The Politics of Passion: Women's Sexual Culture in the Afro-Surinamese Diaspora

Gloria Wekker

Apr 2006 · Columbia University Press

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Gloria Wekker analyzes the phenomenon of mati work, an old practice among Afro-Surinamese working-class women in which marriage is rejected in favor of male and female sexual partners. Wekker vividly describes the lives of these women, who prefer to create alternative families of kin, lovers, and children, and gives a fascinating account of women's sexuality that is not limited to either heterosexuality or same-sex sexuality. She offers new perspectives on the lives of Caribbean women, transnational gay and lesbian movements, and an Afro-Surinamese tradition that challenges conventional Western notions of marriage, gender, identity, and desire. Bringing these women's voices to the forefront, she offers an extensive and groundbreaking analysis of the unique historical, religious, psychological, economic, linguistic, cultural, and political forces that have shaped their lives.

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Wekker is a full professor of women's studies at Utrecht University-the second black woman so honored in the Netherlands. She received her Ph.D. in sociocultural anthropology from UCLA. She has published several books in Dutch and a number of articles in English. In 2000-2001 she was a visiting Scholar at the Oral History Project at Columbia.