dc.description.abstract | In The Politics of Passion (Wekker 2006), anthropologist Gloria Wekker broke new ground in presenting an analysis of Mati Work, a surviving historical practice among Afro-Surinamese working-class women who create families from relationships that are not limited to blood ties, or a choice between heterosexuality or homosexuality. Her account offered a rare, thoughtful consideration of a complex Caribbean sexual culture, and continues to challenge conventional knowledges and practices of researchers, rights advocates and policy makers engaged in the struggle for sexual justice. In April 2009, Professor Wekker and I met at her home in Amsterdam—where she is both Chair in Gender and Ethnicity Studies at the Faculty of Arts at Utrecht University and Director of the Centre of Expertise on Gender, Ethnicity and Multiculturalism—and shared our thoughts about some contemporary debates and questions her work informs and inspires. | |