Roskilde Universitet
Ph.d.-skolen for Samfund, Rum og Teknologi
Invitation til ph.d.-forsvar på ENSPAC
Fredag den 29. august 2014, kl. 13.00 forsvarer Maja de
Neergaard sin ph.d.-afhandling:
“Doing the urban countryside”
Sted: Geo-fagsal i hus 02, RUC
Bedømmelsesudvalg:
Professor Jørgen Ole Bærenholdt (chair)
ENSPAC, RUC
Professor Nina Gunnerud Berg
NTNU, Trondheim
Professor Nicky Gregson
Durham University, UK
Vejledere: Professor Kirsten Simonsen og lektor Michael Haldrup
Efter forsvaret er instituttet vært ved en reception.
“Doing the urban countryside”
Ph.d.-afhandling af Maja de Neergaard
Maj 2014
How do people handle the unfamiliar dwelling practices presented to them when moving
from the city centre to the country side? And what might this tell us about similarities and
differences between the city and the countryside?
This work explores the experiences of a group of middle-class dwellers that have moved out of
the central city of Copenhagen in order to dwell in the countryside. The work is based on
qualitative interviews undertaken with ethnographic inspiration from visiting the households in
their new rural dwelling. The intent is to follow the perspective of the households empathetically
and from an embedded perspective in order to understand how the move is narrated, performed
and spatially materialised.
The empirical examples point at three main characteristics: Firstly the realisation of the dream of
a house in the countryside is not executed as a straightforward sequence going from dream to
reality. Rather it is a process containing synergies as well as resistances, that offer surprises,
adjustments and challenges along the way. Secondly the process of inhabitation and making
oneself at home is a continuous task containing alternating experiences of both alienation and
authenticity. Thirdly, while a lot of differences between the city and the countryside are
dissolved in the processes of moving and settling in, other differences are reproduced as well as
new ones gaining territory.
The work shows how learning is central to the practice of dwelling and brings forward the desire
to further develop the relation between dwelling and learning.
Maja de Neergaard is a part of the research group Space, Place, Mobility and Urban Studies (MOSPUS) at the
Department of Environmental, Social and Spatial Change at Roskilde University. Doing the Urban Countryside is
her PhD dissertation.