Feminist geographies in Norway from the turn of the millennium

Abstract

Based on an overview of feminist and gender research over two decades, this article reflects on feminist geographies in Norway within a wider political and social context. We identify eight broad, partly overlapping themes of feminist geography: rurality; development policies and practices; entrepreneurship and economic change; migration and mobility; children and youth; sexuality and health; landscape and place; and emotions and autobiography. We find that much of the research has been collaborative, interdisciplinary, multicultural, and transnational. Feminist geographies in Norway are characterized by increasing emphasis on multiple realities and situatedness, and focus on rights and power relations among men and women in all spheres of society, including academia. Yet the gender dimension has tended to focus on geographies of women, with few studies of masculinity. Inspired in part through feminist critiques of research practices in social sciences, a recent development has been autobiographical approaches examining the significance of personal lives and emotions for the research process. We conclude that feminist geographies in Norway are diverse, empirically and contextually informed, and have become embedded within several fields of human geography.

Keywords:

• Femininities
• feminist geographies
• gender relations
• masculinities
• Norway
• situated knowledges

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ragnhild Lund

Ragnhild Lund has been professor of geography specializing in development studies at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) since 1995. Her research interests are theories of development and geography, gender and development, development-induced displacement, post-crisis recovery, transnational feminism, and women’s activism. She is author of Gender and Place (1994), and co-editor of Renegotiating Local Values: Working Women and Foreign Industry in Malaysia (with Merete Lie 1994), In the Maze of Displacement (with N. Shanmugaratnam and Kristi Anne Stølen 2003), Global Childhood, Globalization, Development and Young People (with Stuart Aitken and Anne Trine Kjørholt 2008), The Tsunami of 2004 in Sri Lanka: Impacts and Policy in the Shadow of Civil War (with Piers Blaikie 2010), Gender, Mobilities and Livelihood Transformation: Comparing Indigenous People in China, India and Laos (with Kyoko Kusakabe, Smita Mishra Panda, and Yunxian Wang 2014), and Gendered Entanglements: Re-visiting Gender in Rapidly Changing Asia (with Philippe Doneys and Bernadette P. Resurrección 2015). In addition, she has published scholarly articles on gender, domestic violence, youth, activism, forced migration, (im)mobility, livelihoods, orphanhood/HIV/AIDS, and post-war recovery. Her current research is about domestic violence in antenatal care and gender, migration and well-being among fishing communities in Cambodia, India and Sri Lanka.

Nina Gunnerud Berg

Nina Gunnerud Berg has been professor of geography at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) since 2003. Her research interests include rural studies, regional studies, feminist studies, place theory, social differences (intersectionality), mobilities, migration, and entrepreneurship. She has co-edited Entreprenørskap: Kjønn, livsløp og sted [Entrepreneurship: Gender, Life Course and Place] (with Lene Foss, 2002), Mennesker, steder og regionale endringer [People, Places and Regional Changes] (with Britt Dale, Hans Kjetil Lysgård. and Anders Löfgren, 2004), Å finne sted: Metodologiske perspektiver i stedsanalyser [To Find Place: Methodological Challenges in Place Analyses] (with Anniken Førde, Britt Kramvig, and Britt Dale, 2013), and Med sans for sted: Nyere teorier [Appreciating Place: New Theories] (with Marit Aure, Jørn Cruickshank, and Britt Dale, 2015). In addition, she has published articles and book chapters on gendered ruralities and gendered places. Her current research concerns how migration into and everyday life in rural places connects to well-being, ageing and gender.

Michael Jones

Michael Jones has a PhD in geography from University College London 1972. He moved to Norway in 1973. In 1975, he became a founder member of the Department of Geography, University of Trondheim, now the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), where he is currently professor emeritus. His research interests include historical geography, landscape studies, legal geography, and history of cartography. He has edited or co-edited eleven books on geographical and social-science topics, including Landscape, Law and Justice (with Tiina Peil, Novus 2004), Nordic Landscapes (with Kenneth R. Olwig, University of Minnesota Press 2008), The European Landscape Convention: Challenges of Participation (with Marie Stenseke, Springer 2011), and Alternative Development (with Cathrine Brun and Piers Blaikie, Ashgate 2014). He was chief editor of Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift–Norwegian Journal of Geography from 1999 to 2014. His current research is concerned with questions of landscape democracy, and with the use of autobiographical interviews as an approach to the history of geography.

Gunhild Setten

Gunhild Setten is professor of geography at the Department of Geography, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim since 2012. She has extensive experience of research on human–nature relations, illustrated by empirical studies of outdoor recreation, agricultural practices, cultural heritage, and ecosystem services. She has also undertaken research on the conceptual development of ‘landscape’, including advancing the notion of ‘moral geography’. Her most recently co-edited volume is titled Nature, Temporality and Environmental Management: Scandinavian and Australian Perspectives on Peoples and Landscapes (with Lesley Head, Katarina Saltzman and Marie Stenseke, Routledge 2017). Her work has appeared in journals such as Cultural Geographies, Geoforum, Environment and Planning A, Land Use Policy, and Norwegian Journal of Geography. Her current research interests concern the notion of community resilience, where she enquires into the meaning and enactment of local knowledge and local community for how people deal with natural hazards.