Nikki Mulder is a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer at the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology of Leiden University. Her dissertation ‘Financing Afterlives’ (2025, cum laude) examines how racial inequality shapes the consumption and use of life insurance policies in New Orleans, USA. Her current postdoctoral project explores how normative frameworks about a ‘good death’ and ‘good care’ are formed and negotiated in public discourse in the European Netherlands.

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Nikki Mulder is a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer at the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology of Leiden University. She obtained her PhD from Leiden University in 2025 (cum laude).

Nikki’s research explores normative notions of dying, death and the afterlife in relation to societal inequalities and financial means and technologies. Her dissertation ‘Financing Afterlives’ examines how racial inequality shapes the consumption and use of life insurance policies in New Orleans, USA. She has regional expertise in the United States, the pan-Caribbean region, and the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

Her postdoctoral research project examines how normative frameworks about a ‘good death’ and ‘good care’ are formed and negotiated in public discourse in the European Netherlands. This research is part of the NWO-funded project ‘The Future of Dying: End-of-Life Care in a Time of De-medicalized Death’.

Together with Jasmijn Rana, Nikki teaches the course ‘Diversity and Power’ for second-year BSc students and supervises students writing their MSc thesis.

Alongside her academic work, Nikki also studies creative writing at the Schrijversvakschool in Amsterdam.

Publications