The project investigates musicians' experiences with inclusion and exclusion linked to social processes in higher music education, specifically jazz education. The PhD project will investigate the intimacy of bodily and social spaces and builds on Sara Ahmed's (2012) arguments about "stranger making" by thinking more concretely about institutional space, and how some people more than others will feel at home at institutions that assume certain bodies as their norm. The theoretical framework revolves around a critical, feminist tradition which involves examining differences from a power perspective.

In line with participatory action research (PAR), the project will enter into collaboration with jazz education to identify the local challenges that apply and, through interviews and workshops, make students and staff co-designers of the study. The aim is to explore how to create an inclusive music education and bring new perspectives to the field by highlighting how, despite increasing awareness and inclusion measures related to gender and other axes of difference, there are still invisible barriers that prevent certain bodies from experiencing a sense of belonging.

Contact person: Liv Quist Christensen

The project investigates a) how emotion (specifically sexual desire) is mediated and circulated on TikTok, b) how the material affordances of the platform are shaping creativity and community online, and c) how TikTok is changing, and continuing, established fan practices and - expressions. Together this inquiry will give insights in two key areas. 

1)    Increased understanding of what makes TikTok different (and similar) to other platforms, and

2)    Documentation and knowledge about the way women and queer folk on TikTok are expressing sexual desire online, contributing to our understanding of how sexuality on the internet is performed – and, importantly, how “sex online” it is not limited to pornography/porn industries. 

Website for horny for Ghost

Contact person: Kristine Ask

Across three interactive workshops, over a period of two years, this project aimed to develop exchanges between academia and activism concerning the issues of women’s and LGBT rights in three geographical contexts: The Nordic countries, Russia and Turkey.

The project gathered crucial insights into how activists and researchers in these variegated locations challenge ethno-nationalist, anti-gender and homophobic policies in times of political backlash against democracy and the rise of the far-right. In doing so, we aim to develop novel analytic and strategic tools to use in the struggle against gendered, sexualized, ethnicized and racialized inequalities that currently are on the rise in the Nordic region and beyond.

The project is funded by NIKK (Nordic Gender Equality Fund) and will run from 2019-2022.

Project website    

Steering group

Dr Olga Sasunkevich, associate senior lecturer in gender studies, Department of Cultural Sciences, University of Gothenburg, Sweden

Dr Deniz Akin, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Department of Interdisciplinary Studies Culture, NTNU, Norway

Dr Selin Çağatay, Postdoctoral fellow in gender studies, Department of Cultural Sciences, Gothenburg University, Sweden

Dr Mia Liinason, Professor in gender studies, Department of Cultural Sciences, Gothenburg University, Sweden

Dr Faith Mkwesha, researcher at The Centre for Research on Ethnic Relations and Nationalism, University of Helsinki; Chief Executive Director at SahWira Africa International NGO, Turku, Finland

Mina Wikshåland Skouen, Senior Policy Advisor, Sexual- and Gender Minorities (LGBTI) issues, the Norwegian Helsinki Committee, Norway

Contact person: Agnes Bolsø

Transgender is a controversial topic in academia, the health service, and feminist and general public debate. There is clear positioning and fierce exchange of opinions. In this project, we look at what understandings of gender underlie the various actors' practices, and also study the identity politics aspects of transgender. The project is based on varied empirical material consisting of, among other things, interviews, documents and media contributions. It is published on various platforms, both academic and general public.

Relevant links [in Norwegian]:

Kroppen og fantasiene om den

Vi må kjempe for å legitimere alle kjønnsuttrykk

Gay, queer, trans – politics and theories in motion [in English]

Power and meaning in business: Gender-related changes in business cultures.

The lack of women in leading positions within economics, innovation and business appears in many ways to be the last bastion of the fight for equality in Norway. Researchers from the Department of Interdisciplinary Cultural Studies (NTNU) and Rural Research (Bygdeforskning) have taken a closer look at this. The aim of the project was to gain a better understanding of gender in leadership and innovation.

Website for Power and meaning in business

Power and eroticism in boardrooms and management

PhD project written by Ane Marit Willmann as part of the umbrella project Power and meaning in business: Gender-related changes in business cultures:

The project explored the importance of sexuality and eroticism in films involving women in leadership positions, by asking questions such as, "How is the way women do their professional work in film affected by sexuality and the erotic?" and "How does sexuality and erotica affect women's influence in the workplace?"

Equality without gender? A study of how gender quotas for company boards were mounted as political reform

PhD project written by Siri Øyslebø Sørensen as part of the umbrella project Power and meaning in business - gender-related changes in business cultures:

When the Storting in 2003 decided to introduce gender quotas on Norwegian company boards, it was the first time that business was subject to rules on gender representation. The thesis takes its point of departure from the controversies surrounding the bill and presents a qualitative, empirical study of how gender quotas in company boards were designed and staged as a political reform.

Queer Challenges to the Norwegian Policies and Practices of Immigration: Asylum seeking in Norway on the grounds of sexual orientation-based persecution

PhD thesis defended by Deniz Akin, 2017.

This project was about queer asylum seekers in Norway and focused on Norway's treatment of queer asylum seekers' applications for protection. Primarily, the project investigated the following main question: How do Norwegian immigration authorities understand legitimate sexual orientation and a credible risk of persecution that determine queer asylum seekers' right to asylum in Norway? The empirical material consisted of the legislation, and interviews with case managers at UDI and asylum seekers.

The (Trans)Gender Equality Paradox: An assessment of the Gender Recognition Act in Norway

PhD thesis defended by france rose harline in 2020

france researched the effect of the Gender Recognition Act of July 2016 which allows individuals in Norway to change their legal gender without medical sterilization or state assessment. Based on the post-structuralist framework of queer theory, france's research examined how trans people's personal experiences and social roles have been shaped by the act. Particular focus was given to the socio-legal framework that shapes cultural understandings of gender.

Through interviews with trans people who have changed their legal gender after the act was implemented, and an analysis of the change in the law and associated material, france sought to demonstrate how subjectivities are materialized through gendered citizenship. His goal was to both explore the connection between legal identity and personal experiences, as well as contribute to increased knowledge in public and state discussions about which changes might be the best for the Norwegian trans movement.