Staff profile

I gained a Ph.D. degree in anthropology at Aarhus University in September 2015. 

I am currently working on a project with Prof. Gina Porter titled "Youth engagement and skills acquisition within Africa’s transport sector; promoting a gender agenda towards transition into meaningful work”, which is funded by the Global Challenges Research Fund [GCRF]. The grant, which runs from 1st December 2018 to 28th February 2021, was awarded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council. 

Based on 12 months of ethnographic fieldwork, my Ph.D. thesis is an account of how schoolchildren in Kisoro in Uganda connect friendships across ethnic groups and the various ways in which they perceive friendships and schooling to be both enabling and constraining, and characterised by difficult trust relationships.

From 2016-2018, I was employed as a collaborate postdoctoral researcher at Brunel University London in a collaborative three country project concerning young people’s educational aspirations and transitions under the ESRC funded project " Education systems, aspiration and learning in remote rural settings". I conducted a nine-month ethnography of two rural communities in Lesotho focusing on barriers to education and their experiences of succes. This was conducted in collaboration with a team of researchers led by Prof. Nicola Ansell.

In early 2016, I was employed at the interdisciplinary department of education at Aarhus University. At this department I taught several BA and MA courses. Several of these courses were designed according to my research profile within childhood and youth studies and were built on previous courses I had taught at the department of anthropology where I graduated. Moreover, I taught a BA/MA course in the Anthropology of learning and education in 2019 at Brunel University London.

• The anthropology of education
• Gender and transport
• Mobility
• Futures
• Friendship and kinship

Available for media contact about:

• Anthropology:
• Africa:

Chapter in book

• Porter, G., Dungey, C., Akoshi, M., Bullus, P.H., Houiji, R., Matomane, S., Mohammed, A.U., Musa, A.I., Nasser, W. & Usman, U.N. (2023). Peer research, power and ethics: Navigating participatory research in an Africa-focused mobilities study before and during Covid-19. In A Handbook of Children and Young People’s Participation: Conversations for Transformational Change. Percy-Smith, Barry, Thomas, Nigel Patrick, O'Kane, Claire & Imoh, Afua Twum-Danso London: Routledge.
• Dungey, Claire Elisabeth, Ahmad, Hadiza, Yahaya, Joseph Mshelia, Adamu, Fatima, Dayil, Plangsat Bitrus, De Lannoy, Ariane & Porter, Gina (2023). Dangers in the Third Place: Walking, Public Transport and the Experiences of Young Girls in Cape Town and Abuja. In School Journey as a Third Place: Theories, Methods and Experiences Around The World. Moody, Zoe, Berchtold-Sedooka, Ayuko, Camponovo, Sara, Jaffé, Philip D. & Darbellay, Frédéric Anthem Press.
• Porter, Gina & Dungey, Claire (2021). Innovative field research methodologies for more inclusive transport planning: Review and prospect. In Social Issues in Transport Planning. Pereira, Rafael H. M. & Boisjoly, Geneviève Elsevier. 8: 273-303.
• Dungey, Claire Elisabeth (2019). Den skjulte baby: Tavshed og delte hemmeligheder blandt skolebørn i Uganda. In Hvad vi deler – Antropologiske perspektiver på deling som socialt fænomen. Hansen, Anders Sybrandt, Højlund, Susanne, Pallesen, Cecil, & Rytter, Mikkel Aarhus Universitetsforlag. 2019: 161-173.
• Dungey, Claire Elisabeth & Meinert, Lotte (2017). Schooling and the Instability of Adulthood for Young Men in Uganda. In Elusive Adulthoods:The Anthropology of New Maturities. Deborah Durham & Jacqueline Solway Indiana University Press. 83-104.

Journal Article

• Porter, Gina, Murphy, Emma, Han, Saerom, Mansour, Hichem, Keskes, Hanen, Dungey, Claire, Clark, Sam & der Weijde, Kim van (2022). Improving young women’s access to safe mobility in a low-income area of Tunis: Challenges and opportunities pre- and post-Covid. Transportation Research Procedia 60: 266.
• Porter, G., Murphy, E., Adamu, F., Dayil, P.B., De Lannoy, A., Han, S., Mansour, H., Dungey, C., Ahmad, H., Maskiti, B., S, Clark. & Van der Weidje, K. (2021). Women's mobility and transport in the peripheries of three African cities: Reflecting on early impacts of COVID-19. Transport Policy 110: 181-190.
• Ansell, Nicola, Froerer, Peggy, Huijsmans, Roy, Dungey, Claire Dost, Arshima & Piti (2020). Educating 'surplus population': uses and abuses of aspiration in the rural peripheries of a globalising world. Fennia - International Journal of Geography 198(1-2): 17-38.
• Dungey, Claire Elisabeth & Ansell, Nicola (2020). ‘I go to school to survive’ Facing physical, moral and economic uncertainties in rural Lesotho. Children's Geographies 18(6): 614-628.
• Dungey, Claire Elisabeth (2019). Living with ambivalent friendships: Insecurity and (dis)trust among Youth in Uganda. Friendship, Etnofoor 31(1): 47-62.
• Dungey, Claire & Stephens, Neil (2018). Learning about dentistry: enacting problems at the Wellcome Collection exhibition ‘Teeth’. Journal of Science Communication 17(3): R03.
• Dungey, Claire Elisabeth, Matzen, Ida Sofie & Schütt, Morten (2016). Forudsigelser. Jordens Folk-Etnografisk Tidsskrift 2015(2): 3-4.
• Dungey, Claire Elisabeth & Fibiger, Thomas Brandt (2016). Mor: Forord. Jordens Folk 2016(3-4): 3-4.
• Dungey, Claire Elisabeth (2013). 'De spiser pengene'-Udveksling og tiggeri blandt skolebørn i Uganda. Jordens Folk 48(4).
• Dungey, Claire Elisabeth (2012). Skolegang en gave for hvem? Jordens Folk 47(4).