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Anna Hedlund

Senior Lecturer

School of Global Studies
Telephone
+46 31-786 18 65
+46 766-18 18 65
Mail
anna.hedlund@gu.se
Visiting address
Konstepidemins väg 2
41314 Göteborg
Postal address
Box 700
40530 Göteborg

About Anna Hedlund

I am a social anthropologist and senior lecturer in human rights at the department of Global Studies. My current research primarily focuses on youth involved in criminal networks and methods to prevent gun violence in Sweden. I am currently involved in a Nordic comparative research project on gang desistance in Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, and in a research project about Group Violence Intervention (GVI), a gun violence reduction strategy. I am also the project leader for a project which focuses on young people who want to leave a criminal environment. My previous research focuses on collective memories of the genocide in Rwanda among armed rebel groups in eastern Congo and the significance of history, ethnicity, and propaganda for understanding narratives and expressions of violence in ongoing conflicts. I primarily use ethnographic methods, fieldwork, and qualitative interviews.

I have been employed at the Department of Global Studies since September 2022. I received my Ph.D. in social anthropology from Lund University in 2014. Shortly thereafter, I was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Johannesburg (South African Research Chair in Social Change) and then I had a postdoc position at the Danish Institute against Torture (Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research Fellow). Between 2018–2022, I participated in external research projects at Lund University, and since 2016 I have also been an affiliated senior researcher at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa.

Ongoing research projects

Previous research projects

  • Crime and Society: https://www.sns.se/forskningsprogram/brottslighet-och-samhalle/ SNS, 2021–2024
  • PI for the project "Ceasefire Malmö": This project broadly focuses on youth crime, gun violence, and crime prevention. Funded by FORTE, 2019–2024.
  • CONGO: Hybrid political orders and violent exchanges in the eastern Congo. EU project, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual grant

Public engagements (selected)

Teaching

I am the program director for the Bachelor's program in Global Studies and I teach and supervise in the department's courses in Human Rights, Social Anthropology, and Global Studies.