Mikkel Bille
Biographic Data
| ID | 74224 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Mikkel Bille |
| GIVEN NAMES | Mikkel |
| FAMILY NAME | Bille |
| SIGNATURE | BILLE M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Copenhagen |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4558-2473 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 430 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 22 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2007 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Framed Uncertainty: Making Sense of Residential Wood Stove Emissions in Denmark
Residential wood stoves are often highlighted as the worst pollution source of PM2.5 air pollution in Denmark, accounting for 52 percent of national emissions. This unambiguous number implies accuracy, and that researchers know how much PM2.5 pollution can be attributed to residential wood stoves with precision. But we demonstrate in this article that emissions from wood stoves are notoriously uncertain and key parameters largely unknown. While t…
Attuned visibility and the ambiguity of demanding public spaces in Copenhagen
Based on ethnographic data and mapping exercises, this article explores North West Park in Copenhagen, Denmark and asks how lighting forms perceptions of urban space. The park was inaugurated in the late 2000s and has been praised for its bold landscape and lighting design. However, it was received in more ambiguous ways by users, explaining their experience of it in words such as “magical” and “kitsch.” This ambiguity highlights how current urba…
Material Culture Studies: Objectification, Agency, and Intangibility: Materiality
Engaged Lingering: Urban Contingency in the Pandemic Present with Covid-19 in Denmark
This article explores the intensification of contingency in an urban setting during the rapid spread of COVID-19 in Denmark. Based on interviews with fifty-one residents in the two largest cities in Denmark from the very first day of lockdown, it explores how the respondents expressed a friction between adapting to isolation, powerlessness and feelings of being out of time on the one hand, while simultaneously also being confronted with urgency t…
In Visible Presence: The Role of Light in Shaping Religious Atmospheres
This chapter explores the uses and perception of light in religious architecture. Often characterized as an ambiguous materiality—neither concrete and tangible nor distinctly immaterial—light seems to offer itself readily as both matter and metaphor for the divine. We argue in this chapter that this is precisely what happens in contemporary Danish churches, yet not without conflicts between the ideal of immaterial divinity and the need for tangib…
Data witnessing: Making sense of urban air in Copenhagen, Denmark
Taking air pollution in Copenhagen as a case of environmental change, this article discusses the different ways that data are employed in processes of witnessing this change. We distinguish between three different modes of “data witnessing”—modest, imperial, and guerrilla—in order to clarify how different scientific, corporate, or civil society actors are engaged in producing and analyzing data about air pollution from different vantage points an…
Choreographing atmospheres in Copenhagen: Processes and positions between home and public
This article explores how people choreograph spaces to feel particular ways through material objects and intangible phenomena like light and sound. Drawing on theories of atmospheres and ethnographic fieldwork in Copenhagen, we argue that while there has been a proliferation of research on atmospheres in urban studies, we also need to attend empirically to the processes through which they come into being, consolidate and coagulate. Through explor…
Dans la lumière des foyers bédouins
Cet article se penche sur l'éclairage et l'architecture domestiques chez des Bédouins sédentarisés du sud de la Jordanie. Il analyse la façon dont la lumière est utilisée pour protéger certains espaces dans le cadre des pratiques d'hospitalité qui occupent une place centrale dans la culture bédouine. En avançant que les choses sont ' extatiques ' dans le sens où elles transcendent leur propre tangibilité, cet article montre de quelle façon des ob…
Phenomenographies: Describing the Plurality of Atmospheric Worlds
In recent years, the theory of atmospheres has extended beyond phenomenology and aesthetics, informing a wide variety of descriptive practices in the humanities. Diverse scholarly fields such as anthropology and architecture, musicology and art criticism now include the notion of atmospheric space in their methodological toolkits. The descriptive practices of lived space, however, entail several theoretical questions, concerning the potential and…
