Peter Speetjens

Journalist

Recent

A short walk through Amazon time with Anna Roosevelt

A professor of anthropology at the University of Illinois, Roosevelt has been dubbed the “matriarch” of archaeology in the Amazon Basin. In a career spanning some 40 years, she helped accomplish a radical shift in the way we perceive past and present in the...

In Brazil, half a century of salt mining sinks a city, displacing thousands

Streets lie deserted. Gardens have overgrown homes. Doors and windows are bricked up. The Bebedouro neighborhood in Maceió, in Brazil’s northeastern coastal state of Alagoas, is a shadow of its former self. And soon not even that. Every building there is numbered. As...

Ontslag wegens een mening

Een oud stuk, opnieuw actueel. De strijd om het Midden-Oosten woedt sinds 11 september 2001 in toenemende mate aan Amerikaanse universiteiten. Pro-Israëlische groeperingen zijn er uitermate actief. Van hen komen de campagnes om andersdenkende als Norman Finkelstein...

An Archaeology of Hope: Interview with anthropologist Michael Heckenberger

Michael Heckenberger has lived among the Kuikuro people at the Upper Xingu River for some 30 years. A professor of anthropology at the University of Florida his research has shown that, prior to the European conquest, the region was not “pristine forest” as was...

I’m a journalist currently based in São Paulo. Following my law studies in Rotterdam I wanted to see the world. After a year in India, I spent some 20 years in the Middle East, before moving to Brazil.

My work has appeared in both Dutch and English language media, including: Trouw, De Groene, De Standaard, Hard Gras, NRC, The Blizzard, MO Magazine, Middle East Eye and Mongabay.

I speak 5 languages, like photography, and in 2004 co-authored the documentary “2000 Terrorists” broadcasted by Al Jazeera.