Kristin Asdal

Contact: kristin.asdal@tik.uio.no tel: +47 22 841614
 

 

Academic Profile 

Kristin Asdal studied history in Oslo and science studies in Paris (with Bruno Latour) and Lancaster (with John Law). She is Professor at the Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture (TIK) at the University of Oslo, as well as a Research Associate at the School of Geography and the Environment, Oxford. She was an academic visitor at the School during Michaelmas Term 2007.

Kristin came to academia from a background in the environmental movement, and wanted to do research on the role of economic theory and planning for environmental politics. She published her first book on this issue in 1998. Later she wanted to explore, not only the theories and the actors who performed them, but also how different knowledge practices took part in shaping the objects of politics and administration. Her doctoral thesis is a broad historical study of the ways in which nature has been formed in technical, scientific and administrative practices. This means that in studying science, her interest has been to explore how science takes part in politics and in shaping political issues, hence the title of her thesis: "The technologies of politics".

Kristin has also taken an interest in feminist studies of science and the history as well as politics of Science and Technology Studies (STS). Together with colleagues at the University of Oslo she recently edited a reader with an introduction to STS, which also includes a series of contributions from authors within the field of STS today. She has also published widely on the history and philosophy of science, focusing upon the intersections between, for instance, environmental history, the French Annales School, the philosophical critique of positivism, and actor-network-theory (ANT).

Current Research

Kristin's research draws on a combination of resources from STS, political science and history. She has been, and continues to be, particularly concerned with studying the ways in which scientific knowledge takes part in politics and the shaping of political issues. A large part of her research focuses upon the contact points, clashes and confrontations between different knowledge traditions and practices, such as, economics and natural science, within politics and administration.

From having mainly focused on the constructions of nature and environmental issues her research has over the last years come to include the politics of food, and the history of medicine and veterinary science - including the ways in which these areas of knowledge raise a range of intriguing issues in relation to human-animal relations. Kristin takes part in the interdisciplinary research group Text|History with a keen interest in exploring textual practices and the histories and materialities of texts. The group has just launched a collective book  published by Scandinavian University Press.

Ongoing projects and networks:

Professor Asdal is currently supervising five Ph.D. projects at TIK on various nature-culture issues: 'Text-book nature' (Jørund Falnes); 'New fish in a new environment: Fish welfare and management' (Guro Ådnegard Skarstad); 'Between deliberation and mapping in politics of food' (Silje Rem); 'Border disputes: Turkey and avian flu' (Linda Madsen) and 'When animals become technology' (Tone Druglitrø).

She also manages a comprehensive project on The Technologies of the Politics of Nature: Expertise and Consumer power supported by the Norwegian Research Council. She is a researcher within the collaborative project Nature and Science in Politics and Everyday Practices. She is a member of MACOSPOL (Mapping Scientific Controversies for Politics), a European Union funded project with Bruno Latour / Sciences Po.

Selected articles (and in English only)

Asdal, K. (2008) Subjected to Parliament: Experimental Medicine and the Animal Body. Social Studies of Science. 38 (6): 899-917.
Asdal, K. (2008) Enacting things through Numbers. Taking Nature into Accounting. Geoforum. 39: 123-132.
Asdal, K. (2008) On politics and the little tools of Democracy. A Down to Earth Approach. Distinktion. Scandinavian Journal of Social Theory. No. 16: 5-26.
Asdal, K. (2006) Making space with medicine: The dissolution of Norway's union with Sweden and the unexplored role of animal trade. Scandinavian Journal of History, 31(3-4): 255-269.
Asdal, K. (2005) Returning the kingdom to the king: A post-constructivist response to the critique of positivism. Acta Sociologica, 48(3): 253-261.
Asdal, K. (2003) The Problematic Nature of Nature: The Post-constructivist Challenge to Environmental History. History and Theory: Studies in the philosophy of history, 42(4): 60-75.
 

Monographs and edited volumes:

Asdal, K. with Borch C. and Moser. I. (eds.) (2008) The Technologies of Politics. Special issue of distinction. Scandinavian Journal of Social Theory, No. 16
Asdal, K., Kjell Lars Berge, Karen Gammelgaard, Trygve Riiser Gundersen, Helge Jordheim, Tore Rem, Johan L. Tønnesson (2008) Tekst og historie. Å lese tekster historisk. Scandinavian University Press.
Asdal, K. with Moser, I. (eds.)  (2008) Ekspertise og brukermakt [Expertise and Userpower] Unipub 2008.  
Asdal, K. with Brenna, B. and Moser, I. (eds.) (2007) Technoscience. The politics of interventions. Unipub 2007.
Asdal, K. (2005) Grensetrafikk. Nedslag i veterinærvesenets og matpolitikkens historie. [Boundary traffic. Tracing the history and politics of food]. Unipub 2005.
Asdal, K. (2004) Politikkens teknologier. Produksjoner av regjerlig natur. [The technologies of politics.Producing governable nature]. PhD Thesis, Acta Humaniora, Unipub 2004.
Asdal, K. with Brenna, B. and Moser, I. (eds.) (2001) Teknovitenskapelige kulturer, Spartacus 2001.
Asdal, K. (1998) Knappe ressurser? Økonomenes grep om miljøfeltet. [Scarce Resources? The Economists hold on the Environment]. Scandinavian University Press, 1998.
Asdal, K. et al. (1998) Betatt av viten. Bruksanvisning til Donna Haraway, Spartacus 1998.