Laura Huttunen

I am a social anthropologist, interested in transnational anthropology, migration issues, and ways of living with violent pasts. I have worked with the Bosnian diaspora since early 2000s, carrying out ethnographic research both in Finland and in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Currently I am working with the politics of disappearances in various contexts, ranging from wartime Bosnia-Herzegovina to current flows of global migration.

I am currently leading research project “Governance and grieving: Disappearing migrants and emergent politics” (DiMig) (Academy of Finland, project funding 2018 – 2022)

Ethnographic approaches to migration

Diaspora and transnational studies

Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bosnian diaspora

Missing persons, forcibly disappeared persons

Reserach projects

• Governance and grieving: Disappearing migrants and emergent politics (DiMig) (Academy of Finland, project funding 2018 – 2022)

• Absence and liminality: Missing persons and the social order (Institute for Advanced Social Research, University of Tampere 2012-2014)

• Between Nation States and Transnational Networks: Renegotiating Communities in Bosnian Diaspora (Academy of Finland, 2005-2007

Huttunen, Laura & Perl, Gerhild (2023) (eds.) An anthropology of disappearance: Politics, intimacies and alternative ways of knowing. New York: Berghah.

Huttunen, Laura (2024) ‘Narratives of absence: Making sense of loss and liminality in the post-war Bosnian diaspora’ in Brigitte Bonisch-Brednich, Anastasia Christou,Silke Meyer, Marie Johanna Karner and Anton Jakob Escher  (eds.) Migrant Narratives - Moving Stories: Modalities of Agency, Collectivity and Performativity. London: Routledge.

Huttunen, Laura & Perl, Gerhild (2023) Introduction: Why an Anthropology of Disappearance. In Laura Huttunen & Gerhild Perl (eds.) An Anthropology of Disappearance: Politics, Intimacies and Alternative Ways of Knowing. New York: Berghah, pp.1-27.

Kivilahti, Saila and Huttunen, Laura (2023) Negotiating Epistemic Uncertainties: Coming to Terms with Migrant Disappearances in the Western Mediterranean. In Laura Huttunen & Gerhild Perl (eds.) An Anthropology of Disappearance: Politics, Intimacies and Alternative Ways of Knowing. New York: Berghah, pp. 228-246.

Huttunen, Laura (2020) Conceptualizing disappearances, from Bosnia-Herzegovina to the present-day migration order. In E. Schindel & G. Gatti (eds.) Social Disappearance: Explorations between Latin America and Eastern Europe. Berlin: Forum Transnationale Studien, pp.106 – 118.

Nyberg Sørensen, Ninna & Huttunen, Laura (2020) Missing migrants and the politics of disappearance in armed conflicts and migratory contexts. Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology 87(2): 321- 337.

Huttunen, Laura & Marko Juntunen (2018) Suburban encounters: superdiversity,diasporic relationality and everyday practices in the Nordic context. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.

Huttunen, Laura (2017) Troubled conjunctures: Ethnography, Psychotherapy and Transnational Social Fields. In Josephides, L. and Grønseth A. S. (eds.) The Ethics of Knowledge Creation: Transactions, Relations, and Persons. Oxford: Berghahn Books, pp. 101 – 123.

Huttunen, Laura (2016) Liminality and Contested Communitas: The Missing Persons in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Conflict and Society: Advances in Research 2 (2016): 201–218. doi:10.3167/arcs.2016.020117