reconciliation.
At ESHCC, I will develop teaching on war legacies, memory politics, heritage, environmental humanities, and media representations of conflict. I will also build new international research collaborations and engage with societal partners, including heritage institutions, museums, and organizations working on missing persons and post-conflict recovery.
Studying war legacies is ultimately about understanding how societies transform loss into care, remembrance into responsibility, and difficult histories into possibilities for a more just future.
