I have an interdisciplinary academic background with an MA in International Development Studies from Clark University, USA, and a PhD in Geography from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. My research is primarily qualitative and based on fieldwork, using in-depth interviews, participant observation, online and event ethnography. The research projects I have participated in have involved fieldwork and partners in different parts of the world, including Tanzania, Ghana, Vietnam, Italy, the US and the UK. I am currently PI of the research project Universal Aspirations vs. Geopolitical Divides: Imagining the World as a ‘Post-Millennial’ in the SDG Era. My research topics generally fall within three interlinked areas:

1. Social, political and generational dimensions of climate change and natural disasters: What are the challenges to, possibilities for and aspirations of populations that face weather and climate change related phenomena. And what role do the external adaptation policies and programs that accompany these phenomena play? Examples include technology and climate governance in Vietnam, forest management and partnerships in Tanzania and cocoa farming and agroforestry in Ghana. My current research project focuses on youth and social movements in Denmark and Tanzania. It explores to what extent young people from different places around the world, feel that they are part of a global community of youth, facing similar challenges and possibilities in relation to securing a sustainable future. I’m particularly interested in how young people reconcile the tension between their aspirations to become part of global communities of youth working together towards global solutions and their contradictory experiences of geopolitical divides between the Global North and South, comprising hierarchies and unequal power relations?

2. Metanarratives versus grounded stories: How do narratives and discourse on sustainability, development, climate change, the environment and humanitarianism emerge and evolve through time, and how are disparate actors and organizations at different levels – local, regional and global – and multiple sites shaped by and shaping, adopting and adapting these narratives? For example, why are the same climate change metanarratives repeated by, and oftentimes internalized by, donors, practitioners and local populations? How do for-profit narratives of doing good differ from non-profit narratives of doing good in the era of the SDGs? And why is it important to mobilize more grounded stories to ensure better policy and practice?

3. Celebritized and celebratory commodification and consumption: Sustainability, development, environmentalism and humanitarianism are increasingly celebritized, celebrated, branded and commodified through the involvement of new actors, new social media technologies and new partnership constellations involving celebrities, philanthropists, for-profits and non-profits. What does this mean for representation, dissemination, compassion and accountability in relation to development, environmental and humanitarian challenges? What are the implications of combining entertainment, profit-making and doing good? And how do non-profit and for-profit partnerships rationalize and balance ethical, branding and marketing components when engaging in humanitarianism and development?