Elsa Mertala is a PhD candidate at the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology at Leiden University. She is part of the ERC project Diversity Outdoors: Embodied Ethnoracial Inequalities and Outdoor Recreation in Europe.

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Elsa Mertala is a PhD candidate at the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology at Leiden University. She is part of the ERC project Diversity Outdoors: Embodied Ethnoracial Inequalities and Outdoor Recreation in Europe. Her research explores Black geographies through experiences of hiking and walking in Scotland. Drawing on phenomenology, embodiment, and critical race theory, she examines how Black bodies, nature, and the outdoors intersect in the production of place and belonging.

Elsa holds a double bachelor’s degree in Social Anthropology and Gender Studies, and a master’s degree in Applied Cultural Analysis from Lund University. Her previous work has engaged with questions of gender, movement, embodiment, and race.

Before starting her PhD, Elsa worked in the field of recreation and leisure in Sweden, focusing on equality and equity.