Mikkel Bunkenborg

Mikkel Bunkenborg is an Associate Professor in China Studies at the Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies (ToRS), Faculty of Humanities, University of Copenhagen. With a Ph.D. in anthropology and a Cand. mag. in Chinese, he specializes in contemporary Chinese society and the Sinophone world through ethnographic methods.

His educational background includes:

• Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Copenhagen (2005-2009)
• Cand. mag. in Chinese

Bunkenborg's research focuses on several interconnected areas within contemporary Chinese society:

• Bodies, health, and medicine in China
• Religion, ritual, and politics in rural China
• Chinese global projects and emerging relations of intimacy
• Material culture including incense, infrastructure, and natural resources
• Food and morality in contemporary China
• Ethnographic methods and anthropological theory

His current major research project is "Moral Economies of Food in Contemporary China," funded by the Danish Council for Independent Research in the Humanities. This collaborative ethnographic project examines the relationship between food systems and moral frameworks in China.

Bunkenborg has developed significant expertise in Chinese globalization, particularly through his co-authored book "Collaborative Damage: An Experimental Ethnography of Chinese Globalization" (Cornell University Press, 2022), which explores Chinese operations in Mongolia and Mozambique. His work reveals how Chinese workers create semi-enclosed enclaves abroad and the complex dynamics of cross-cultural collaboration and misunderstanding.

His scholarly contributions span anthropology, China studies, and globalization research, with particular attention to:

• The anthropology of food and morality
• Sino-African and Sino-Mongolian relations
• Infrastructure and material culture
• Ethnographic methodology in cross-cultural contexts

Beyond his research, Bunkenborg teaches and supervises in Chinese language and contemporary Chinese society, with special emphasis on fieldwork, interviews, qualitative methods, and anthropological literature on China.