Naja Dyrendom Graugaard
Affiliate Scholar
Naja Dyrendom Graugaard cooperates as an Affiliate Scholar with the research group reIMAGINE Arctic Research: Relations, Ethics, and Methods on the topic “Centering reflexivity and care: frameworks and spaces for decolonial knowledge production in the Arctic”. The cooperation with Naja Dyrendom Graugaard builds on on-going collaborations with the reIMAGINE research group, such as the EU-funded BIRGEJUPMI project, and produces exchange between reIMAGINE research group members and Naja Dyrendom Graugaard, on how to establish spaces that foster a reflexive and caring research practice, especially against the background of unsettling power dynamics and knowledge regimes in the Arctic.
Projects
*2025 Associate Professor, Nordic Studies and Linguistics, Copenhagen University *2023- Researcher and dramaturg, ‘Inuk Ingerlaartoq/Det Vandrende Menneske, Det Olske Orkester/Forsøgsstation, Copenhagen Danish-Kalaallit collaborative theatre performance on Danish-Greenlandic colonial history
- 2023-2024 Postdoctoral research project: Playfulness and humour in Kalaallit decolonial art, School of Communication and Culture, Aarhus University AUFF NOVA project: Playing with ghosts – Affective ambivalence in decolonial arts practices, PI: Britta Timm Knudsen
- 2020-2022 Postdoctoral research project: Gender & mining in Indigenous communities, AAU Arctic, Department of Sustainability and Planning, Aalborg University
- 2016-2019 PhD Fellow: Tracing seal – Unsettling Narratives of Kalaallit-seal Relations Project: Politics of Sustainability in the Arctic, Department of Culture and Learning, Aalborg University
- 2010-2013 Masters of Environmental Studies MES project: “Inua” / Artistic Practice as Inuit Research and Method, York University, Toronto ON, Canada
- 2006-2009 B.A. (Honours): International Development Studies/Political Studies Honours thesis: “National Identity in Greenland in the Age of Self-government”, Trent University, Peterborough ON, Canada
*Scandinavian/Nordic/European Exceptionalism *Decolonizing Arctic Knowledge *Indigenous narrative sovereignty *feminist approaches to economies of care, emotion, and affect *Reparative Research Methods
Selected Publications prior to joining the RIFS
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Graugaard, N.D. (forthcoming). "I intend to write about it, even say it out loud": Poems for a change and decolonial endeavours in the Kalaallit Inuit diaspora. Eds. Charlton, J. & Richardson, C. (2025). Anthology: Indigenous Perspectives of Life Course Psychology.
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Graugaard, N. D. & Knudsen, B. T. (forthcoming). Fun for real! Dismantling the "cool colonizer" through the decolonial politics of memes from Kalaallit Nunaat. AlterNative: An International Jounral of Indigenous Peoples.
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Graugaard, N. D., Pihl, V. S., Stage, J. L. (2025). Colonial Reproductive Coercion and Control in Kalaallit Nunaat - The Overlooked Role of Racism in Denmark's IUD Program. Special issue on 'Race, racialization, and reproduction in the Nordic context, NORA: Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research. https://doi.org/10.1080/08038740.2024.2427817
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Graugaard, N. D., & Høgsbro, A. (2023). The silenced genocide - why the intrauterine device enforcement in Kalaallit Nunaat calls for an intersectional decolonial analysis. Kvinder, Køn & Forskning, 2, 162-167. https://doi.org/10.7146/kkf.v36i2.137309
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Boassen, P., Cossette-Laneville, E., Graugaard, N. D., Jensen, L., Lingner, B. & Møller, R. D. (2022). Introduction. Greenland - 301 Years Later: Kalaallit Nunaat ukiut 301-nngornerat. KULT Postkolonial Temaserie, 17, 1-6.
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Lingner, B. & Graugaard, N. D. (2022). Inuit place-based knowledge, cocreation, and decolonizing processes in the climate research of Lene Kielsen Holm: A conversation with Suzy Basile and Mark Nuttall. KULT Postkolonial Temaserie, 17, 1-15. http://postkolonial.dk/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/9-Bjorn-and-Naja-interview-about-Lene-Kielsen-Holm.pdf
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Graugaard, N. D. (2020/2021). "A Sense of Seal" in Greenland: Kalaallit Seal Pluralities and Anti-Sealing Contentions. Etudes/Inuit Studies, 44(1-2), 373-97.
