Naama Cohen — Anthropologist, researcher, and writer in Copenhagen

My work examines how people become who they are. I work within the anthropology of consciousness, psychological anthropology, and phenomenology, and am interested in the places where thought, habit, technology, body, and matter meet and shape us.

I study how practices, technologies, spaces, and objects shape consciousness, human experience, social relations, and ways of being in the world — and are shaped by them in turn.

I am interested in how daily rhythms organize our mental and emotional lives, and in the ways people imagine and experience their own inner worlds and those of others.

In my thesis research I worked with programmers and with how programming involves imaginative work and shapes thinking, worldview, and the body.

Denmark and Israel are two central fields through which I think, write, and teach.

I look at everyday life, institutions, public spaces, design, infrastructures, and social relations to understand how culture takes tangible form — and what we can learn from it about the society we live in and the society we seek to build.

Since October 7 I have also been writing and researching the lives of Israelis and Jews in Denmark, focusing on questions of antisemitism, identity, belonging, and fear, and on the encounter between communities, institutions, and historical memory.

Living in Copenhagen lets me study Denmark not only from the outside, but through ongoing participation in its everyday life. My perspective combines closeness and distance: living inside the place while trying to understand the assumptions, habits, and systems that allow it to work as it does.

In 2025 I founded Field Notes & Finds, an anthropological space that seeks to make accessible knowledge and a way of thinking grounded in curiosity, compassion, and humility.

The project grows from a desire to turn anthropological thought into a living language we can think with, travel with, teach with, and act through in the world.

One of the project's central threads is the idea that objects, clothes, and spaces are not only an outer expression of who we are — they take part in making us. We tend to think of the true self as something deep inside, and of the outside as a shell, costume, or stage.

The anthropology of materiality offers another view: the objects we live with, the clothes we learn to wear, and the spaces we move through are not only markers of identity. They shape habits, consciousness, relationships, taste, status, and a sense of belonging.

Sometimes they affect us precisely because they become invisible — a taken-for-granted part of life's background.

Through all of these spaces I return to the same question: how culture becomes tangible, and how the most tangible things in our lives shape what we take to be inner, personal, and private.

Through research, writing, lectures, tours, and learning journeys, I help readers, organizations, and groups understand how Danish culture takes shape in everyday life — in public spaces, institutions, design, objects, and social relations.

I offer lectures and workshops, anthropological tours in Copenhagen, and guidance for groups and organizations building learning journeys in Denmark.

The aim is not only to visit inspiring places, but to understand the cultural, social, and material context in which they operate: which assumptions stand behind them, what makes them work, and what can — or cannot — be taken from them elsewhere.

I work with organizations, institutions, and groups who want to understand in depth the culture, people, and systems they operate within — and to see anew what has already become taken for granted.

I offer anthropological and qualitative research, consulting, and organizational learning processes.

Within that work I help organizations formulate the right questions, identify hidden assumptions, look at everyday habits and processes, and understand how culture, relationships, spaces, and organizational structures shape how people think and act.

A process may include observations, interviews, qualitative research, cultural mapping, thinking workshops, and guidance in developing new directions for action.

The goal is not only to supply answers from the outside, but to build with the organization a new way of looking at itself, learning from what is actually happening, and asking questions that make change possible.

I do not only help organizations find answers; I help them identify which questions they should ask, and how to see anew what is happening within them.

If your organization is facing a complex question, a change process, or a sense that something important still isn’t visible, we can start with a conversation and explore together which research and learning process fits you.