Major research interests and field studies
Somali migrants and refugees in the Horn of Africa, en route and in Europe, focusing on topics such as migration, social invisibility, mobility, Somalis, future prospects, temporality, uncertainty, clan- and family relations within and across borders, diaspora humanitarianism, European Search & Rescue operations and biometric technologies. Extended experience with multi-sited fieldwork in Ethiopia, Somaliland, Turkey, Greece and Italy.

Current research projects

Principal Investigator, ERC Starting Grant: The Social Life of Dead Bodies. A new ethnographic approach to migrant deaths in and around the Mediterranean Sea (SOLID)

Thousands of people have died in the attempt to migrate into Europe through irregular channels. In fact, 2023 has seen the highest number of migrant deaths in the Mediterranean since 2017 . We only ever see very few of these bodies. Some die in the deserts of Sudan and Libya never to be found, others get stuck inside shipwrecks at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. Even the dead bodies that end up on the shores of Europe often remain unknown and thus socially obscure. However, in their local communities left behind, the dead and missing continue to hold great social importance. SOLID presents an innovative theoretical and methodological approach to understanding the social life of deceased migrants by employing a research strategy that is ethnographic, global and collaborative. The aim is to promote the humanisation and social visibility of deceased migrants by creating a broader understanding of the human lives behind the tragic statistics of migrant deaths. The SOLID research project introduces the analytical lens of social anatomy, which refers to the configurations of social arrangements that emerge around missing or deceased migrants as various people and organisations employ practices of determination to identify, understand and/or keep indeterminate who has passed away and how. By bringing together forensic, social, economic, humanitarian, political and criminological actors and perspectives on the same unidentified bodies of deceased migrants, this project pursues an innovative analytical approach to the anthropology of death, and specifically to dying in anonymity. It highlights the social importance of missing and deceased migrants in their communities as well as in Europe by tracing the social concerns left behind in Somaliland, Morocco, Greece and Spain through the innovative methodological approach, generative collaborations. This method captures the multiple configurations of knowledge and practices as different actors respond to the same dead bodies.

Grant: The Social Life of Dead Bodies: A new ethnographic approach to migrant deaths in and around the Mediterranean Sea (SOLID) has received a five year funding from European Research Council, the ERC Starting Grant 2024: SOLID_The Social Life of Dead Bodies – Department of Anthropology - University of Copenhagen

A part of the research network "Keep the City Ticking: Architectures of Fulfillment and the Infrastructures of Migration and Labour" lead by Associate Professor Marlene Spanger, AAU

Grant: Danmarks Frie Forskningsfond (2024-2027)

Previous research projects

The Criminalisation of Humanitarianism: From Volunteers to Human Smugglers in Italy
The aim of this postdoctoral project is to explore the criminalisation of humanitarianism, that is the effects of the recent criminalization of women and men who volunteer to conduct rescue operations at the Italian borders to save the lives of migrants trying to enter Europe. This will for an example be done by following everyday practices of volunteers from NGOs and civil society organisations active in Search and Rescue operations in Sicily, Italy and their interactions with each other, local Italians, migrants and Italian state representatives. I will analyse these data through an interdisciplinary perspective, combining migration studies, criminology and peace and conflict studies. This has not been done before and will innovate the academic field and will enable me to explore how the fight against illegal migrants entering Europe has become a fight against the work of human smugglers, legitimizing a new legal and moral order: https://www.carlsbergfondet.dk/da/Forskningsaktiviteter/Bevillingsstatistik/Bevillingsoversigt/CF18_0569_Anja-Simonsen
Grant: Carlsberg Fonden’s internationaliserings stipendium (Start: Aug. 2020)

"Did you get your fingers taken?“: The Experiences of Biometrics among Somali migrants and refugees in Italy 
During fieldwork among Somali migrants in countries such as Greece or Italy, one often hears the question, ’Did you get your fingers taken?’ This question points to migrants’ worries about having their fingerprints registered biometrically and thus being stuck in particular geographical places, with extreme consequences for future livelihood possibilities. People on the move that are recognized as refugees according to the 1951 Refugee Convention have to stay in the first EU country of entry as a consequence of biometric registration and the Dublin Regulations. Due to its geographical location, Italy is often one of the first countries that migrants enter. For many refugees, getting ‘stuck’ in Italy however, means surviving by sleeping on the streets and eating free meals from Churches or other organizations providing food. This subproject asks how Somali refugees navigate in the biometric landscape of fingerprint- and other biometric modalities, and on what actually happens if they get their fingers taken?
The subproject is part of the collaborative research project Biometric Border Worlds: http://biometricborderworlds.dk/
Grant: VELUX Foundation (Jul. 2016 – May 2019).

PhD: Tahriib: The Journey into the Unknown. An Ethnography of mobility, insecurities and uncertainties among Somalis en route

The aim of this subproject is to understand the social dynamics between the expectations of a life in Europe as an investment in the future (Somaliland & Turkey) and the actual experience of a life there (Greece) as an undocumented Somali migrant. I am particularly interested in the following three research questions:

• Which networks do undocumented Somali migrants make use of when navigating from Somaliland to Turkey and Greece and how? (Practice)
• How do undocumented Somali migrants’ hopes and expectations as investments in a future in Greece match or not match the lived reality? (Prospects)
• How does the family constitution of the Somalis across borders affect or not affect the expectations and the lived reality of the undocumented Somali migrants in Europe? (Position)

Part of the comparative project: Invisible Lives - A Comparative ethnography of undocumented migration, at the Department of anthropology, University of Copenhagen: https://anthropology.ku.dk/research/research-projects/completed_projects/invisible_lives/
Grant: FKK (Feb. 2013-Feb. 2017)

Educational Background

• Ph.d. Fellow, part of the projects 'Invisible Lives - an ethnography of undocumented migration', Department of Anthropology at the University of Copenhagen, 2013 - 2017
• Cand.scient.anth with a specialization in Global Studies and Development, Department of Anthropology at the University of Aarhus, Denmark, 2011
• Bachelor Degree, Department of Anthropology at the University of Aarhus, Denmark, 2009
• One semester at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), The University of London, 2008 (fall).
• One Semester at The Studies of Minorities, The University of Copenhagen, 2009 (spring).

