I am an associate professor in the history of science and ideas, with a focus on environmental history. As of June 2022, I am Arctic Five Chair in Environmental History at Umeå University.
My teaching and research interests include sustainability, sustainability transformation, and natural resource development in Arctic contexts and from a historical and cultural perspective.
I currently conduct research in two research projects: "Route to Paris", funded by Formas (2021-2025); and "Peripheral Visions" (2022-2025), funded by Svenska Litteratursällskapet i Finland.
Since 2022, I am Arctic Five Chair at Umeå University. https://arcticfive.org/home/research/chairs-fellows/chairs/
I am a representative for the Faculty of Arts and Humanities in Umeå University's internal reference group of MIRAI 2.0, a research collaboration between 19 Swedish and Japanese universities (https://www.aurora.umu.se/organisation-och-styrning/internationella-samarbeten/mirai/)
I am the assistant program leader for Umeå University at Future Forests, the platform for interdisciplinary forest research and research communication at SLU, the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. The platform is a collaboration between SLU, Umeå University and Skogforsk (https://www.slu.se/en/Collaborative-Centres-and-Projects/future-forests/)
Previous projects:
2020-2022: Senior research assistant in environmental history with a focus on forests and climate.
Between 2018 and 2020, I was a postdoc researcher in environmental history in the transdisciplinary project "Bring down the sky to the earth: how to use forests to open up for constructive climate change pathways in local contexts", funded by Formas. My research in this project deals with transdisciplinary research methods, historical perspectives on societal transformations toward sustainability and local climate change pathways.
In my PhD thesis Greenland's Future, defended in Dec 2017, I examined how different actors constructed narratives about Greenland's future and the modernization of the land's natural resource industries in the 20th century.
I have developed and led courses with historical and cultural perspectives on environmental issues, including forests and sustainability:
Environmental Humanities - Human places in environmental contexts
The course aims to give the student a multi- and interdisciplinary introduction to central questions and traditions in the emerging research field of environmental humanities. The central theme of the course is the relation between people and places in the ongoing changes of environment and societies, which is reflected in the course literature and examinations. The course examines how human frameworks of understanding, ways of life, and cultural expressions are shaped through the tensions between global and place-based perspectives on environmental and sustainability issues. The student learns to apply environmental humanities' perspectives on environmental and sustainability challenges, among others, by referring to the history of ideas, discursive analytical, ecocritical and environmental ethical arguments. This includes a critical reflection on how places are constructed, and how this affects different groups in society. In order to analyze these relations, this course builds on theories and approaches in the field of environmental humanities. Thereby, this course provides the students with a multifaceted understanding of how the humanities' perspectives on the environment can contribute to creating sustainable societies.
Rethinking forests: Cultural and historical perspectives on forests (Advanced level, 7.5 ECTS)
With this course, students gain insight into historical and environmental humanities approaches to forests. The course deals with the history of forests as an environmental, social and cultural phenomenon comprising different ideas, scientific disciplines, political ambitions, institutional settings and cultural framings. The course has a comparative perspective, where changes in Sweden from the 19th century to the present are contrasted with examples from other countries and cultural contexts. The overall aim is to help students develop knowledge and analytical tools in order to critically rethink forests in society, past and present, as well as to understand unfolding sustainability challenges.
The History of Environmental Thought (Advanced level, 7.5 ECTS)
(course given in Swedish)
Summer course 2019 "Kiruna, Norrland, and the World"