About Marleen

As part of the Curriculum Team, my drive is to foster an environment where NIAS Fellows can inspire one another and where their work can flourish. I particularly enjoy the rich diversity of people and projects here at NIAS. I help curate the academic programme, including seminars, and support fellows in their research throughout their stay. I also aim to deepen the cross-disciplinary exchanges that make NIAS such a stimulating place to work and think.

Academic work

I am a sociocultural anthropologist (PhD University of Amsterdam, 2008) interested in the postcolonial dynamics of religion, heritage, and material culture in West Africa and Afro-Europe. I have conducted extensive research in Ghana and the Netherlands and have published widely on African Pentecostalism and African Traditional Religion; religion, media, and materiality; heritage and popular culture in urban Ghana; and the social life of African heritage among Afro-Dutch people (all available at https://uu.academia.edu/MarleendeWitte).

Alongside my work at NIAS, I currently research Ghanaian spiritual heritage held in Dutch museum collections, engaging with broader debates on heritage restitution and museum decolonisation.

Outside work

I enjoy working with my hands and being outdoors. In my spare time, I restore vintage furniture and volunteer as a cow herder in my neighbourhood in Amsterdam Southeast.