I am an Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Utrecht University. Connecting anthropology, cultural studies, and collaborative ethnography, my work explores cross-cultural meanings of death, dying, and disposal across scales.
I am particularly interested in how end-of-life issues, on the one hand, and pre- and post-mortem care arrangements and ritual practices on the other, are generative of change and various forms of belonging. In doing so, I also focus on dying, death, extinction, and the grievability of more-than-human beings and life forms, exploring the ritualization of climate pain and ecological grief.
I conducted extensive research in Suriname and the Netherlands. In earlier work I explored issues of non/sovereignty, equaliberty, postcolonialism, and politics of belonging in the Dutch Caribbean. Anthropologizing together with others in and outside academia is what I love most. [Profile photo by www.fotograafmarjolein.nl]
Interests & expertise
Current research & public engagement
Currently, I focus on both pre- and post-mortem care practices and ideals in the Netherlands. I am fascinated by new arrangements and rituals that emerge under the pretext of liberal choice and as celebrations of life, whereas aging, mortality, and death are simultaneously viewed as medical-technological failures rather than as inevitable human (spiritual) trajectories. My research critically explores the messy cycle of life and death that carries elements of death denial, death revival, and death avoidance at the same time. This includes an interest in attitudes toward and ritualizations of climate pain and ecological grief.
In the research project Mors Neerlandica, I explore together with colleagues from the Funeraire Academie Dutch death styles: what characterizes our current attitudes toward death and dying, are they different from past attitudes?
Since 2023, I collaborate with theater company Gouden Haas. Together with the makers of Gouden Haas, I explore at the intersection of art, ecology, and rituals questions such as:
(How) can we mourn the loss due to climate change and biodiversity decline?
(How) can we ritualize this loss and what might be the function and strength of such ritualization?
In the production Herinner Ons I experiment with citizen-science, inviting the audience to explore ecological grief and the ritualization of loss due to climate change and biodiversity decline.
I am an active member of DONE, the Netherlands Death Research Network, and I am teacher within Après la Vie Academy that provides training for funeral director and funeral attendant.
The 17th international conference on the social context of death, dying and disposal will be hosted at Utrecht University from Wednesday 27 to Saturday 30 August 2025 > DDD17 The Politics of Death
Previous research & activities
Since 2014 I was involved in the establishment of the first Dutch multicultural funeral home in Amsterdam Southeast by then funeral organization Yarden, which officially opened its doors in the spring of 2020. In 2019-2020 I was member of a special committee of the National Health Council of the Netherlands to advice the Minister of the Interior and Kingdom Relations on the admissibility of new ways of disposing of the dead.
Between 2014 and 2019 I was as co-applicant involved in the NWO-funded research project “Imagining the Nation in the Classroom: A Study of the Politics of Belonging and Nationness on Sint Maarten & Sint Eustatius.” The project resulted, among others, in the exhibition “Identities: Contemporary Caribbean Perspectives” with the Wereldmuseum Rotterdam, and the co-edited volume Equaliberty in the Dutch Caribbean: Non/Sovereign Ways of Being with Rutgers University Press (Critical Caribbean Studies).
Since my PhD research in Suriname, I held various positions within Stichting Instituut ter Bevordering van de Surinamistiek IBS (Dutch Association for the Study of Suriname and the Caribbean). I was review editor (1998-2003) and member of the editorial board (1998-2016) of Oso: Tijdschrift voor Surinamistiek en het Caraïbisch gebied (Oso: Journal for the Study of Suriname and the Caribbean). My PhD thesis LEVENDE-DODEN: Afrikaans-Surinaamse percepties, praktijken rituelen rondom dood en rouw (LIVING-DEAD: African-Surinamese Perceptions, Practices and Rituals surrounding Death and Mourning) from 2007 was published within the IBS series Bronnen voor de Studie van Suriname (Series for the Study of Suriname) and resulted in a second edition in 2010 with Rozenberg Publishers.
I served as board member (2013-2018) and vice-president (2015-2018) of the Dutch Anthropological Association (Antropologen Beroepsvereniging ABv) and I am, of course, still a committed member.
Teaching interests
To students
Marvel at the wonders of life, have doubts, and critically examine how knowledge is created. Do not stop asking questions and have fun learning, reading, and writing together. Drop in and if the door is not open: just send an email :)