Dear Lova-members,
We are sorry to have to bring you the very sad news that one of our former Lova chairs and good friend Karin Willemse has passed away. She died last Saturday the 18th of March surrounded by her loved ones after a period of illness.
Karin will be greatly missed by her son, family, friends, and the (feminist) academic community at large, in particular that of Lova.
Below, you find the obituary notice and the invitation to attend her farewell service on Monday, March 27, in Leiden. Please do send a note when you intend to come to: inmemoriamkarin@gmail.com as indicated in the obituary. The service will also be live-streamed.
Warm regards,
Tine Davids on behalf of the entire LOVA Board
Obituary notice Karin Willemse
Rouwkaart Karin Willemse
Read here the obituary of Annelou Ypeij and Tine Davids, written in March 2023
In memory of Karin Willemse
Karin Willemse was Lova’s president between 1998 and 2004. Her passing away on March 18, 2023, just two weeks before her 61-birthday, shocked and saddens us. We remember her for the vibrant personality she was, full of strength and energy.
The seeds for Karins engagement with our association were planted already in the early 1980s, during the first years of her studies in Cultural Anthropology at Leiden University. As Jan-Bart Gewald writes, at that time the department was very much influenced by structuralism and scholars such as its professor P.E. de Josselin de Jong.[1] Karin, however, was much more inspired by a new, exciting and critical direction in science, namely feminist anthropology, personalised by Joke Schrijvers who was co-director of the Research Centre for Women and Development (VENA) at Leiden University and one of Karin’s teachers. Joke recalls Karin’s acuteness, active participation in class and attentive listening. When Joke spoke in class about her experiences as a woman fieldworker working with local women, Karins reaction was unmistakable full of interest. Joke describes Karin ‘as if being struck by lightning, frozen, with wide open eyes.’[2] These early academic experiences inspired Karin to fully and passionately embrace feminist anthropology as her field of study and knowledge development.
Already during her master’s studies[3] Karin focused on Sudan as her regional specialisation, an interest she maintained throughout her academic career and that earned her wide academic respect. Her first journey to Sudan, to the Jebel Marra Mountains, was between October 1986 and April 1987 when she did fieldwork for her master’s degree under supervision of Joke Schrijvers. She worked in the village of Boré with women whose societal positions and autonomy she analysed in the context of the economic changes in the region. In 1988, she finished her master’s thesis and received her degree.[4] Already in this thesis, her feminist writing – writing against the grain as she herself calls it in her later work – becomes notable. Next to the ‘obligated’ anthropological analysis, she included a letter to her family about her fieldwork and a description of a day in the life of a Fur-woman. Soon after her graduation, she acquired a PhD-position under supervision of Peter Geschiere and Joke Schrijvers at the CNWS Research School of Asian, African, and Amerindian studies of Leiden University. Every two weeks, PhD-candidates gathered in a postgraduate seminar about African history and anthropology. Then co-student Jan-Bart Gewald recalls how during these seminars and the drinks afterwards in the Posthof, he ‘(…) became aware of the fierce intellect, unremitting power and academic insight that was Karin Willemse.’[5]
Her PhD-thesis is based on extensive anthropological field research in Kebkabiya, a small town in Darfur, West-Sudan. She did her fieldwork in two periods between 1990-1995. Just before her first fieldwork period, the Islamist government of Sudan had come to power. During her stay, the Gulf War broke out and the Sudanese government implemented the Islamic law. Subsequently, her research questions regarding the meanings local women ascribed to their work in relation to religion were put in a completely new light.[6] She developed the method of the biographical narrative and research against the grain (listening, reading and writing against the grain). In a societal context, where public life is dominated by men, as was the case in Darfur, women – in first instance – are less well-articulated in answering informative research questions. After all, their opinion about societal issues is hardly ever asked. Karin’s biographic narrating method comes down to avoid asking guiding questions and give the women as much room as possible to speak on their own terms about subjects that they themselves consider important. Against the grain listening allows for silences and their interpretation. Against the grain reading requires to analyse the collected narratives as text-in-context and against the grain writing involves a thorough reflection on the position of the researcher and her presence in the final text.[7] With these methods Karin proofed herself to be a true feminist researcher for which she was rewarded her degree as doctor with the annotation cum laude at 19 September, 2001. Her thesis One Foot in Heaven: Narratives on Gender and Islam in Darfur, West Sudan was published by Brill in 2007.
