Research Staff

Heidi Mogstad

Senior Researcher

Conference Papers/ Presentations

Social anthropologist with a special interest in humanitarianism, war, global inequalities and border politics

Heidi is a senior researcher at CMI and currently part of the War and Fun: Reconceptualizing Warfare and Its Experience project funded by the European Research Council. 

She holds a Ph.D in Social Anthropology from the University of Cambridge and two master's degrees in Post-Conflict Studies (University of Cape Town) and International Relations (LSE). 

Her research explores Norwegian and European humanitarianism, asylum policies, refugee activism, gender-based violence, structural inequalities, and Norwegian Afghanistan veterans, among other topics.

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. 

She is actively engaged in public debates on European and Norwegian asylum and migration policies. Her writing has appeared in Aftenposten, Agenda Magasin, Al Jazeera, Dagsavisen, Forskersonen, Klassekampen, Morgenbladet, Norsk Folkehjelp’s Appell, Panorama News/Bistandsaktuelt, and Utrop. She has also been interviewed by BBC, Dagbladet, and Vårt Land.

She is the co-editor of the Norwegian Journal of Anthropology (with Rune Flikke), an associate editor of Public Anthropologist, and convener of the European Association of Social Anthropology's (EASA) 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

Most recent publications