I am a Professor The faculty of Social studies, VID Specialized University in Oslo and and I was until recently also a a Research Professor at the Norwegian Centre for Violence and Traumatic Stress Studies, and a Professor of Sociology at the University of Bergen.
Research areas
My current research focuses on questions of gender, violence and power, including violence against women migrants and refugees, intimate partner violence and violence in Sámi communities. Other major topics of my research have been changes over time and generations in men’s work–family practices and gender relations, and migration and social change. My research has also spanned a number of other topics, including ethical banking, public sector management and organisational change, the welfare state, theories of social justice, human rights, and policy studies. My research is driven by a hope to contribute to gender equality and justice. Read more about my research.
Background
I studied politics, contemporary history, regional planning and economics, majored in the latter two, and graduated with a cand.mag. degree at the University of Tromsø in 1981, with an M.Sc. in European economic studies at the College of Europe (Belgium) in 1982, and with a mag.art. degree (Ph.D. equivalent) in economic sociology at the University of Oslo in 1995, with a dissertation on microfinance, ethical and interest-free banking, Pengene mot strømmen [Money Against the Stream]. I was awarded associate professor competence in sociology in 2009, and later also in psychology. I received a Ph.D. in gender studies at Örebro University in 2014, with the dissertation Modern Men. I was awarded full professor competence in 2015.
During the 1980s and early 1990s, I worked at the Regional Development Fund (Innovation Norway) and the National Institute of Technology, and as a business consultant, mainly promoting regional development and women’s entrepreneurship and leadership. In the early 1990s I was coordinator of an ultimately unsuccessful initiative to establish an interest-free bank in Norway, modelled after JAK Members Bank in Sweden. From 1993 I was affiliated with the Project for an Alternative Future (Centre for Development and the Environment, University of Oslo), where I wrote my dissertation on financial institutions, building upon my prior practical work in this field. Since 1997 I have worked as a researcher, research professor and professor of sociology at several research institutions including the Work Research Institute, the University of Oslo, the Norwegian Centre for Violence and Traumatic Stress Studies, the University of Bergen and VID Specialized University (Diakonhjemmet). I have been President of the Norwegian Association for Women’s Rights and I have served as a national expert on gender equality to the European Commission.
Teaching
I have taught and/or supervised students in sociology, psychology, criminology, law, political science, peace and conflict studies, global governance, economics, family therapy, international social welfare and health policy, gender studies and cultural studies.