Atmospheric Practices: On Affecting and Being Affected
This article reviews and discusses recent literature on affect by highlighting two central problems: the problem of distinction and the problem of transmission. To deal with these problems, we argue, literature within geography has turned from affect to affective atmospheres to emphasize the spatial and material aspects of affect. Yet in so doing, such literature has largely omitted the role of practices, which has simultaneously been studied in …
Always like never before: Learning from thelumitopiaof Tivoli Gardens
© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Drawing on a detailed analysis of the historical and current development of lighting in Copenhagen’s Tivoli Gardens, this article addresses how this site of extraordinarily diverse illumination exemplifies a carefully orchestrated balance between (1) muted and more vivid forms of lighting, (2) curation of historical styles and promotion of contemporary innovations in illumination and (…
Ecstatic things: The Power of Light in Shaping Bedouin Homes
This article addresses the orchestration of domestic lighting as an object of anthropological study. It takes Bedouin domestic architecture in southern Jordan as a starting point in an analysis of how light is used as means of safeguarding spaces as part of hospitality practices central to Bedouin culture. By arguing that things are “ecstatic” in the sense that they transcend their own tangibility, the article shows how objects, such as tinted wi…
Lighting up cosy atmospheres in Denmark
Hazy worlds: Atmospheric ontologies in Denmark
This article explores the use of light in Denmark as part of shaping atmospheres. It discusses how the words informants use to express a particular atmosphere may have multiple connotations and in essence be defined more by their vagueness than by their clarity. The article argues that, rather than focusing on clear ontological statements, taking informants' lack of clarity at face value offers new ways for the ethnographer to gain insights into …
Staging atmospheres: Materiality, culture, and the texture of the in-between
The Make-Believe Space: Affective Geography in a Postwar Polity
Verdens Uafklarethed
Artiklen diskuterer, hvorledes uafklarethed og begrebsmæssig vaghed konstituerer den måde, hvorpå mennesker udfolder sig materielt og begrebsmæssigt. I de nylige antropologiske studier af 'en eller flere verdener' udfolder verdens beskaffenhed sig ofte i informanternes klare og entydige udsagn eller udledes af observationer af praksis. Med udgangspunkt i brugen af belysning argumenterer artiklen for et øet fokus påbegrebet 'tmosfæe' som det, der …
Assembling heritage: Investigating the Unesco proclamation of Bedouin intangible heritage in Jordan
This paper examines the process of incorporating the Bedouin of Petra and Wadi Rum in Jordan on UNESCO’s list of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity in 2005. The author focuses on the Bedouin tribes around Petra, who were resettled in villages when UNESCO proclaimed the area part of the tangible heritage of humanity in 1985. Heritage is approached as a ‘process of assembling’ that emerges from the interactions of social e…
Seeking Providence Through Things: The Word of God Versus Black Cumin
Introduction: An Anthropology of Absence
An Anthropology of Absence: Materializations of Transcendence and Loss
Flames of transformation: The Role of Fire in Cremation Practices
This paper explores the transformative power of fire, its fundamental ability to change material worlds and affect our experience of its materiality. The paper examines material transformations related to death as a means of illustrating the powerful property of fire as a materially destructive yet socially generative and creative element. While fire has been widely discussed archaeologically as a technological element, and recently coupled with …
An Anthropology of Luminosity: The Agency of Light
This article addresses the relationship between light, material culture and social experiences. It argues that understanding light as a powerful social agent, in its relationship with people, things, colours, shininess and places, may facilitate an appreciation of the active social role of luminosity in the practice of day-to-day activities. The article surveys an array of past conceptions of light within philosophy, natural science and more rece…
Staging atmospheres: Materiality, culture, and the texture of the in-between
An Anthropology of Luminosity: The Agency of Light
This article addresses the relationship between light, material culture and social experiences. It argues that understanding light as a powerful social agent, in its relationship with people, things, colours, shininess and places, may facilitate an appreciation of the active social role of luminosity in the practice of day-to-day activities. The article surveys an array of past conceptions of light within philosophy, natural science and more rece…