Employment

• Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology at the University of Copenhagen, August 2023 - present
• Tenure Track Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology at the University of Copenhagen, March 2019 - July 2023
• Postdoc., Project: Biometric Border Worlds, Department of Anthropology at the University of Copenhagen, March 2017 - March 2019
• Research Assistant, Project: Biometric Border Worlds, Department of Anthropology at the University of Copenhagen, December 2016 - March 2017
• Campaign Coordinator at ‘Landsindsamlingen 2012’, The Danish Refugee Council, May - November 2012 
• Student Assistant at the Master for Health Anthropology, Aarhus University, July 2009 - July 2010

Coordination, Supervision, and Communication Experience

• Board member of the newly established UCPH Migration and Refugee Research Platform, 2021 - present
• Co-coordinator of the Culture, Mobility, and Power Research Group, the Department of Anthropology at the University of Copenhagen, June 2020 - present
• Core member of the Techne Research Group, the Department of Anthropology at the University of Copenhagen, 2020 - present
• Coordinator of the research group Migration and Social Mobility, the Department of Anthropology at the University of Copenhagen, January 2018 – February 2019, Spring 2015, Fall 2014.
• UCPH Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Program (certified participation), finalized November 2018

Teaching and Supervision Experience

Teaching experience:

• Planning, teaching and examining: E-tivities, course-coordinator, Fall 2023
• Contemporary crisis: A political matter of concern, course-coordinator and co-teacher in collaboration with five colleagues, Spring 2023
• Applied Anthropology in collaboration with Associate Professor Simon Lex and Assistant Professor Matti Weisdorf, Spring 2023
• Global (Dis)connections in collaboration with Associate Professor Atreyee Sen, spring 2021/2022/2023
• ‘Anthropology as social science’ fall 2020/2022/2023
• The Anthropology of Migration, introductory course, Autumn 2013, 2014, 2017, Spring 2021/2022
• Advanced course: the Anthropology of Migration: Mobility as social, economic and cultural resource, Fall 2016 in collaboration with Professor Karen Fog Olwig
• Anthropological Fieldwork and its many forms: Experiences from the field, Fall 2014.

Supervision experience:

• BA students, Fall 2020, Spring/Fall 2021, Spring/Fall 2022, Spring/Fall 2023 - Master thesis, Global Development, Fall 2023: 3, Spring 2023 2 students, MA students 4 - Spring 2021, Global Development 2 studentsMA students 3 - Fall 2017, Master thesis 2, Global Development 2 students.
• Supervisor, 1 Phd student, the department of Anthropology, the University of Copenhagen, Feburary 2024- current
• Co-supervisor, 1 PhD student, the department of Anthropology, the University of Copenhagen, May 2022 – December 2023

Research Affiliations

• INTI International University, Malaysia, Nilai, Research Fellow, 15 Oct. 2023 – 31 Dec. 2025
• COMPAS, University of Oxford, England, Dec. 2021 – 20 Oct. 2023
• Research Stay, Universita Degli Studi Di Milano, Department of Philosophy, Milan, Italy, Mar.–Apr. 2018
• Research stay, the African Studies Centre, University of Oxford, England, Oct.-Nov. 2015

Fieldwork Experience

• Postdoc Project: The Criminalisation of Humanitarianism: From Volunteers to Human Smugglers in Italy: Italy, 8 months
• Postdoc Project: The Biometric Border World: 4 months, Italy, 2017, 2018
• PhD: 1 year – 2013/2014, Somaliland (4 months), Turkey (4 months), Greece (4 months)
• Master thesis: 10 months – Aug. 2010/May 2011, the Somali regional state of Ethiopia

Latest Public and Academic Presentations

• Book launch of my monograph, the Department of Anthropology, the University of Copenhagen 6th October 2023
• Book launch of my monograph and movie screening, Cinemateket, Copenhagen 1 September 2023
• Book launch of my monograph, the Department of COMPAS, the University of Oxford, 12th June 2023
• Presented virtually at the American Anthropological Associations’ conference with the paper: "If I die, at least I die while
• trying": Migration routes, crisis and decision making on the Mediterranean Sea” 11 Dec. 2022.
• Arranged the workshop: the Criminalisation of Solidarity – A trialogue Examining Smuggling, Law and Humanitarianism, in collaboration with Postdoc. Matthew Porges and PhD fellow Ruta Nimkar, COMPAS, the University of Oxford, 23 May 2022. I was convener and moderator.
• 9 June 2022: Presenting my project and preliminary findings from the Carlsberg funded project: ‘The Criminalisation of Humanitarianism: From Volunteers to Human Smugglers in Italy’, for Work in Progress Seminar series (WIPS) at COMPAS, the University of Oxford.