PhD Courses in Denmark

PhD programme in Anthropology

Date and time: 16 June 2026 from 10:00 to 14:00

Course description:  Through a plenary session comprising a talk and an extended group discussion, this course aims to facilitate critical reflection and discussion of working with concepts in contemporary anthropological theory. In this version, we will focus on the concept of belonging, exploring not primarily what belonging is, but what it does in social, political, ethical, and more-than-human worlds. Through discussions of embodiment, care, citizenship, memory, materiality, and ecological relations, the course examines how belonging emerges through relations of attachment, obligation, proximity, and exclusion across different ethnographic and theoretical contexts. What kinds of worlds does belonging help sustain? How are experiences of belonging and non-belonging lived through bodies, care, and political life? Can belonging extend beyond the human, emerging through relations with landscapes, ruins, forests, and other forms of life? And how might the concept of belonging open new ways of thinking about subjectivity, ethics, and relationality in contemporary anthropology?

Content: Through discussions of ethnographic and theoretical texts, the course examines belonging across three interconnected dimensions: belonging and embodiment; belonging and political life; and belonging in relation to landscapes, ruins, and more-than-human worlds.

 - The first section explores belonging in relation to embodiment, affect, and emotional life. Readings examine how belonging and non-belonging are experienced through bodies, care, shared sensorial experiences, exclusion, and processes of healing.

 - The second section examines belonging in relation to citizenship, kinship, and political life. The readings challenge liberal understandings of citizenship by exploring how belonging is negotiated through care, dependency, domestic relations, and everyday forms of political recognition.

 - The third section turns toward more-than-human worlds and explores belonging in relation to landscapes, ruins, graves, forests, and nonhuman life. These discussions open broader anthropological questions concerning ethics, proximity, memory, materiality, and ecological relations.

Throughout the course, PhD students will be encouraged to critically reflect on how questions of belonging emerge within their own research projects, and how the concept may open new analytical and methodological perspectives on subjectivity, ethics, care, exclusion, and relationality in anthropology.

Aim: In this course, participants are expected to develop and critically engage with contemporary anthropological debates on belonging and its analytical potential across different ethnographic and theoretical contexts. More specifically, the course aims to:

 - Develop knowledge of contemporary anthropological debates on belonging, care, citizenship, embodiment, and more-than-human relations.

 - Critically engage with belonging as an analytical concept across different ethnographic and theoretical traditions.

 - Reflect on how questions of belonging emerge within the participants’ own doctoral research projects.

 - Strengthen proficiency in theoretical discussion and collaborative reflection on contemporary anthropological concepts and methods.

Course lecturer: Tine Mette Gammeltoft, Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen

Course organiser: Fernanda V M Gallegos Gutiérrez., P hD student, Department of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen

Programme:
10:00 – 10:15: Framing and introductions
10:15 – 11:00: Lecture by Tine Gammeltoft: What does belonging do?
11:00 – 12:30. Group discussion

12:30 – 13:00: Lunch break

13:00 – 13:45: Plenary discussion and collective feedback
13:45 – 14:00: Final remarks

*Prior to the course, participants will be asked to submit a short half-page reflection on their doctoral projects, conceptual dilemmas, and how they are thinking about belonging in relation to their work. These reflections will be used to organize discussion groups and facilitate meaningful exchanges across different research topics and ethnographic contexts.

Language: English

ECTS: 0.5 ECTS

Max. numbers of participants: TBA

​Course fee: The PhD School at the Faculty of Social Sciences participates in Denmark’s national network for PhD courses. This course is free of charge for PhD students enrolled at a one of the participating PhD schools (PhD students enrolled at a Danish University, except from Copenhagen Business School). Other PhD students will be charged a course fee of DKK 1,200 per ECTS for participation in the course (PhD students enrolled at Copenhagen Business School or at a University outside Denmark).

Registration: Please register via the link in the box no later than 7 June 2026.

Further information: For more information about the PhD course, please contact the PhD Administration (phd@hrsc.ku.dk).

Literature:
Compulsory readings:

​a. Belonging, emotion, and embodiment

Mattes, D., & Lang, C. (2021). Embodied belonging: In-exclusion, health care, and well-being in a world in motion. Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry, 45(4), 573–598. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11013-020-09693-3

von Poser, A., & Willamowski, E. (2020). The power of shared embodiment: Renegotiating non-belonging and in-exclusion in an ephemeral community of care. Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry, 44(4), 514–539. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11013-020-09675-5

b. Belonging and citizenship

Das, V., & Addlakha, R. (2001). Disability and domestic citizenship: Voice, gender, and the making of the subject. Public Culture, 13(3), 511–531.

Thelen, T., & Coe, C. (2019). Political belonging through elderly care: Temporalities, representations and mutuality. Anthropological Theory, 19(2), 168–189. https://doi.org/10.1177/1463499616679655

c. Belonging and more-than-human worlds

Fontein, J. (2011). Graves, ruins, and belonging: Towards an anthropology of proximity. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 17(4), 706–727.

Kohn, E. (2022). Forest forms and ethical life. Environmental Humanities, 14(2), 401–418. https://doi.org/10.1215/22011919-9613274