Gloria Wekker is a social and cultural anthropologist specializing in gender studies, sexuality, African American and Caribbean studies. She was a professor of gender studies at the Faculty of Humanities at Utrecht University and has been emerita since 2012. Her books include The Politics of Passion: Women’s Sexual Culture in the Afro-Surinamese Diaspora (2006; awarded the Ruth Benedict Prize by the American Anthropological Association in 2007) and White Innocence: Paradoxes of Colonialism and Race in the Netherlands (2016), which sparked widespread debate both domestically and internationally.

Wekker has advised the Dutch government in various advisory roles on minority, health, and women’s emancipation policies. In 2015 and 2016, she was a member of the Commission on Democratization and Decentralization and chaired the Diversity Commission at the University of Amsterdam. In 2017, Science Guide named her one of the ten most influential Dutch academics, and she received the prestigious Joke Smit Prize, established by the government, for her lifelong commitment to women’s emancipation and her human resources work for the empowerment of Black, migrant, and refugee women. She also received a Black Achievement Award in the field of science.

In 2019–2020, she held the King Willem-Alexander Chair for Low Countries Studies at the University of Liège, Belgium. She writes short stories and poetry. She gives lectures and presentations both in the Netherlands and internationally on diversity, focusing on aspects of gender, race/ethnicity, and sexuality. She also advises cultural, religious, and commercial organizations in these areas.