Responsibilities
- University board member (elected by faculty)
- Responsible for PhD level courses
- PHDTHET Research Ethics and Theory of Science
- HIU9101 Qualitative methods
- HIU9211 Visual and multisensory methods
- PhD supervision (current): main supervisor for Husam Abusalem (USN); secondary supervisor for Sidse Hølvig Mikkelsen (USN / UC Viden, Danmark), Shari Bloom (USN), Elin Bøen (USN), Valdis Kristin Dolve (USN); mentor (FraMeS Mentoring program for Women Scientists) for Inka Fürtig (University Siegen, Germany)
- Leader of research group Qualitative methods in professional practice
Competences
My main interest as researcher is to understand, present and critique how our surroundings shape the way we interact with others. We perceive and interact with our surroundings and that leads us in certain directions, makes us do some things and not do other things. This way, we experience and (re)produce social control – as children, as handicapped people, as white people, …
How is this control established through our senses? How can we notice and act upon something that is “in” our senses and bodies? To get a grip on these questions, I often make use of visual and multisensory methods, putting the body into focus and studying the way it moves through and relates to its surroundings. But we experience more than mere materiality or “stuff”, which led me to do research on the experience of absence.
In addition, I am also interested in research’s grey zones and failures, an area in which I recently was guest editor for a special issue in Qualitative Research with the title “Hierarchy and inequality in research”. I find it important to understand how an ethics of care can be established and maintained when we do research, but also in professional practice in general.
Research areas (keywords)
qualitative methods; failure in research and professional practice; research ethics; space–materiality–mobility; body & the senses; phenomenology & ethnomethodology; science & technology studies (STS); urban studies; heritage; social control & resistance; absence; climate change
Research projects & networks
- Research Group Qualitative Methods in Professional Practice, USN (head of group)
- Research Group Cultural Heritage in Use, USN
- Norwegian network for didactics in social sciences
- Stadt-Raum-Architektur, independent research network for junior researchers
2015: member of Telemark University College’s research committee
Peer review for: Theory, Culture & Society; Qualitative Research; Cultural Geographies; Recherches sociologiques et anthropologiques; Qualitative Sociology; Space and Culture; Urban Studies; Current Sociology; Visual Studies; Nature and Culture; Area; Transfers; Journal of Urban Cultural Studies; Österreichische Zeitschrift für Soziologie; Sosiologisk Tidsskrift; Ambiance; Kriminologisches Journal; FORMakademisk; Europa Regional; Nordisk kulturpolitisk tidsskrift; Norsk Pedagogisk Tidsskrift; Bebyggelsehistorisk tidskrift; and for Ashgate Publishers (the list is incomplete).
Main supervisor for finished PhDs: Laima Nomeikaite (USN and Roskilde University), Vibeke Sjøvoll (OsloMet), Åsne Håndlykken-Luz (USN), Liv Lofthus (USN), Ana Koncul (USN); secondary supervisor for Benjamin Richards (USN), Ann Hege Lorvik Waterhouse (OsloMet), Melissa A. Murphy (NMBU), Karin Hognestad (USN) og Marit Bøe (USN).
CV
I studied sociology at Universität Kiel, Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt Universität Berlin (all in Germany), and at Indiana Unversity Bloomington (USA). I received my diploma (“Dipl. Soz.”, equivalent to a masters degree) from Freie Universität Berlin in 2002. At Technische Universität Darmstadt (also in Germany) I was awarded a PhD scholarship in 2003 and received a Dr. phil. (PhD) degree in sociology in 2006.
Afterwards I was unemployed, worked as janitor, and as postdoc and researcher in several institutions over the course of the next six years (the research institutions were Technische Universität Darmstadt, Universitet i Oslo, Arkitektur- og Designhøgskolen and Universität Hamburg).
From 2012 onwards I had a permanent position at Telemark University College (which later became part of USN), where I was promoted to full professor in 2014. I also had a full position as professor for qualitative methods at NTNU’s Department of Sociology and Political Science from 2014-2015, but I quit that position to avoid long distance commuting to my family.
In 2019, I was appointed as leader of the board for USN’s PhD program in Culture Studies. In that year, I was also elected as a member of USN’s board for the first time.
For a full cv, more information and direct download links for my publications see my ResearchGate and Google Scholar profiles (and my not-really-updated personal website).