Atmospheric Practices: On Affecting and Being Affected
This article reviews and discusses recent literature on affect by highlighting two central problems: the problem of distinction and the problem of transmission. To deal with these problems, we argue, literature within geography has turned from affect to affective atmospheres to emphasize the spatial and material aspects of affect. Yet in so doing, such literature has largely omitted the role of practices, which has simultaneously been studied in …
An Anthropology of Absence: Materializations of Transcendence and Loss
Hazy worlds: Atmospheric ontologies in Denmark
This article explores the use of light in Denmark as part of shaping atmospheres. It discusses how the words informants use to express a particular atmosphere may have multiple connotations and in essence be defined more by their vagueness than by their clarity. The article argues that, rather than focusing on clear ontological statements, taking informants' lack of clarity at face value offers new ways for the ethnographer to gain insights into …
Ecstatic things: The Power of Light in Shaping Bedouin Homes
This article addresses the orchestration of domestic lighting as an object of anthropological study. It takes Bedouin domestic architecture in southern Jordan as a starting point in an analysis of how light is used as means of safeguarding spaces as part of hospitality practices central to Bedouin culture. By arguing that things are “ecstatic” in the sense that they transcend their own tangibility, the article shows how objects, such as tinted wi…
Flames of transformation: The Role of Fire in Cremation Practices
This paper explores the transformative power of fire, its fundamental ability to change material worlds and affect our experience of its materiality. The paper examines material transformations related to death as a means of illustrating the powerful property of fire as a materially destructive yet socially generative and creative element. While fire has been widely discussed archaeologically as a technological element, and recently coupled with …
Assembling heritage: Investigating the Unesco proclamation of Bedouin intangible heritage in Jordan
This paper examines the process of incorporating the Bedouin of Petra and Wadi Rum in Jordan on UNESCO’s list of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity in 2005. The author focuses on the Bedouin tribes around Petra, who were resettled in villages when UNESCO proclaimed the area part of the tangible heritage of humanity in 1985. Heritage is approached as a ‘process of assembling’ that emerges from the interactions of social e…
Always like never before: Learning from thelumitopiaof Tivoli Gardens
© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Drawing on a detailed analysis of the historical and current development of lighting in Copenhagen’s Tivoli Gardens, this article addresses how this site of extraordinarily diverse illumination exemplifies a carefully orchestrated balance between (1) muted and more vivid forms of lighting, (2) curation of historical styles and promotion of contemporary innovations in illumination and (…
The Make-Believe Space: Affective Geography in a Postwar Polity
Choreographing atmospheres in Copenhagen: Processes and positions between home and public
This article explores how people choreograph spaces to feel particular ways through material objects and intangible phenomena like light and sound. Drawing on theories of atmospheres and ethnographic fieldwork in Copenhagen, we argue that while there has been a proliferation of research on atmospheres in urban studies, we also need to attend empirically to the processes through which they come into being, consolidate and coagulate. Through explor…
Phenomenographies: Describing the Plurality of Atmospheric Worlds
In recent years, the theory of atmospheres has extended beyond phenomenology and aesthetics, informing a wide variety of descriptive practices in the humanities. Diverse scholarly fields such as anthropology and architecture, musicology and art criticism now include the notion of atmospheric space in their methodological toolkits. The descriptive practices of lived space, however, entail several theoretical questions, concerning the potential and…
Attuned visibility and the ambiguity of demanding public spaces in Copenhagen
Based on ethnographic data and mapping exercises, this article explores North West Park in Copenhagen, Denmark and asks how lighting forms perceptions of urban space. The park was inaugurated in the late 2000s and has been praised for its bold landscape and lighting design. However, it was received in more ambiguous ways by users, explaining their experience of it in words such as “magical” and “kitsch.” This ambiguity highlights how current urba…
