Living with Wolves – Rural–Urban Relations in Denmark

Johanne Morre Bidstrup, Student Fellow.

Johanne Morre Bidstrup studies European Ethnology at the University of Copenhagen. In her MA thesis, she explores how the return of wolves to Jutland affects rural–urban relations in Denmark and what the often polarised debate around wolves can reveal about broader tensions between urban and rural areas.

Johanne is interested in how wolves are experienced and perceived by people living in areas where wolves are present and by people living further away from wolf territories. But rather than simply comparing different attitudes towards wolves, she wants to understand what lies behind them and how different groups perceive not only the wolf, but also each other.

The aim is to study the broader questions and tensions that these perspectives reveal and how the return of the wolves may reflect and reshape urban-rural relations.

For her, the wolf therefore provides a way of examining how changes in Danish nature can be experienced very differently across geographical, cultural, and social contexts.

Johanne will primarily work ethnographically, using participant observation and interviews. Through her research, she hopes to contribute both to discussions about the management of wolves in Denmark and to a broader understanding of rural–urban divisions. In particular, she is interested in looking beyond the polarised positions that often characterise the wolf debate and examining the experiences and tensions underlying them.

Johanne points to a year spent as an exchange student in Halle in Saxony-Anhalt in Germany as particularly formative for her academic interests. Living there made her more aware of the continuing social and cultural divisions between East and West Germany and, as she puts it, of “how perceptions of centre and periphery shape divisions within a society and influence most areas of society.”

This experience sparked a lasting interest in how centre–periphery relations are shaped by politics and public debate, and in how transitions can be understood and experienced differently across geographical, cultural, and social contexts. During her time at TRANSITION, Johanne will bring that perspective into her study of the return of wolves and rural–urban relations in Denmark.