Professor Dr. Catrien Notermans

Biography

Catrien Notermans is an associate professor in the Department of Cultural Anthropology and Development Studies at Radboud University. She obtained her propaedeutic degree in Art History and her master’s in Cultural Anthropology, earning her doctorate in 1999 with a study on Christian women's polygamous marriages in Cameroon. The focus on kinship, gender, and religion has been the common thread in her research, which has developed from multiple parenthood in West Africa to migration and Marian pilgrimage in Europe, and to nature pilgrimages and human-nature relations in India. Concerned about the ecological crises threatening the vitality and sustainability of humans and nature globally, she is now investigating, from a cross-cultural perspective, the possibility of 'kinship beyond humans': can we feel kinship with non-human beings such as animals, trees, and rivers? Furthermore, what can we learn from people elsewhere? These types of questions and interests are reflected in her teaching, where she focuses on kinship and the practicing of multisensory and multispecies ethnography.

Research Interests