Centre for Development and the Environment: Publications in the Norwegian Research Information Repository

• Jonathan R. Potts, Luca Börger, Marlee A. Tucker, Federico Ossi, Scott W. Yanco & Diego Ellis‐Soto [Show all 76 contributors for this article] (2026). Understanding mammal avoidance of human settlements. Journal of Animal Ecology. ISSN 0021-8790. doi: 10.1111/1365-2656.70298. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Anthropogenic land conversion is putting increasing pressure on wildlife populations around the world. To mitigate impacts, it is necessary to develop a detailed mechanistic understanding of how animals are affected by different types of human activity. A key challenge is to disentangle the effects of static infrastructure, like roads or buildings, and the presence of humans in the landscape. To address this question, we examined if terrestrial mammals altered their movement behaviour around buildings in response to reduced human mobility during COVID‐19 lockdowns. We compiled GPS tracking data from 35 study sites across five continents, for 10 carnivore species and 13 herbivore species, totalling >1 million location records from 586 individuals. For each study, we used integrated step selection analysis to test the extent to which animals changed their avoidance of buildings as lockdown took effect, leveraging the recently released Microsoft MLBuildings dataset of global building locations. Analysis of population‐level effects revealed that, in areas with high Human Footprint Index (HFI), animals tended to show a significant reduction in their avoidance of buildings during lockdown, but not in low HFI areas. No such trend was detected during equivalent periods in years other than 2020, indicating that behavioural changes were a result of reduced human mobility during lockdowns. Overall, our findings suggest that animals living alongside humans exhibit greater plasticity when people change their behaviour, likely indicating the combined effects of environmental filtering and habituation. More generally, our study provides a critical first step towards developing evidence‐based tools for forecasting how wildlife movement behaviour may change in response to different land‐use strategies, human activities, conservation interventions or environmental perturbations.

• Lars Böcker, Lars E. Olsson, Margareta Friman & Sindre Johan Cottis Hoff (2025). Travel, physical activity, perceived accessibility and mental health during Crisis: Insights from the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Transport and Health. ISSN 2214-1405. 44(October 2025), p. 1–11. doi: 10.1016/j.jth.2025.102115. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Highlights • Changes in travel and activity patterns during COVID-19 and their mental health link. • Longitudinal panel survey (2020–2022) tracking Greater Oslo residents' experiences. • The interplay between travel and mental health is profound. • Pandemic impacts on travel, perceived accessibility and mental health are uneven. • Stronger impacts on perceived accessibility and mental health among women.

• Antoine de Bengy Puyvallée, Sophie Harman, Simon Rushton & Katerini Storeng (2025). Global health partnerships for a post-2030 agenda. The Lancet. ISSN 0140-6736. 405(10477), p. 514–516. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(24)02816-2. Full text in Research Archive
• Antoine de Bengy Puyvallée, Katerini Storeng & Simon Rushton (2025). The Gates Foundation’s network diplomacy in European donor countries. Globalization and Health. 21. doi: 10.1186/s12992-025-01112-9. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The Gates Foundation is the most influential private philanthropic foundation in global health and development. This article examines how the Foundation has developed an unparalleled capacity to rally other donors to its priorities, which include the development and distribution of technological tools to reduce the burden of infectious disease and child mortality in the world’s most impoverished regions. Using publicly available data, the article analyses the Gates Foundation’s strategic engagement in Europe, focusing on its bureaucratic presence, government relations, and grant-making in its three European focus countries: the United Kingdom (UK), Germany and France. It highlights that, since 2010, the Gates Foundation has built a bureaucratic infrastructure akin to a diplomatic service, establishing country offices in London and Berlin alongside representation in Paris, Brussels and Stockholm. Through regular engagement with elected officials and bureaucrats in these nations, the Foundation has forged many strategic partnerships, effectively leveraging European states’ diplomatic power in wider political forums and alliances. Moreover, the Foundation has disbursed billions in grants to recipients in the UK, Germany, and France to advance research and innovation on its priority health issues, implement programs in poor countries, and develop policy and advocacy related to global health and development. Combined, these efforts have contributed to securing substantial and recurrent government co-investment in Gates-supported initiatives. The article proposes that the Foundation exercises a form of ‘network diplomacy’ that entails building and maintaining wide networks across European societies with the aim of aligning donor governments’ overseas development assistance and policies with the Foundation’s strategic objectives in global health and development. The concept of network diplomacy offers a new perspective on how the Gates Foundation has consolidated and expanded its transnational political presence through an approach that is strategic, bureaucratised and institutionalised, rather than simply a product of its financial might. The findings amplify existing concerns regarding the sway of private foundations over public policy, their impact on democratic accountability and governance in donor states, and the resultant implications for the Foundation’s intended beneficiaries in low- and middle-income countries.

