PhD Ethnology. Docent/Associate professor of gender studies.
I have been working at Umeå University since 2002, conducting research in the field of gender studies and cultural science. I obtained my doctorate 2007 through interdisciplinary collaboration between gender studies and ethnology, and work as a senior lecturer at Umeå Centre for Gender Studies since 2011, holding a docent degree in the field. My research interest can mainly be found within civil society studies, (post)colonial studies and medical humanities.
The doctoral thesis addresses issues about identification and estrangement in Swedish solidarity workers’ narratives from Nicaragua (2007) through a feminist anticolonial perspective, followed by a post doc project where I explored conceptions within self-help literature based on theories of subjectivity, emotions, and emancipation (e.g. 2010, 2011, 2012). Utilizing predominantly poststructuralist and postcolonial perspectives, I have also investigated how solidarity is negotiated, and practiced within social movements (e.g. 2007, 2011, 2015, 2018, 2023). Another research area has long been the struggle for sexual and reproductive rights in Nicaragua (e.g. 2010, 2021, 2023). Interest in postcolonial studies has led me to initiate networks, arranging seminars, symposium as well as contributions in introducing and peer-reviewing scholarly works in the field.
As part of a civil society project (2015-2020, funded by the Swedish Research council) with a group if nine scholars (see link), we studied the role of cultural artifacts in the creation of transnational communities that reproduce, resist, or change norms regarding gender, nationality, coloniality, and sexuality. My research particularly focused on issues of religion, secularity, gender, and politics in relation veils and art (e.g. 2016a, 2016b, 2021).
At the moment, I lead a project about hormone narratives (2021-2025, funded by the Swedish Research Council). Together with Anna Sofia Lundgren and Maria Jönsson, we explore how endocrine discourses impact everyday self-perception and notions of normality. The study includes interviews and an examination of media materials and self-help books in the field (e.g. 2022a, 2022b, 2023).
In the project Negotiating the risk of segregation - public and civic responses to growing social inequalities in a "not yet" divided city, together with Hanna Bäckström Olofsson, we are studying civil society and municipal definitions of and efforts against segregation (e.g. 2023, 2024).
While research constitutes a significant portion of my work, I also supervise and teach gender studies at all levels at UCGS for example as course coordinator for doctoral courses in ethnography and for the two master’s courses: Feminist theories and Gender, Nation, and Migration.