Abstract

The presentation introduces my work on how digitalization affects access to key services for people at the intersection of homelessness and drug use. The project employs service journey tools to map the complex, geographical journeys people undertake to be connected to services that require digital connection. I am currently occupied by the role of serendipity in these digital service geographies. Further, I am working on conceptualizing these journeys as a set of fragile ‘itineraries’, which intersect with other everyday itineraries at the urban margins.

Short bio

Maj Nygaard-Christensen is associate professor at the Centre for Alcohol and Drug Research at Aarhus University. Her work is focused on substance use and social marginalization in the Danish welfare state, a focus developed in projects exploring digitalization at the urban margins, ‘poverty work’ among people on social benefits, a DFF-funded project on COVID-19 and lockdown effects for people relying on low-threshold services, and several projects focused on socially marginalized people with a Greenlandic background living in Denmark. She is further involved in research on use of prescription opioids among young people in Denmark.

What is an AIAS Seminar?

The AIAS Seminar Series is a session of seminars held by the AIAS fellows, AIAS Visiting or Tandem Fellows or by other speakers proposed by the fellows. In each seminar, a fellow will present and discuss her/his current research and work-in-progress to an interdisciplinary audience for 30 minutes, closing off with 30 minutes for questions, comments and discussion.

All seminars are in-person and held in English. To attend online, please contact Sofia Bentsen at sofia@aias.au.dk by 9:00am on the day of the semimar as the latest to request a link.