Karina Märcher Dalgas

Primary fields of research

Regional specialization: The Philippines, Denmark, Italy

Thematic specialization: Migration; disasters; family, relatedness and social networks; remittances, domestic work, au pair placement; the anthropology of education.

My research interests relate to the anthropology of migration, disasters and social relatedness.

I am interested in modes of social organization. In how people create networks locally and transnationally, the practice of family and close relations, and the forms of exchange that these relations entail.

My interest in migration involves a transnational perspective on the migrants’ society of origin as well as their migration destinations; on how migrants’ trajectories are influenced by politics, economy and social relations, and on the forms of social, economic and geographical mobility that migration can entail. With this migration becomes a prism through which I examine exchange, social relatedness and the trans(local) dimensions of disasters.

In this semester, I am organizing the Department’s researcher group: Migration and Social Mobility

Current research

Project title: Migrant interventions in Philippine disasters.

This project examines the role of migrants in the recovery and reconstruction phase of Philippine disasters. The Philippines is often subjected to devastating natural hazards, and the project takes point of departure in the Bohol earthquake of 2013, and in super typhoon Haiyan that only three weeks later hit the Visayan region. Filipino international labor migration is a huge phenomenon and the migrants’ remittances are fundamental for both the national economy and the local economies. In disaster situations migrants can play a central role in establishing swift relief through their personal networks, and in relation to their more long-term engagement in the reconstruction of their societies of origin. The project investigates how the migrants’ interventions relate to relief and reconstruction aid from larger humanitarian organizations and institutional actors. It also examines which forms of social change these interventions create, both within and beyond the geographical areas that is directly affected by the disasters. The project is based on ethnographic fieldwork on the Philippine islands of Bohol and Leyte, as well as among Filipinos in Copenhagen, Denmark.

The project is part of University of Copenhagen´s 2016 programme for excellent interdisciplinary research: Changing Disasters.

Selected publications

Dalgas, K. M. (2015). Au pair trajectories: Self-making, family relations and migratory endeavors among Filipinos in Denmark.

Dalgas, K. M. (2015). Becoming independent through au pair migration: Self-making and social re-positioning among young Filipinas in Denmark. Identities, 22(3), 333-346.10.1080/1070289X.2014.939185

Dalgas, K. M., & Olwig, K. F. (2015). Local and Transnational Care Relations: Relatedness and Family Practice among Au Pairs in Denmark. . Global Networks (Oxford), 15(4), 469-484. 10.1111/glob.12074

CV

Current and previous positions:
Since 2015: Postdoc, Department of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen
2012 - 2015: PhD fellow, Department of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen

Education
2015 - PhD, Department of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen
2008 - Cand.scient.anth., University of Copenhagen