Dr. Anna Frohn Pedersen

Anna is a postdoc at the Chair of International Business, Society and Sustainability. Her research interests include resource extraction, rural livelihoods, the sustainable development goals, social and environmental justice and global value chains, with a special focus on the extractive industries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Anna’s research is situated between political ecology, anthropology and human geography, engaging ethnographic, multimodal and participatory methodologies. Currently, Anna is interested in the increasing demand for critical minerals and its impacts on the extractive industries in Europe. Anna holds a BSc and MSc in Anthropology from University of Copenhagen, an MA in Visual Anthropology from University of Manchester and a PhD in Geography from Humboldt University.

 

Publications

Pedersen, A. F. (2025). Gold and geo-uncertainty in the making: The introduction of cyanide in Tanzania’s artisanal and small-scale mining sector. Geoforum 162, 104276. DOI: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2025.104276

Pedersen, A. F. Mkai, P. J., Mwenda, R. and R. Msuya (2025). One gram of gold. Journal of Anthropological Films 9 (1). DOI: 10.15845/jaf.v9i1.4052

Pedersen, A. F. (2023). Elusive Gold and Uncertainty in Artisanal and Small-scale Mining. Ethnos. DOI: 10.1080/00141844.2023.2292464

Coenen, J., Sonderegger, G., Newig, J., Challies, E., Laursen, S. B., Meyfroidt, P., Friis, C., Busck-Lumholt, L. M., Paitan, C. P., Corbera, E., Roux, N., Laroche, P., Pedersen, A. F., Qin, S., Zähringer, J. (2023). Towards Institutional Fit in the Sustainability Governance of Global Commodity Flows. Ecology and Society 28(2). DOI: 10.5751/ES-14133-280224

Busck-Lumholt, L. M., Corbera, E., Coenen, J.,  Persson, J., Pedersen, A.  F., Mertz, O. (2022). Telecoupling as a Tool for Improved Causality Attribution in Land System Science. Journal of Land Use Science. 17(1): 386-406. DOI: 10.1080/1747423X.2022.2086640

Pedersen, Anna F., Nielsen, J. Ø., Friis; C. (2022). Gold, Friction and Resistance in a Globalised Land System: The Case of Tanzania. Journal of Land Use Science. 17(1): 609-628. DOI: 10.1080/1747423X.2022.2063958

Pedersen, A. F., Nielsen, J. Ø.; Mempel, F., Laursen, S. B., Jønsson, J. B., Corbera, E. (2021). The Ambiguity of Transparency in the Artisanal and Small-scale Mining Sector of Tanzania. The Extractive Industries and Society. 8 (4): 101004. DOI: 10.1016/j.exis.2021.101004

Pedersen, A. F. Nielsen, J. Ø., Friis; C., Jønsson, J. B., (2021). Mineral Exhaustion and its Livelihood Implications for Artisanal and Small-scale Miners. In Environmental Science & Policy 119, pp. 34–43. DOI: 10.1016/j.envsci.2021.02.002.

Andersen, A. O., Bruun, T. B., Fenger, M., Egay, K., Klee, S., Pedersen, A. F., Pedersen, L. L., Suárez Villanueva, V. (2016). Negotiating Development Narratives within Large-scale Oil Palm Projects on Village Lands in Sarawak, Malaysia. Geographical Journal. 182 (4): 364–374. DOI: 10.1080/23308249.2016.1209160 

 

Outreach

Reports and policy briefs

Gordon, M., Gustafsson, M-T., Kløcker Larsen, R., Pedersen., A. F., & Schilling-Vacaflor, A. (2025). Human rights and environmental due diligence in the Green Transition: toward greater accountability amid geopolitical and sustainability challenges. Policy brief. Mistra Geopolitics. https://www.mistra-geopolitics.se/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/human-rights-and-environmental-due-diligence-in-the-green-transition.pdf

Pedersen, A. F. (2021). Empowering Women in Tanzania’s Artisanal and Small-scale Mining Sector. COUPLED Policy Brief. No. 1. June.

Coenen, J., Pedersen, A. F., Laroche, P., Laursen, S. B. (2020). Misfits in Telecoupling Research. COUPLED Report.

Busck-Lumholt, L., Coenen, J., Pedersen, A. F., Persson, J., Malik, S., Corbera, E. (2019). Exploring Impacts and Causality in Telecoupling Research: Emerging evidence and knowledge gaps. COUPLED Report.

Coenen, J., Sonderegger, G., Newig, J., Challies, E., Laursen, S. B., Meyfroidt, P., Friis, C., Busck-Lumholt, L., Parra Paitan, C., Corbera, E., Roux, N., Laroche, P., Pedersen, A. F., Qin, S. (2021). Fit for Purpose? Scale-sensitive Sustainability Governance in Telecoupled Systems. COUPLED Synthesis paper.

 

Films

One gram of gold (2025) https://boap.uib.no/index.php/jaf/article/view/4052

Gold (2019)  https://60sec.org/epidemic

Far away from Syria (2015)  https://granadacentre.co.uk/project/a-place-elsewhere/

 

About Anna’s work

Humboldts17 (2021). ‘Wie können wir Minenarbeitern einen nachhaltigen Lebensunterhalt ermöglichen?’

https://humboldts17.de/de/expeditionen/expeditionen/alles-haengt-mit-allem-zusammen/wie-koennen-wir-minenarbeitern-einen-nachhaltigen-lebensunterhalt-ermoeglichen

 

Teaching

Designing a Qualitative Research Project (BA, Summer Semester)

Political Ecology: Resource Extraction (BA, Summer Semester)

Between the Global and the Local: Sustainability in Practices (MA, Winter Semester)

Sustainable Cities Project: Applying Qualitative Methods (BA Winter Semester)