Engaged Lingering: Urban Contingency in the Pandemic Present with Covid-19 in Denmark
This article explores the intensification of contingency in an urban setting during the rapid spread of COVID-19 in Denmark. Based on interviews with fifty-one residents in the two largest cities in Denmark from the very first day of lockdown, it explores how the respondents expressed a friction between adapting to isolation, powerlessness and feelings of being out of time on the one hand, while simultaneously also being confronted with urgency t…
An Anthropology of Luminosity: The Agency of Light
This article addresses the relationship between light, material culture and social experiences. It argues that understanding light as a powerful social agent, in its relationship with people, things, colours, shininess and places, may facilitate an appreciation of the active social role of luminosity in the practice of day-to-day activities. The article surveys an array of past conceptions of light within philosophy, natural science and more rece…
Flames of transformation: The Role of Fire in Cremation Practices
This paper explores the transformative power of fire, its fundamental ability to change material worlds and affect our experience of its materiality. The paper examines material transformations related to death as a means of illustrating the powerful property of fire as a materially destructive yet socially generative and creative element. While fire has been widely discussed archaeologically as a technological element, and recently coupled with …
Seeking Providence Through Things: The Word of God Versus Black Cumin
Introduction: An Anthropology of Absence
An Anthropology of Absence: Materializations of Transcendence and Loss
Assembling heritage: Investigating the Unesco proclamation of Bedouin intangible heritage in Jordan
This paper examines the process of incorporating the Bedouin of Petra and Wadi Rum in Jordan on UNESCO’s list of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity in 2005. The author focuses on the Bedouin tribes around Petra, who were resettled in villages when UNESCO proclaimed the area part of the tangible heritage of humanity in 1985. Heritage is approached as a ‘process of assembling’ that emerges from the interactions of social e…
Verdens Uafklarethed
Artiklen diskuterer, hvorledes uafklarethed og begrebsmæssig vaghed konstituerer den måde, hvorpå mennesker udfolder sig materielt og begrebsmæssigt. I de nylige antropologiske studier af 'en eller flere verdener' udfolder verdens beskaffenhed sig ofte i informanternes klare og entydige udsagn eller udledes af observationer af praksis. Med udgangspunkt i brugen af belysning argumenterer artiklen for et øet fokus påbegrebet 'tmosfæe' som det, der …
Staging atmospheres: Materiality, culture, and the texture of the in-between
The Make-Believe Space: Affective Geography in a Postwar Polity
Lighting up cosy atmospheres in Denmark
Hazy worlds: Atmospheric ontologies in Denmark
This article explores the use of light in Denmark as part of shaping atmospheres. It discusses how the words informants use to express a particular atmosphere may have multiple connotations and in essence be defined more by their vagueness than by their clarity. The article argues that, rather than focusing on clear ontological statements, taking informants' lack of clarity at face value offers new ways for the ethnographer to gain insights into …
Ecstatic things: The Power of Light in Shaping Bedouin Homes
This article addresses the orchestration of domestic lighting as an object of anthropological study. It takes Bedouin domestic architecture in southern Jordan as a starting point in an analysis of how light is used as means of safeguarding spaces as part of hospitality practices central to Bedouin culture. By arguing that things are “ecstatic” in the sense that they transcend their own tangibility, the article shows how objects, such as tinted wi…
Phenomenographies: Describing the Plurality of Atmospheric Worlds
In recent years, the theory of atmospheres has extended beyond phenomenology and aesthetics, informing a wide variety of descriptive practices in the humanities. Diverse scholarly fields such as anthropology and architecture, musicology and art criticism now include the notion of atmospheric space in their methodological toolkits. The descriptive practices of lived space, however, entail several theoretical questions, concerning the potential and…
Atmospheric Practices: On Affecting and Being Affected
