About the researchers

Guiselle Starink-Martha

Guiselle Starink-Martha (Curaçao, 1978) obtained her MA in Latin American Studies from Leiden University (The Netherlands) in 2006. Between 2008 and 2012 she worked as a PhD researcher at Radboud University Nijmegen. 

Starink-Martha has given guest lectures and presented conference papers on topics such as cosmopolitanism, performance and nation-building in modern-day Caribbean societies and transnational communities. In 2013 she took the initiative to organize an art exhibition and a series of events in order to both commemorate and celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Dutch abolition of slavery in the city center of The Hague in collaboration with the The Hague Public Library. She aimed to use cultural expressions such as literature, music and dance in an experimental manner in order to rethink the way both white Dutch and the Afro-Dutch deal with race and the colonial past in the current Dutch multicultural setting and to connect different social actors and academics in a public setting. In the past she has co-coordinated and taught part of an undergraduate course on diversity in Europe and organized meetings within the academic community as well as public events.

In 2014 Starink-Martha was honored to receive a Silvia W. de Groot grant which allowed her to perform pilot research on Curaçao on new media and aesthetics in new formulations of an Afro-Curaçaoan identity. In November 2014 she started to work as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Amsterdam, where she researches the construction of notions of nationness on the islands of St Maarten and St Eustatius. In her research Guiselle Starink-Martha aims to broaden perspectives on the processes of nation-building and on the link between our everyday life experiences and the construction of a sense of ‘belonging’ to communities within a flexible, globalized world. 

Jordi Halfman

Jordi Halfman (Arnhem, 1982) started her PhD-journey in the fall of 2014 at the University of Amsterdam. She obtained both her bachelor and master's degree in Cultural Anthropology from that same university in 2012 and 2013.

Jordi is most interested in human responsibility, equality and the creative ways through which we all fight for these. Learning from the everyday interactions and imaginations of all the people around her is where her work starts. In her master research she learned from street-soccer players in the Netherlands. Their imaginations and ethics of living together were translated into sound art and exhibited in Amsterdam Zuid Oost.

Her PhD journey takes to her Sint Maarten and the wider (Dutch) Caribbean where her research will draw together her anthropological interests with her love for working with and learning from the rich imagination of children. Using extensive creative methods, she wishes to capture and expand the reach of the imaginations of those boys and girls who are the future citizens of our shared Kingdom.

Nicole Sanches

Nicole Sanches (Amsterdam, 1984) is a PhD Candidate in Cultural Anthropology at Utrecht University. She earned her Masters in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Amsterdam in 2012, with a thesis on the experiences and perspectives of local activists within a food deprived area of Brooklyn, New York City. Her other ethnographic work explores perspectives on life by religious rap artists, and the future dreams of young athletes in challenging inner city neighborhoods.

​Her current research project explores expressions of belonging in a time of educational changes, constitutional changes and a time where people’s political and cultural rights are strongly intertwined with ideas of national belonging. In her research she learns from and works together with Statian youth on and off the island to reflect on what it means to be young and Statian today, and tomorrow. 



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Valika Smeulders

Valika Smeulders (Curaçao, 1969) studied Languages and Cultures of Latin America at Leiden University and Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico. She obtained her doctorate at Erasmus University Rotterdam with a thesis on the presentation of the slavery past in Suriname, Curaçao, Ghana and South Africa. In her work she focuses on heritage, the colonial past, social diversity, representation and new audiences, bridging divides between heritage institutions, universities and community organizations.
 
As the owner of Pasado Presente she is working with the Imagining the Nation-team on an exhibition on identity and nation on Sint Maarten and Sint Eustatius. Another project is One Happy Kingdom 2017, a performance of Caribbean-Dutch history, in cooperation with the Comité Koninkrijksrelaties and several other parties. Pasado Presente also offers historical tours on Black Pioneers and Caribbean World War II Heroes in Den Haag.
 
Smeulders is a postdoc researcher at KITLV as part of the research project Traveling Caribbean Heritage, studying the dynamics of heritage formation in Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao and the Netherlands as influenced by migration and creolization, non-sovereignty and nation-building, and tourism.
 
Smeulders is a member of the Unesco Memory of the World Comité and the board of the Werkgroep Caraïbische Letteren. In 2013 she received a Solo di Kòrsou Award  issued by the Prime Minister of Curaçao for her research and work dedicated to the Curaçaoan community in the Netherlands.