I study forest history, primarily Sami historical use of land and resources.
I am interested in how the Sami used natural resources and shared them among themselves before the introduction of the first Reindeer Husbandry Act in 1886. In particular, I focus on the 17th and 18th centuries, when the Sami were still the dominant group in most of Swedish Lapland, and also held the majority in the district courts. An important part of my research is based upon K.B. Wiklund's collection of excerpts, which consists of more than 2500 excerpts of court protocols regarding Sami lands from the period 1645–1845. I have digitized this collection with the ultimate aim of setting up a geographical data base including all people and places mentioned. Also, I conduct more limited studies of specific research questions, for example Forest Sami fishing.
I teach Sami historical land use in the Forest History course at SLU, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. I also lecture on how historical maps and data from airborne laser scanning (ALS, Lidar) can be used to find cultural remains in the field and analyse historical resource use.