Barend Jan (Baas) Terwiel (born 24 November 1941) is a Dutch-Australian

anthropologist An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and ...

, historian and Thai studies scholar. He has written books on ethnology of Tai peoples and

Ahom Ahom may refer to: *Ahom people, an ethnic community in Assam * Ahom language, a language associated with the Ahom people *Ahom religion, an ethnic folk religion of Tai-Ahom people *Ahom alphabet, a script used to write the Ahom language * Ahom kin ...

, the history and culture of Thailand as well as historical travel of Europeans to mainland Southeast Asia. He retired in 2007, although he still writes about Thailand, releasing a new edition of his book ''Thailand's Political History'' in 2010. He authored 11 articles over 47 years from 1972 to 2019 for Journal of the Siam Society.

Education

Terwiel was born in Ginneken near

Breda Breda () is a city and municipality in the southern part of the Netherlands, located in the province of North Brabant. The name derived from ''brede Aa'' ('wide Aa' or 'broad Aa') and refers to the confluence of the rivers Mark and Aa. Breda has ...

in the Netherlands. After his military service in Netherlands New Guinea, Terwiel had to spend a few days in Bangkok due to a lack of transport capacity, which aroused his interest for Thailand. He completed his studies at the Utrecht University with a '' candidaats'' degree in Cultural Anthropology in 1965 and a ''

doctorandus Doctorandus (drs., ; ) is a Dutch academic title according to the pre-Bachelor–Master system. The female form is doctoranda (dra., though this abbreviation is no longer used). The title is acquired by passing the ''doctoraalexamen'', the exam wh ...

'' degree in Anthropology, Pali and the History of Buddhism in 1967. For his doctoral studies, he moved to the Australian National University where he graduated with a Ph.D. in 1972. For his dissertation project, he had himself ordained as a Buddhist monk and lived for a year in a village monastery in central Thailand to explore ceremonies and religious practice of Thai Buddhism from an inner perspective.

Career

From 1972 to 1974 Terwiel worked as a coordinator training volunteers at the Dutch Royal Tropical Institute, Amsterdam. Then, he became a lecturer at the Faculty of Asian Studies of the Australian National University in Canberra, where he was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 1982 and Reader in Asian History in 1991. In the same year, he was appointed Professor at the Institute of Ethnology of the

Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich or LMU; german: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Germany. It is Germany's sixth-oldest university in continuous operatio ...

, Germany. In 1992, Terwiel moved to the Asia and Africa Institute of the University of Hamburg where he held the Chair of Languages and Cultures of Thailand and Laos until his retirement in 2007.

References

Dutch anthropologists Australian anthropologists Thai studies scholars Historians of Thailand Academic staff of the University of Hamburg Australian National University faculty Australian National University alumni 1941 births Living people {{Australia-anthropologist-stub