• Antoine de Bengy Puyvallée (2025). Quasi-public Partnerships: Multistakeholder Governance in an International Organization. Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism and International Organizations. ISSN 1075-2846. 31(2), p. 186–212. doi: 10.1163/19426720-03102001. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Global public-private partnerships (PPP s), where public and private sectors share decision-making, are central in global health governance. Research has focused on large, independent PPP s like Gavi and the Global Fund, but largely overlooked the institutional diversity of global PPP s and its consequences for the governance, accountability, and legitimacy of partnerships. To address this gap, this paper examines the Emergency Medical Teams (EMT) Initiative, a partnership administered by the World Health Organization (WHO), responding to humanitarian health crises. Through extensive qualitative research, the paper analyzes why the EMT Initiative became embedded within the WHO’s bureaucratic structure and explores the challenges and advantages of this hybrid arrangement for both the partnership and the WHO. The paper theorizes the concept of ‘quasi-public’ partnerships, which are hosted by public agencies with dual accountability to their host organization and their partners. It suggests that these partnerships differ significantly from ‘quasi-private’ partnerships, which operate independently and are accountable to their own boards.

• Felix Stein & Desmond James Mcneill (2025). Blended finance to the rescue? Subsidies, vaccine bonds and matching funds in global health. Global Public Health. ISSN 1744-1692. 20(1). doi: 10.1080/17441692.2025.2468338. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  To close persistent global health financing gaps, policymakers have in recent years promoted the idea of ‘blended finance’, i.e. the strategic use of public funds to attract additional private sector investment. To better understand this trend, this paper studies three major blended finance instruments, namely vaccine bonds, advanced market commitments, and matching funds. In doing so, this paper makes two important contributions. On a practical level, it shows that these three blended finance instruments tend to be expensive and of questionable effectiveness. Their high costs favour large corporate actors, private investors and middlemen, while their benefits for potential beneficiaries in low- and middle-income countries and for public donors remain unclear. On a theoretical level, the paper asks why these instruments remain popular in policy circles despite their shortcomings. It finds that blended finance mechanisms proliferate thanks to their seemingly innovative nature, a constant emphasis on urgency or crisis, and the promise of combining market-based self-interest with positive social impact. The paper ends on a call for much greater critical scrutiny concerning blended financing mechanisms.

• Johanna Sofia Adolfsson, Susanne Normann, Erik Nakkerud & Christian Andres Palacios Haugestad (2025). Indigenizing Psychology A Way Forward for Indigenous Knowledges in the Psy-Disciplines? International Perspectives in Psychology: Research, Practice, Consultation. ISSN 2157-3883. 14(2), p. 59–69. doi: 10.1027/2157-3891/a000121. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This article examines the potential benefits and challenges of incorporating ecological epistemologies and Indigenous Knowledges (IK) within psychological science. While there is growing recognition of the value of IK in addressing climate change and biodiversity loss, there is a risk of reproducing problems associated with mainstream psychology’s individualist and universalist approaches. In acknowledging nonhegemonic approaches, it is crucial to avoid romanticizing or exploiting/extracting ecological epistemologies and IK. Such actions can lead to the othering and neocolonization of Indigenous communities, undermining their autonomy and perpetuating harmful power dynamics. As for psychological science and practice engagement with IK might lead to an essentialization, which, again, sustains hegemonic psychological norms. We suggest that Cultural Psychology’s dialogical focus and sensitivity to the meaning of the broader context and power relations provides important tools for fostering deeper learning and supporting decolonial transformation in psychological science’s turn to ecological and Indigenous Knowledges.

• Sandhya S. Iyer, Dan Banik & K. Seeta Prabhu (2025). Multilateralism and Lifestyle for Environment (LiFE): Contours and Challenges. In Sachin Chaturvedi, K. Seeta Prabhu & Sabyasachi Saha (Ed.), Wellbeing, Values and Lifestyles Towards a New Development Paradigm. Springer. ISSN 9789819747306. p. 121–130. doi: 10.1007/978-981-97-4730-6_11. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  As nations prepare to address multiple crises and mitigate the negative impacts of climate change, it has become increasingly clear that the current multilateral system and established global governance mechanisms are inadequate. This chapter thoroughly examines an innovative approach called Lifestyle for Environment (LiFE) introduced by India and explores its practical implementation to effectively address global challenges. Drawing on the concept of Prakriti Rakshati Rakshita—those who protect nature, nature protects them, the chapter advocates for promoting sustainable consumption and production by encouraging affluent individuals and groups to adopt lifestyles that minimise environmental harm. This approach, centred around a people-focused LiFE framework, emphasises the significance of regenerative resource processes in human development, with humans acting as stewards responsible for creating a just and sustainable future. To achieve this, the operationalisation of the LiFE approach requires a focus on the 4Cs—cooperation, coherence, convergence, and commitments.

