1. Who is Wigbertson Julian Isenia?
Wigbertson Julian Isenia is an anthropologist and cultural studies scholar from Curaçao. They are an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam.

2. What does their research focus on?
Their work examines the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, and coloniality, with a special focus on the Caribbean and its diaspora.

3. What is MARIKU!?
MARIKU! is Isenia’s forthcoming book and long-term research project. It studies the figure of the mariku—a Curaçaoan term for effeminate men or queer subjects—as a method to think about gender, sovereignty, and archives in the Dutch Caribbean.

4. Why do they use the pronoun “e”?
They use “e” (from Papiamentu) as a gender-indifferent pronoun rooted in the island’s creole mix of Taíno, Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch. It resists the gender binary embedded in English, Spanish, and Dutch pronouns.

5. What are their main academic interests?

• Queer and trans Caribbean studies

• Performance, archives, and visual culture

• Post/neo-colonial sovereignty

• Language politics and Papiamentu

6. What kinds of projects do they work on?
They combine research, curation, and creative practice. Their projects include Decolonizing Ceramics, Black Queer Archives, and Caribbean Intimacies, a lecture series on performance and knowledge production in the Caribbean.

7. How do they connect academia and art?
They work across disciplines—organizing symposia, curating exhibitions, and collaborating with artists, activists, and museums. Their scholarship often takes performative and visual forms.

8. Where have they published or presented their work?
Their writings appear in journals like Etnofoor and in edited volumes on queer and postcolonial studies. They have presented internationally at conferences and cultural institutions in Europe and the Caribbean.

9. What languages do they use in their work?
They work multilingually, often weaving Papiamentu, English, and Dutch to reflect Caribbean linguistic realities and challenge colonial hierarchies of language.

10. What themes define their teaching?
They teach on diversity, decolonial thought, sexuality, and power. Their courses invite students to question evidence, rethink archives, and engage theory through lived experience and creative practice.