Kort præsentation

Hi there! Thank you for finding your way to my university profile. I appreciate you being here.

I am a tenure-track assistant professor in European Ethnology with a disciplinary background in environmental anthropology and history.

Broadly conceived, my work focuses on the industries, technologies and interests that have shaped the contemporary environmental planetary predicament and the people who bear the brunt of these impacts. 

Current research:

I am a part of Responsible mine restoration - Integrating local engagement, ecology, and engineered solutions in Arctic environment (RestoMine) funded by Nordforsk. Together with anthropologist Nathalia Brichet we approach mine closure ethnographically and conceptually from multiple angles. With a geographical focus on the Arctic, we consider closure in regard to its social, political, and cultural impacts with a strong focus on the historical and present circumstances (including colonialism).

We look at projected mines, active mines, and closed mines (potentially re-opening). Small mines and huge mines, expanding mines, and abandoned mines. We talk to people who live around mines, are effected by mines, remember mines, and story mines. 

We are interested in mine closure as plans, commitments, successes and failures. As future-making devices, impossibilities, technical and financial challenges. As controversial, political, and harmful.

Fieldwork will take place in Kalaallit Nunaat and Sápmi in Northern Sweden.  The project is a continuation of my current interests on post-industrial landscapes, toxic heritage, and environmental justice.

Book project (this text is intended to keep me accountable):

I am working on a larger book project tentatively titled: Closure: Arctic Mining Worlds and the Work of Ending. The project considers the practical, social, cultural and political aspects of ending in relation to mines; what kind of worlds does the mine sustain and what worlds does it erase; how do mines end and what happens to communities when a mine ends; how are mines perceived culturally – can they be used to maintain status quo or envision other worlds; and can closure be utilized as a political intervention?

Previous research

My previous research sat at the intersection of chemical pollution, environmental justice, and science and technology studies. My PhD dissertation Submergence: Environmental Justice and the Specter of Chemical Exposure investigated the Danish company Cheminova, a well-known historical and contemporary polluter. I explored what it means to live with, and in, a contaminated landscape for more than 70 years. Within a welfare state context, I positioned my analysis by examining the epistemological incongruities between techno-scientific expertise, industrial representations of pollution, legal frameworks, and bureaucratic regulations, but with an explicit engagement with the local community and their perspectives.

Another research interest involves the role of technology in Danish climate politics. Together with Professor Niklas Olsen, our project Promethean Promises: Historical Perspectives on Contemporary Danish Climate Politics, traces the emergence and consolidation of technologies such as Carbon Capture and Storage, Power-to-X, and Bioenergy in a Danish context by looking at various actors, infrastructures - both material and epistemic - as well as the imaginaries they convey. The project explores how these specific technologies permit a status-quo utopia by promising to sustain growth regimes while preserving the image of Denmark as a green pioneer.

Thank you for reading. If you want to explore further, feel free to visit my personal website