General research interests revolves around the relationship between individual agency and social structure, education and learning. This includes an interest in processes of institutionalisation, notions of creativity and conceptualisations of intelligence, standardisation, disciplinarity, STS and, formal and informal socialisation.
My current research seeks to examine key issues pertaining to the use, institutionalization, and societal function of IQ-tests as diagnostic tools in Norway (and the wider socio-historic and cultural assumptions that sustain and surround notions such as intelligence, self, standardisation, and expertise, in which such technologies and practices of testing are embedded).
The research project is ethnographically informed and integrated in the research work package "Translation and adaption of IQ tests, and their usage as diagnostic tools, 1990-present". This work package is a part of the research project "Historizing Intelligence: Tests, metrics, and the shaping of contemporary society", which is based at Museum for University and Science History (MUV) and Museum of Cultural History (SENKU) at the University of Oslo.
Background
- Ph.D. in Social Anthropology, University of St Andrews
- M.Res. in Social Anthropology, University of Aberdeen
- M.Sc. in People and the Environment, University of Aberdeen
I have previously conducted fieldwork in, and around, an art school in Britain as part of my Ph.D. research, and have a continued interest in the anthropology and ethnography of art and art education.
My doctoral research ethnographically examined key processes of art-socialisation within university-based fine art education, the institutionalisation of creativity, issues of self-formation, community building, and the role that the romantic figure of the artist continue to play. I also have a standing interest in the history of anthropology and people’s relationship with the environment.
Prior to joining the Museum of Cultural History, I have held a fixed-term teaching position as Associate Professor of Theory at the Department of Design, Oslo National Academy of the Arts, and have taught on the BA programme at the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Oslo, as a Senior Lecturer.