Gender, ethnicity and equality

The research group for gender, ethnicity, and equality (KEL) is an interdisciplinary, active, and curiosity driven research group. Among our research interests you will find migration studies, Sami and indigenous studies, feminist epistemologies, management and leadership studies, intersectionality, and equality politics.

The research group Gender, ethnicity and equality (KEL) contributes research-based knowledge in a highly politicized field, which requires a solid focus on scientific theory and method development. KEL covers a wide range of current issues and different empirical fields. Increased migration, racialization, controversial gender and sexuality categories, new technologies, a changing everyday life and reorganized work life invite new interdisciplinary research questions. We see a persistently gender-segregated labor market and that domestic and family work is de-prioritized in public discourse, and we witness an increase in hate speech directed at ethnic and racialized minorities as well as women.

The KEL research group includes members from every of FSV's four thematic groups, forming a multinational research environment working within a transdisciplinary tradition, and we work across the university’s two campuses; Levanger and Bodø. KEL members teach classes in FSV’s established master programs as well as in the new master's degree in Social Analysis and the faculty's doctoral program in sociology. We also offer elective courses for bachelor's students, and participate in the development of new study programs including Nord University's involvement in SEA-EU. Furthermore, we actively contribute to Nord University's national responsibility for research and education in Lule and South Sami language and culture.

Our research group members participate in Norwegian, Nordic, and international conferences and publish in an extensive selection of journals. We organize hybrid monthly KEL research seminars. Here members may present new ideas for research projects, cooperation, or articles and/or books, moreover, we discuss very early or almost completed text drafts and invite rounds of comments. We place emphasis on orienting ourselves in a wide range of international academic debates within our study fields. Every member of the research group follows a minimum of two scientific journals central to KEL’s research areas. In the monthly seminars we exchange information on relevant research articles for KEL, published in “my” journals. This is how we collectively cover articles and book reviews from the most important national and international specialist journals. In addition to this, we have physical seminars for all members at the end of each semester.

Members

Researchers:

  • Professor Anne-Jorunn Berg (Chair)
  • Associate professor Anne Kamilla Lund
  • Associate professor Ann-Torill Tørrisplass
  • Professor Astri Dankertsen
  • Associate professor Berit Irene Vannebo
  • University lecturer Cordula Karich
  • Professor Gry Brandser
  • Associate professor Hin Hoarau Heemstra
  • Majken Paulsen, Nordland Research Institute
  • Professor Yan Zhao

PhD fellows:

  • Alyssa Marie Kvalvaag
  • Anne Schäfer
  • Birgitte Rigtrup-Lindemann
  • Dominik Emil Dross
  • Jieyu Ruan
  • Lærke Maria Munk Lindemann
  • Marrta Karoliina Ojala
  • Nezihat Bakar-Langeland
  • Sebastien Thomine
  • Saara Henriikka Isosomppi
  • Thea Næs Rabe
  • Tone Elisabeth Berg

Projects

  • Indigenous homemaking as survivance: Homemaking as cultural resilience to the effects of colonization and assimilation
  • The Nightingale Positive Role Models
  • Balance project

Networks

  • E-infrastructure in women's and gender research
  • Center for interdisciplinary gender research