Sofie Aarup Vestergaard – New PhD student at the Department of Anthropology

I will be a part of the team working with the project FILTERSCAPE led by Ciara Kierans. Within this project I will focus on contaminants in Vejle Ådal wetlands and the managerial relations in an environmental context. 

Parts of Vejle Ådal are outlined as Natura 2000 areas – a European network for nature preservation, with the purpose of creating a better water environment and preventing the emission of nitrogen and phosphorus. Wetlands mitigate these emissions/contaminants due to the bacteria in the wet soil decomposing the nitrate, a mitigating effect that will be approached as an ecological filter which in biology is a process that selectively permits or prevents passage of species.

The PhD project will focus on the interaction between these contaminants and the wetland areas, and tentatively define contaminants as a contested agent, that within the governmental framework consists of nitrogen and oxygen – yet it might change as the contaminants are filtered and absorbed in the wetlands. I will engage with the local communities alongside natural science projects and governmental bodies – an approach that in itself is a form of filtering. 

So, in short, I will trace the flow of contaminants in Vejle Ådal. 

However, you might see me hang out with the Post-conflict speculation group from time to time too. I have just finished my master’s thesis on narratives and silences in everyday life, in Sør-Varanger (a Norwegian municipality bordering Russia). Together these portray the experience of multiple borders, imbue purpose with the former cross-border collaboration, while outlining the simultaneous ordinary stillness and geopolitical tension in Sør-Varanger, highlighting the consequently ambiguous uncertainty.

Contact: 
Sofie Aarup Vestergaard 
School of Culture and Society
Department of Anthropology
Moesgård Allé 20
8270 Højbjerg
sav@cas.au.dk