Line Steen Bygballe

Line Steen Bygballe

PhD fellow

I am a PhD student in ethnology and have a master's degree in applied cultural analysis from the University of Copenhagen and Lund University.

My PhD project is part of the socio-technical development project EMOVE, where the Center for Humanistic Health Research, together with Technoanthropology (AAU) and the IT company Kople is developing a new IT system that makes it easier for NGOs to match the right volunteers with the organisation's target group or tasks. The IT solution aims to create a tool that can give the volunteers and the organisation more time for their core tasks and human contact.
In a time when the need for volunteers can suddenly increase significantly, as seen during the European refugee crisis in 2015, the corona pandemic and the war in Ukraine, it is crucial that NGOs have robust systems and can safely carry out their work. Here, the IT system can help facilitate the work of the organisation and the volunteers.

It requires a broad knowledge of civil society and voluntary practices to develop a system that works and is used as intended. The PhD project must ensure that the social and human aspects are considered in all system development phases. Via ethnographic methods, I will explore and map how the matching of volunteers and voluntary work takes place in NGOs that work with vulnerable target groups in both Denmark and Europe at a time when more softer welfare tasks are outsourced to civil society.

My focus is on NGOs that (collaborate) with vulnerable citizen groups, and the project aims to investigate the potential of including technology to allow a more diverse group of people to participate in voluntary activities.
 

Primary research areas
My current research deals with volunteerism and social movements in civil society in relation to social and health issues among vulnerable citizen groups.
In addition, I am engaged in the following research areas:

  • Volunteering
  • Social movements
  • Civil society
  • Minority groups
  • Ageing
  • Senior working life and late career
  • Mental health
  • Migration
  • Europe

ID: 247241695