I work as Professor at the Department of Education. In doing so, I teach undergraduate courses, supervise doctoral students and conduct research within sport pedagogy / sport management.
I work as Professor at the Department of Education. In doing so, I teach undergraduate courses, supervise doctoral students and conduct research within sport pedagogy / sport management.
In my research, I focus on the intersection between sport policy and sport organizations, asking questions related to, on the one hand, how policies for sport-related activities are formed, implemented and evaluated, and on the other hand, how such processes and other societal influences affect the organization of sport activities in club-, association- and self-organized forms. At the core of such questions lies an overarching ambition to shed light on how processes of politics, governance, organization and management have real consequences for the exercise of sport activities in terms of distribution of power and resources, and in terms of prioritizations of types of activities and target groups.
This ambition is currently carried out in the form of four research projects: 1. Exploring negotiations between member needs and external expectations in sport club boardrooms; 2. Gatekeeping sport governance-the (re)production of (mis)representation in board nomination processes; 3. Sport, youth and social innovation: On civil society as a means of promoting social inclusion in multi-ethnic suburbs; and 4. Legitimizing transformational change: sport consultants' role in the implementation of strategy 2025.
Findings from these projects, and previous my research, are published primarily in European Sport Management Quarterly, European Journal for Sport and Society, International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics, International Review for the Sociology of Sport, and Sport in Society. Regarding the first three of these journals, I also serve on the Editorial board.
Graduating in 2006 with a dissertation on the professionalization and commercialization in Swedish ice hockey, and making Associate Professor in 2011, I have remained at Umeå University where I currently act as and Deputy Head of Department. In addition, I work as Visiting Professor at the Department of Sport and Social Sciences, Norwegian School of Sport Sciences.