Karin became Lova’s president three years after the restart of our organisation. In 1994, our treasurer Anne Aalten warned several colleagues that interest in Lova was fading away to such dramatic levels that the feasibility of Lova’s continuity was in question. On 9 November of that year, Tine Davids, amongst others and in collaboration with the Radboud University Students Association Tchambouli, organised an event around whether and how to continue with Lova. Feminist anthropological teachers, professors, researchers, and students gave their support to Lova and Joke Schrijvers took upon herself the presidency. In 1995, Lova was reorganised into a formal association with articles, a national board, and several commissions.[8] This process was well on its way when Karin took over the presidency from Joke and became responsible for Lova’s further innovation and growth. In Lova’s journal, she presents herself as a member of the younger Lova generations that owe much to the older ones, those who have built Lova with endurance and tireless efforts and she thanks for the trust. She wishes to bring it all together, the old and the new, the theory and the practice.[9] Under her leadership, Lova continued its transformation: its first website was built, the commissions became powerful with their own responsibilities, and the journal professionalised. Especially the latter needed much of Karin’s attention, because of the many changes in the editorial board. Also, a new graphic designer was hired, and the journal received a modern look, layout, and format. One of the last activities that was organised during Karin’s presidency was the preparation of Lova’s 25th anniversary. In 2004, after an earlier period in which Gerdien Steenbeek and I (Annelou) temporarily substituted Karin because of her pregnancy relieve, she stepped down and we took over. At the 25th celebration, we toasted to our association that Karin left us alive and kicking.
It was in the busy years of writing her PhD-thesis and Lova’s presidency, that Karin met the love of her life Leen Vroegindeweij at a terrace in Leiden, the city where she studied, was writing, worked and lived. In 1997, they married and five years later – shortly after the defence of her PhD-thesis – they became parents of Arend.
Karin obtained a part-time position as teacher and researcher at the History Department of the Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication in 1998. In 2006, the unimaginable happened: after a short sickbed, her beloved Leen passed away at the age of 58. Though this meant a tremendous blow for Karin, she continued her academic career as a single mother and with energy and ambition. Her personal page at the Erasmus University shows her political and societal engagement.[10] She regularly delivered lectures outside of the department, participated in discussions, was invited for panels, by the Dutch radio, and by the Dutch embassy in Khartoum. She organized Winter Schools for staff members and PhD-students at Sudanese universities. She worked with Care International and was advisor for organisations such as Oxfam, Doctors without Borders, and the World Health Organization. Next to One Foot in Heaven, she published articles in journals and edited volumes and – together with Tine Davids – co-edited two special issues on feminist ethnography, one for the Dutch Journal of Gender Studies (Tijdschrift voor Gender Studies) and one for Women’s Studies International Forum. That she was still in the middle of her life and career when she passed away, is shown by the many projects she was developing. Other projects that were already well on their way must be concluded without her. One important example is the volume on Motherhood and Belonging. Gendered Narrations of the Nation State and Beyond that she was co-editing, once again with Tine Davids. All her plans and projects speak her continued interest for issues of gender and Islam and her love for Sudan as a research region. One such project is hopefully called the ‘New Sudan’ and deals with Sudan after the outing of its dictator Omar al-Bashir in 2019. For certain, the Sudanese crisis and war that are currently developing into a humanitarian disaster was not what Karin understood with the New Sudan. It is unbelievably sad, that we have to miss her expertise and bright insights on these recent occurrences. Dear Karin, rest in peace, we will miss you deeply.
[1] ‘In Memoriam’ by Jan-Bart Gewald and colleagues, https://www.ascleiden.nl/news/memoriam-karin-willemse-1962-2023. Consulted 24-05-2023.
[2] ‘Herinneringen aan Karin Willemse’. Letter of Joke Schrijvers sent to Karin’s family after her passing away. Not published.
[3] She studied before the introduction of the Bachelor-Master system at the Dutch Universities. Officially, she did a ‘doctoraal’ programme.
[4] Karin Willemse (1991) Werken Maakt Sterk: Een Antropologische Studie naar de mate van Autonomie van Fur-vrouwen in Jebel-Marra, Darfur (West Soedan’, Centrum Vrouwen en Autonomie, Rijksuniversiteit Leiden, Leiden.
[5] ‘In Memoriam’, Jan-Bart Gewald.
[6] Karin Willemse (2003), ‘Landschap van herinnering: ruimte voor de biografieën van vrouwen in Kebkabiya, West Soedan’, Lova Tijdschrift voor Feministische Antropologie, 24 (2): 28-36.
[7] Madelief Brok, Lou de Jong en Nanneke Winters (2004) ‘One Foot in Narratives, One Foot in Science’, Lova Tijdschrift voor Feministische Antropologie, 25 (1): 22-35.
[8] Karin Willemse (2009) ‘Een speldenprikje: Lova erelid Joke Schrijvers. Voortrekker, voorbeeld en ‘voormoeder’, Lova Tijdschrift voor Feministische Antropologie, 30 (2): 14-15.
[9] Karin Willemse, (1998) ‘De nieuwe voorzitter stelt zich voor’, Lova Tijdschrift voor Feministische Antropologie, 19 (2/3): 2.
[10] https://www.eur.nl/en/eshcc/research/global-history/karin-willemse. Consulted 24-05-2023.