Beyond the local projects of ‘Cosmopolitan Trondheim’, the group members also carry out ethnographic and anthropological research in different parts of the world while developing projects on a global scale, researching the massive rural-urban migration in this century, focusing on climate change migration, homemaking, and sustainable cities. 

The main aim of the research is twofold. Firstly, it attempts to explore what we can learn about the human condition from the ethnographic studies of the massive rural-urban migration, existentially. And, in turn, it seeks to contribute to the interdisciplinary debates on 
climate change migration and sustainable cities socially, culturally, and politically. 

Research output

• Bonfanti, S., Chen, S., & Massa, A. (2022) Vulnerable homes on the move. Focaal, 2022(92), 1-14.
• Simonsen, J. K. (2021) «Hvem skal ta vare på oss nå?» Aldring, overlevelse og tvetydighet i en fattig bydel i Lusaka, Zambia. Norsk Antropologisk Tidsskrift. vol. 32 (3-4).
• Chen, S. (2018) Homeawayness and life-project building: Making home among rural-urban migration in China. In T. Selwyn and N. Frost (eds). Travelling towards home: Mobilities and homemaking, (pp. 34-54). Oxford: Berghahn Books. 
• Simonsen, J. K. (2018). Kinship and mobility in urban Zambia (and beyond). In J.K. Simonsen, K. Larsen, & A.I. Engebrigtsen (Eds.). Movements and Connectivity—Configurations of Belonging, (pp. 161-191). Oxford: Peter Lang Publishing Group.
• Simonsen, J. K., Larsen, K., & Engebrigtsen, A.I. (2018). Movements and connectivity—Configurations of belonging. Oxford: Peter Lang Publishing Group. 
• Sommerfelt, T. (2018) Danger, moral opacity, and outrage: Fear of Jihadism and the terrorist threat in Southern Mali. Conflict and Society: Advances in Research 4(1), 23-39. 
• Chen, S. (2017) To my city: Urbanisation and industrialisation in contemporary China (creative submission). The Unfamiliar: An Anthropological Journal. Vol. 7 (1). 
• Simonsen, J.K. (2010). The revival of the Mambwe-Lungu first-fruits ceremony in Zambia. In S. Williksen & N. Rapport (Eds.). Reveries of Home: Nostalgia, Authenticity and the Performance of Place, (pp. 45-66). Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 
• Williksen, S. & Rapport, N. (Eds.). (2010). Reveries of home: Nostalgia, authenticity and the performance of place. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 
• Cañás Bottos, Lorenzo. (2008) Old colony mennonites in Argentina and Bolivia: Nation making, religious conflict and imagination of the future. Brill Academic Publishers.