Michael Jensen is trained as a psychologist and has worked clinically in Greenland for nearly a decade, including at the Children and Family Center in Paamiut and Nuuk, where he has gained in-depth insight into the psychological and social challenges that many Greenlanders encounter in their interactions with Western-based treatment systems.

In his PhD project, Social resilience: Relatedness and resonance in Nuuk and Paamiut, Greenland, Michael examines how dominant Western psychological theories—particularly within mentalization, autonomy, and individual-oriented therapy—fit (or do not fit) with Greenlandic experiences of relationships, emotions, and self-understanding. Drawing on cultural psychology, phenomenology, and the so-called enactive approach, the project combines ethnographic fieldwork, qualitative interviews, and social network analysis to develop a more culturally sensitive understanding of psychological processes in Arctic societies.

The project is grounded in fieldwork in Nuuk and Paamiut, and possibly Aasiaat, and is conducted at both universities (including the Interacting Minds Center at Aarhus University), as well as through an ongoing collaboration with researchers at McGill University on the development of culturally adapted interview methods.

Michael’s research has both a basic scientific and an applied aim: to contribute to a cultural-psychological understanding of the mind in non-Western contexts, while also generating knowledge that can strengthen mental health services, social work, and professional practices in Greenland.

Contact: 
Michael Jensen
Moesgård Allé 20
8270 Højbjerg
mikaali@cas.au.dk