Global health; sexual and reproductive health; chronic health conditions; gender, kinship, sexuality; globalization and development; social studies of science; ethnographic methods; project design; critical theory; feminist theory; medical anthropology; the anthropology of Asia.

The research I conduct is driven by a general interest in the social and structural forces that shape human health and wellbeing. I lead highly interdisciplinary international research teams and work with a special focus on connecting research to policy and practice through engagements with policymakers and civil society. In my ethnographic research I focus particularly on the social conditions and processes that fuel health inequalities, and I am particularly interested in the development of theories and methodologies that can help us to attend to inchoate and subdued dimensions of life. In this context, I draw inspiration from philosophy, psychoanalytic theory, and art. In my book Haunting Images: A Cultural Account of Selective Reproduction in Vietnam (winner of the Senior Book Prize, 2014 and the Eileen Basker Memorial Prize, 2015), I examine how new technologies for reproductive selection are used by the state as well as by individuals in Vietnam, highlighting how advancing biomedical technologies engage with long-standing patterns of attachment, dependency, and power. My work in Vietnam is based on long-standing relations of collaboration and includes research training, capacity-building, and co-created and research-based health care interventions.

At the Department of Anthropology I currently serve as Head of the Department’s PhD Programme.

I am responsible for the interdisciplinary research/intervention project Living Together with Chronic Disease: Informal Support for Diabetes Management in Vietnam (VALID) (2018-). The project aims to advance research on non-communicable diseases (NCDs) by providing new insights on informal forms of diabetes care. The project is conducted in Vietnam’s Thai Binh province as an academic partnership between Thai Binh University of Medicine and Pharmacy and the Universities of Copenhagen and Southern Denmark. It is carried out in close collaboration with the Danish-Vietnamese Strategic Sector Cooperation (SSC) project: Strengthening the Frontline Grassroots Health Worker: Prevention and Management of NCDs at the Primary Health Care Level, with Novo Nordisk as private sector partner. The second phase of the project, titled Gestational Diabetes in Vietnam (VALID II, 2022-2025), investigates gestational diabetes among women in Thai Binh, with a particular focus on pregnant women’s self-care practices. The VALID project is funded by the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

I am a member of the Editorial Boards of Ethos (the journal of the Society for Psychological Anthroplogy) and Reproductive Health Matters. In 2023, I joined the Board of the World Diabetes Foundation.

Education:
PhD in Anthropology, University of Copenhagen (1997); MA in Cultural Anthropology, University of Copenhagen (1992)

Positions:
Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen (2013-); Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen (2002-2012); Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen (1997-2002)