Jytte Agergaard

Jytte Agergaard is a Professor in the Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management at the University of Copenhagen's Faculty of Science. Her academic career spans over two decades at the University of Copenhagen, where she has held positions from Research Fellow to her current professorship. She specializes in human geography with a focus on migration, urbanization, and development in Asia and Africa, conducting extensive fieldwork in Nepal, Vietnam, South Africa, and Tanzania.

Her educational background includes:

• PhD in Human Geography, University of Copenhagen (1998)
• MSc in Human Geography, University of Copenhagen (1991)
• BA in History, University of Copenhagen (1984)

Professor Agergaard's research explores the connections between climate change, migration, mobility, and urbanization. She critically examines internal migration, multi-local livelihood arrangements, and governance challenges related to mobile livelihoods. Her work primarily focuses on Asia and Africa, with extensive fieldwork in Nepal, Vietnam, South Africa, and Tanzania. Key interests include formal education's impact on social inequities, gender aspects of household arrangements, mobile citizenship, migration biographies, and residential mobility patterns. Her approach integrates social, economic, and development geography perspectives to understand complex rural-urban transformations.

Her recent publications reveal a strong focus on urban transformation processes in the Global South, particularly examining how rural-urban dynamics are reshaping small towns and secondary cities. Her work spans disciplines including human geography, development studies, political science, and urban studies, with a consistent emphasis on empirical fieldwork and critical theoretical perspectives on migration and urbanization.

Professor Agergaard has received significant research funding from the Danish Research Council and Danida for projects including Climate Change Resilience in Urban Mobility (CLIMACCESS), Rural-Urban Transformation (RUT), and Rural City Connections in Sub-Saharan Africa (RurbanAfrica).

She has supervised 56 Master's theses and 8 PhD theses to completion, with 5 Master's and 4 PhD students currently under supervision. Her grant portfolio includes major projects funded by FFU/Danida, the EU FP7 program, and other international research councils, focusing on rural-urban dynamics, climate change adaptation, and migration studies.

Professor Agergaard leads research teams focused on rural-urban transformations, with strong connections to institutions in Nepal, Tanzania, and other countries in the Global South. Her work often involves interdisciplinary collaborations across geography, development studies, and environmental science, contributing significantly to academic understanding of migration, urbanization, and development in the Global South.