Anna Hedlund has a PhD in social anthropology and is a senior lecturer in human rights at the Department of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg. Her current research focuses on youth culture in criminal networks, gun violence reduction strategies, and gang desistance in Sweden. Her previous research focused on collective memories of the genocide in Rwanda among armed rebel groups in eastern Congo (DRC) and on the significance of history, ethnicity, and propaganda for understanding narratives and expressions of violence in ongoing conflicts. She is the author of the book Hutu Rebels: Exile Warriors in the Eastern Congo (University of Pennsylvania Press) and has published her research in African journals, journals on violence and conflict, and leading journals of criminology.

Hedlund has previously been a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa and at DIGNITY – Danish Institute Against Torture (Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research Fellow), and is currently an affiliated senior researcher with the South African Research Chair in Social Change, University of Johannesburg. She is currently the PI for the project “Paths beyond gang life: An ethnographic study of young gang desisters’ disengagement from criminal groups in Sweden”, funded by RJ (Riksbankens Jubileumsfond).

During her time at SCAS she will be working on an ethnographic book project on gang desistance that focuses on the structural and everyday challenges young individuals encounter when disengaging from criminal networks in Sweden.

This information is accurate as of the academic year 2026-27.