Irene Skovgaard-Smith is a social anthropologist and Associated Professor at University of East Anglia (UEA) in the UK. Her research focuses on identity, belonging and othering in the context of transnational life. Her work has appeared in journals such as Human Relations, Global Networks, Critique of Anthropology, European Journal of International Management, Social & Cultural Geography, Organization and in books from Palgrave Macmillan and Information Age Publishing as well as The Conversation.
Current research project: Transnational life and work in pandemic times
The study focuses on the lived experience of transnational people during the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic transformed our globally interconnected world almost overnight as immobility was enforced, striking at the heart of transnational life. After two years of border closures and travel restrictions where national priorities and borders have been strongly reaffirmed, the aim is to investigate the particular impact of this disruption on an overlooked group of people, namely those who live abroad and whose lives are transnational (internationals/expats/global workers/migrants).
Experience
2022–present
Associate professor, University of East Anglia
2020–2022
Lecturer, University of East Anglia
2013–2020
Senior lecturer, Anglia Ruskin University
2009–2012
Adjunct assistant professor, VU University Amsterdam
Education
2008
Copenhagen Business School, PhD
2004
University of Copenhagen, BA, MSc Social Anthropology
2003
London Metropolitan University, MA International HRM
Publications
2022
Withstanding moral disengagement: Moral self-efficacy as moderator in counterproductive behavior routinization, Group & Organization Management
2021
Transnational life and cross-border immobility in pandemic times, Global Networks
2021
Book Review: Universities and the Occult Rituals of the Corporate World: Higher Education and the Metaphorical Parallels with Myth and Magic by Felicity Wood, Organization
2020
The other side of ‘us’: Alterity construction and identification work in the context of planned change, Human Relations
2019
Cosmopolitanism and Place, Social & Cultural Geography
2018
Imagining ‘non-nationality’: Cosmopolitanism as a source of identity and belonging, Human Relations
2018
Attribution and contestation: Relations between elites and other social groups, Critique of Anthropology
2014
When West meets East: The case of a Scandinavian consulting firm's expansion into India, European Journal of International Management
2013
Management Consultants at work with clients: Maintainance and contestation of elite status, The Anthropology of Elites: Power, culture and the complexities of distinction