Naja Dyrendom Graugaard
Affiliate Scholar
Naja Dyrendom Graugaard cooperates 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 previous collaborations with the reIMAGINE research group, such as her workshop contribution to the WEMA week of exchange in 2023 in Oulu, Finland, the joined session at the Arctic Circle Berlin Forum in spring 2024, or in her role as research partner in the on-going EU-funded BIRGEJUPMI project that started in 2025. Previous and on-going collaborations continuously produce 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. The following topics are of particular interest of the cooperation: the dominance of colonial knowledge regimes in the Arctic, what the European/German research community can learn from contemporary manifestations of Scandinavian colonialism through the example of Danish exceptionalism, what institutional frames are necessary for supporting individuals engaging with this kind of critical scholarship, and how affect, emotions, and an ethics of care become relevant in the context of decolonial practices.
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
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