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Graugaard, N. D. (2020). Arctic Auto-ethnography - unsettling colonial research relations. In Ren, C. Merrild, A. & Ren, C. (Eds.), Collaborative Research Methods in the Arctic - Experiences from Greenland. Routledge: London. 33-50.
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Graugaard, N. D. (2020). En fornemmelse for sæl? Sælens 'flerhed' i Grønland, vestlige fortolkninger og EU's sælregime. Tidsskriftet Grønland, 4, 170-186.
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Graugaard, N. D. (2020). Opgøret med Kæmpe Eskimoen. Tidsskriftet Grønland, 3, 90-99.
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Graugaard, N. D. (2020). Tracing Seal - Unsettling Narrative of Kalaallit Seal Relations [PhD thesis]. Aalborg: Aalborg University Press. The summary chapter can be accessed here: https://vbn.aau.dk/en/publications/tracing-seal-unsettling-narratives-of-kalaallit-seal-relations
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Graugaard, N. D. (2019). "Without seals, there are no Greenlanders": Colonial and postcolonial narratives of sustainability and Inuit seal hunting. In: Gad, U.P. & Strandsbjerg, J. (Eds.) The Politics of Sustainability in the Arctic - Reconfiguring identity, space and time. Oxon/New York: Routledge.
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Gad, U. P., Graugaard, N. D., Holgersen, A., Jacobsen, M., Lave, N. & Schriver, N. (2018). Imagining China on Greenland's Road to Independence. Arctic Yearbook.
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Graugaard, N. D. (2018). STILLS: Poetic reflections on racisms in Denmark's kindergarten. KULT - Postkolonial Temaserie, 15, 19-35.
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Graugaard, N. D. (2016). Uanga ("I"): Journey of Raven and the Revival of the Spirit of Whale. KULT - Postkolonial Temaserie, 14, 6-22.
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Graugaard, N. D. (2009). National Identity in Greenland in the Age of Self-Government [pdf]. Centre for the Critical Study of Global Power and Politics, Working Paper CSGP, 09/5, 1-70. Access: https://www.trentu.ca/globalpolitics/documents/Graugaard095.pdf
- 2024 "Cool colonizers and colonial narratives - Kalaallit memes, representation and decolonization", LiteratureXchange, Århus International Literature Festival
- 2023-24 "Play and humour in Kalaallit decolonial art practices", presented at Nuuk Art Museum / National Gallery of Denmark / Art as Forum, Copenhagen University
- 2024 "New research from Kalaallit Nunaat: From Western to Inuit perspectives", co-presented at Kalaallit Illuutaat / The Greenlandic House, Aarhus
- 2024 "The IUD program in Kalaallit Nunaat as Colonial Genocide", Challenging Nordic Innocence podcast, https://nettop.guru/wordpress/spiralprogrammet-i-kalaallit-nunaat-som-kolonialt-folkemord-the-iud-program-in-kalaallit-nunaat-as-colonial-genocide/
- 2024 "Danish colonial histories, Kalaallit Decoloniality, Positionality, Indigenous-non Indigenous relations through arts-based research", PhD course, Royal Danish Academy of Art.
- 2023 "A Conversation on Decolonization in Higher Education and Research". Postcolonial Entanglements, Aarhus University.
- 2023 "Towards a reflexive research praxis: Unsettling power dynamics and knowledge regimes in Arctic research", A week of Exchange: Ethics and Methods in Arctic Transformative Research, Oulu.
- 2022 "Komd'inn: Can we talk...about colonization and decolonization?". Gerðarsafn Kópavogur Art Museum, Iceland.
- 2022 "Dekoloniserende tilgange i forskning" (Decolonizing research in the Arctic), PhD course, Ilisimatusarfik, Nuuk, Kalaallit Nunaat. 2020 PhD school, Ilisimatusarfik (University of Greenland).
- 2020 'Interview i afkoloniserende forskningspraksis' (Interviews in decolonial research practices), PhD course, Ilisimatusarfik (University of Greenland)
- Emma Goldman Award 2025