This article reviews and discusses recent literature on affect by highlighting two central problems: the problem of distinction and the problem of transmission. To deal with these problems, we argue, literature within geography has turned from affect to affective atmospheres to emphasize the spatial and material aspects of affect. Yet in so doing, such literature has largely omitted the role of practices, which has simultaneously been studied in …
Always like never before: Learning from thelumitopiaof Tivoli Gardens
© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Drawing on a detailed analysis of the historical and current development of lighting in Copenhagen’s Tivoli Gardens, this article addresses how this site of extraordinarily diverse illumination exemplifies a carefully orchestrated balance between (1) muted and more vivid forms of lighting, (2) curation of historical styles and promotion of contemporary innovations in illumination and (…
Dans la lumière des foyers bédouins
Cet article se penche sur l'éclairage et l'architecture domestiques chez des Bédouins sédentarisés du sud de la Jordanie. Il analyse la façon dont la lumière est utilisée pour protéger certains espaces dans le cadre des pratiques d'hospitalité qui occupent une place centrale dans la culture bédouine. En avançant que les choses sont ' extatiques ' dans le sens où elles transcendent leur propre tangibilité, cet article montre de quelle façon des ob…
In Visible Presence: The Role of Light in Shaping Religious Atmospheres
This chapter explores the uses and perception of light in religious architecture. Often characterized as an ambiguous materiality—neither concrete and tangible nor distinctly immaterial—light seems to offer itself readily as both matter and metaphor for the divine. We argue in this chapter that this is precisely what happens in contemporary Danish churches, yet not without conflicts between the ideal of immaterial divinity and the need for tangib…
Data witnessing: Making sense of urban air in Copenhagen, Denmark
Taking air pollution in Copenhagen as a case of environmental change, this article discusses the different ways that data are employed in processes of witnessing this change. We distinguish between three different modes of “data witnessing”—modest, imperial, and guerrilla—in order to clarify how different scientific, corporate, or civil society actors are engaged in producing and analyzing data about air pollution from different vantage points an…
Choreographing atmospheres in Copenhagen: Processes and positions between home and public
This article explores how people choreograph spaces to feel particular ways through material objects and intangible phenomena like light and sound. Drawing on theories of atmospheres and ethnographic fieldwork in Copenhagen, we argue that while there has been a proliferation of research on atmospheres in urban studies, we also need to attend empirically to the processes through which they come into being, consolidate and coagulate. Through explor…
Material Culture Studies: Objectification, Agency, and Intangibility: Materiality
Engaged Lingering: Urban Contingency in the Pandemic Present with Covid-19 in Denmark
This article explores the intensification of contingency in an urban setting during the rapid spread of COVID-19 in Denmark. Based on interviews with fifty-one residents in the two largest cities in Denmark from the very first day of lockdown, it explores how the respondents expressed a friction between adapting to isolation, powerlessness and feelings of being out of time on the one hand, while simultaneously also being confronted with urgency t…
Framed Uncertainty: Making Sense of Residential Wood Stove Emissions in Denmark
Residential wood stoves are often highlighted as the worst pollution source of PM2.5 air pollution in Denmark, accounting for 52 percent of national emissions. This unambiguous number implies accuracy, and that researchers know how much PM2.5 pollution can be attributed to residential wood stoves with precision. But we demonstrate in this article that emissions from wood stoves are notoriously uncertain and key parameters largely unknown. While t…
Attuned visibility and the ambiguity of demanding public spaces in Copenhagen
Based on ethnographic data and mapping exercises, this article explores North West Park in Copenhagen, Denmark and asks how lighting forms perceptions of urban space. The park was inaugurated in the late 2000s and has been praised for its bold landscape and lighting design. However, it was received in more ambiguous ways by users, explaining their experience of it in words such as “magical” and “kitsch.” This ambiguity highlights how current urba…
Sociology (18 works) · Geographies of human-animal interactions (12 works) · Aesthetics (10 works) · Art (10 works) · History (8 works) · Philosophy (8 works) · Political science (8 works) · Epistemology (7 works) · Linguistics (7 works) · Philosophy (7 works)