Heidi Mogstad
Current projects
War and Fun: Reconceptualizing Warfare and Its Experience (WARFUN)
Completed projects
Climate change, refugee reception and adaptation on the European borderland
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Journal Articles
Other Publications
Conference Papers/ Presentations
Newspaper Op-Eds
Newspaper Articles
Popular Presentations and Lectures
Blog posts
Project Dissemination
Social anthropologist with a special interest in humanitarianism, war, global inequalities and border politics
Heidi is a Senior Researcher at CMI. She holds a PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of Cambridge and two master’s degrees: one in Post-Conflict Studies (University of Cape Town) and one in International Relations (LSE).
Her research has examined European security and asylum policies, humanitarianism, refugee activism, gender-based violence, global inequalities, war, and veterans, among other topics. She has conducted long-term ethnographic fieldwork in Greece and Norway, and applied various qualitative methodologies in research projects in South Africa, India, Paris, and along the Polish–Ukrainian border.
Her work engages with multiple disciplines and theoretical traditions, including political philosophy, feminist theory, (Nordic) postcolonial studies, and critical migration research. At Cambridge, she co-founded the Decolonising Anthropology Society.
Heidi is actively involved in public debates on European and Norwegian asylum and migration policies. Her public writing has appeared in Aftenposten, Agenda Magasin, Al Jazeera, Dagsavisen, Forskersonen, Khrono, Klassekampen, Morgenbladet, Norsk Folkehjelp’s Appell, Panorama News/Bistandsaktuelt, and Utrop. She has also been interviewed by BBC, Dagbladet, and Vårt Land.
She is Editor of the Norwegian Journal of Anthropology (with Rune Flikke), Associate Editor of Public Anthropologist, and Convener of the European Association of Social Anthropologists’ Anthropology of Humanitarianism Network (with Valentina Benincasa).
Selected publications:
Humanitarian shame and redemption: Norwegian citizens helping refugees in Greece. Berghahn Books (Series: Humanitarianism and Security Vol 4).
The self-realising soldier: Post-heroic reflections from Norwegian Afghanistan veterans. Public Anthropologist 6(1): 79-104 [Forum article]
From asylum seekers to kin: the making and effects of kinship between Norwegian citizens and migrants. with Thea Rabe. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies
Decolonising anthropology: Reflections from Cambridge with Lee-Shan Tse. Cambridge Journal of Anthropology, 37(2): 53-72.
Why doesn’t Europe grieve deaths in the Mediterranean? Al Jazeera