Our colleague and friend, Professor Geir Vestheim, died suddenly and unexpectedly on January 4th, 2021, due to a massive heart attack that he suffered when he was out skiing. With his death, we have lost a Nordic and international pioneer in cultural policy research.
Geir was born and grew up in a sparsely populated forest area in the Norwegian countryside, near the frontier to Sweden. During the 1960s and 70s, he studied literature, language, sociology and history at the University of Oslo. He started his professional career as a high school teacher and in teacher training. During the late 1970s and early 80s, he also published articles and books on literary and linguistic subjects. By the end of the 1980s, he had switched over to a more dedicated academic career. From 1988 to 1993, he conducted several applied research projects – primarily about cultural policy – at the Eastern Norway Research Institute, located in the small eastern city of Hamar. From 1993, he was hired as an associate professor by Hedmark University College, located in the even smaller city of Rena. Subsequently he won a scholarship from Research Council Norway to study library policy and cultural policy.
Since around 1990, Geir has published an impressive number of books and articles about cultural policy subjects, both in Norwegian, Swedish and English. He most often combined historical, literary and sociological perspectives. He never forgot, however, his origins in the Norwegian countryside – and he was profoundly connected to the values and ideas of a democratic and decentralized cultural policy. In 1995, he published a pioneering book on Norwegian cultural policy and in 1996 he was hired by the University College of Borås, Sweden, to build up library studies and cultural policy research activities there. In 1997, he was awarded his PhD for a thesis on Norwegian library policy, and he was appointed Professor at Borås University College in 1999.
During the subsequent two decades, Geir became an important entrepreneur for the development of academic cultural policy research, both in the Nordic countries and internationally: in 1998, he initiated the launch of the new Nordic Journal of Cultural Policy, which he edited for several years afterwards. Geir was also one of several entrepreneurs behind the development of Nordic and international research conferences in the field of cultural policy research (NCCPR and ICCPR) before and after 2000. From the end of the 1980s until his death, he was also a very active researcher, who published many articles and books. His most noteworthy international academic contribution was perhaps an article on ‘instrumental cultural policy’, which he published in the European Journal of Cultural Policy as early as 1994. International scholars in our field still frequently refer to it.
Geir was also an esteemed and generous member of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Cultural Policy from 1996 up until 2020. He published several articles in the journal and initiated to two special issues, first as a co-guest editor of an issue on ‘Nordic Cultural Policy’ in 2008 (vol 14, no 1), and then as the sole guest editor of an issue on ‘Cultural policy and democracy’ in 2012 (vol 18, no 5).
In 2009, Geir left Sweden for a professorship in cultural policy at Telemark University College, Bø, Norway (today, the University of South-Eastern Norway), where he collaborated with several colleagues in his field of research, both in the college and at the Telemark Research Institute. His prime responsibility and mission at Bø was to establish a new doctoral program in cultural studies – including cultural policy. He also directed that program for some years after and supervised several PhD students. He retired from his position as a professor in 2015, but continued as an active professor emeritus afterwards, when he published several articles, supervised juniors and participated at research conferences. During the depressing pandemic period in 2020, he was looking forward to the forthcoming Nordic research conference on cultural policy in Borås, Sweden, to be held in August 2021.
Geir Vestheim was a highly appreciated colleague, supervisor and friend, who passed away much too early. Despite his formal age (74), Geir was still a fairly ‘young man’, who loved to dance and to go skiing. We treasure his memory.