Signe Askersjö

About Signe Askersjö

I am a postdoctoral researcher in social anthropology within the research platform Borders in Medicine, Health and Society at the School of Public Health and Community Medicine. I hold a PhD in social anthropology from the School of Global Studies.

Research areas

In my research, I have been interested in solidarity, boundary‑making, and migration. I work to understand how boundaries take shape in practice and how people navigate everyday relationships across social, cultural, and linguistic divides – and how these processes generate both cohesion and tension. I examine how difference and sameness are produced, used, and challenged in Swedish society; how notions of “the Other” emerge in politics, public discourse, and everyday life; and how such ideas both limit and enable different ways of living together. 

Through a postmigration perspective, I study how migration – as both lived experience and public discourse – shapes society as a whole, not only those defined as migrants. More broadly, my work focuses on how people create solidarities, relationships, and understandings of one another, and on the alternative narratives that become visible when we take the complexity of everyday life seriously.

Ongoing research

I am a postdoctoral researcher in the interdisciplinary project The Boundaries Longitudinal Study , led by Josephine Greenbrook together with team members Mayssa Rekhis, Lisen Dellenborg, Andrea Spehar, and Lena Gross. The project examines how physicians respond to government initiatives to introduce a mandatory reporting requirement for undocumented patients. 

The study employs multiple ethnographic methods and follows the development of this issue over a ten‑year period. The material includes qualitative interviews conducted in various areas of the healthcare system and within medical education, participant observations in medical humanitarian settings and in civil society contexts engaged with the debate on mandatory reporting, as well as analyses of media narratives and public debates at the societal level.

I am also an associate researcher on the project Employers and Their New Role in Swedish Migration Policy, led by Joseph Anderson (GU) and Andreas Diedrich (GU). The project examines recent changes in Swedish migration policy, where the requirements for obtaining permanent residence have become more restrictive. Today, almost all individuals with temporary residence permits must demonstrate that they can support themselves, typically through employment. As a result, employers have, in practice, gained a more central role in determining individuals’ long‑term possibilities to remain in Sweden. The project investigates how employers perceive and manage this development. It is a qualitative study based on interviews with employers and other actors in the Swedish labour market, focusing on how they navigate their new responsibilities and the practical consequences that follow.

Teaching

I have primarily taught courses on mobility, migration, identity, and anthropological methods and theories. I have also supervised several bachelor’s theses.