• Benedicte Bull, Antulio Rosales & Manuel Sutherland (2025). Authoritarian Capitalism in Venezuela: The Political Economy of Maduro’s Disorderly Liberalization. In John Polga-Hecimovich & Sánchez-Urribarri Raúl (Ed.), Authoritarian Consolidation in Times of Crisis: Venezuela under Nicolás Maduro. Routledge. ISSN 9781032601670. p. 63–81. doi: 10.4324/9781003457886-5. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This chapter explains the form of authoritarian capitalism that is emerging in Venezuela. We integrate insights from the “varieties of capitalism” literature with that of Weberian state theory of the developmental state and its opposites, to explain the evolving form of capitalism in Venezuela. This system is broadly characterized by the dominance of private property and of production for profit by private companies, but economic opportunities are conditioned by political loyalty to the government and its allies. Its evolution is part of the regime's autocratic consolidation, which rests on repression, co-optation, and strategies of institutional legitimation. Under authoritarian capitalism, economic policy-making is driven by the regime's need for staying in power, in part through benefiting a small group of key supporters. Characterized by a state with weak capacity, this system reproduces inequalities, is largely uncompetitive, and can deepen pockets of violence and predation. We build on empirical work carried out in Venezuela in the past decade, including surveys with emerging business sectors as well as interviews with experts, businesses, and policymakers.

• Meera Venkatachalam & Dan Banik (2025). Moral geographies: Indian exceptionalism, Africa, and the politics of South–South cooperation. Third World Quarterly. ISSN 0143-6597. 46(5), p. 505–522. doi: 10.1080/01436597.2025.2491096. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This article seeks to understand the evolution of India’s political relations and development cooperation with Africa, in the context of India’s ambitions of playing a leading role in the Third World turned Global South. India’s development cooperation with African nations was informed in the early decades after the country’s independence by a sense of solidarity. It is argued that despite a sense of Third Worldist solidarity, Indian actors partially understood Africa and Africans in relation to themselves through racialised ideas of ‘progress’ which originated as part of the British imperial project. The justification for India’s development cooperation with Africa came to be rooted in India’s conceptions of its own exceptionalism, which has metamorphosed over the decades from a cultural-civilisational project to incorporate understandings of economic and technological progress, especially after neoliberal reforms of the 1990s. We place the rhetoric that characterises India’s Africa policy within a broad framework of decolonial international relations literature by Global South scholars, thereby showing how relations between India and Africa have been shaped by perceptions of Africa and Africans in the longue durée, and accounting for why Indian actors have imagined their role in Africa in terms of a mixture of paternalism and benevolence.

• Kristian Hoelscher & Jason Miklian (2025). Small business leadership, peacebuilding, and citizen perceptions of businesses as peacebuilders: theory and evidence from Colombia. Society and Business Review. ISSN 1746-5680. 20(1), p. 103–132. doi: 10.1108/SBR-09-2023-0289. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Purpose Businesses are increasingly engaged in actions to support peace in conflict- and violence-affected communities. Yet there is limited knowledge about why business leaders engage in peace or how citizens perceive the importance, efficacy and impacts of business contributions to address conflict and violence. These gaps are particularly acute for small business scholarship. This paper aims to address these. Design/methodology/approach This paper considers how small and medium enterprises (SMEs) view their peace-positive actions and how these are perceived by communities. This paper examines this by using two original primary surveys conducted concurrently in May 2021 in Bogotá and Medellín, Colombia. Question themes included: SMEs operating environments, relationships and networks, experiences of violence, SMEs community contributions and citizen perceptions of businesses as peacebuilding agents. Findings The results show that small business leaders who supported their communities with peace-positive actions saw their businesses perform better and held positive views of the benefits of engagement. Further, citizen perceptions of businesses contributions to peace declined where insecurity increased and improved where businesses – and in particular MSMSEs – engaged more in their communities. Research limitations/implications This paper discusses certain limitations related to the use of a mobile-phone based sampling methodology enumerated during an ongoing pandemic. Originality/value This paper presents an original contribution that examines both SME and citizen perceptions of businesses peace-positive actions. The findings inform notions of SME leadership in fragile contexts, as well as the role of the private sector in conflict spaces more generally. They also suggest a greater focus on understanding the broader perceptions of businesses actions toward peacebuilding within society.

• Johanna Sofia Adolfsson, Arve Hansen & Ulrikke Bryn Wethal (2025). Between Distributed Agency and Choice Architecture: Comparing Nudge and Practice Theoretical Approaches to Changing Consumption. In Eivind Jacobsen, Pål Strandbakken, Arne Dulsrud & Silje Elisabeth Skuland (Ed.), Consumers and Consumption in Comparison (Volume 37). Emerald Group Publishing Limited. ISSN 9781835493144. p. 189–213. doi: 10.1108/S0195-631020240000037009. Full text in Research Archive
• Benedicte Bull (2025). Does the Rise of the Global South Weaken Democracy? The Pivotal Case of the 2024 Presidential Elections in Venezuela. Forum for Development Studies. ISSN 0803-9410. 52(2), p. 361–382. doi: 10.1080/08039410.2024.2424582. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  It is a common critique of the Global South that its rising protagonism is a tool for authoritarian forces. The prominent role of authoritarian countries in coalitions such as BRICS and the Non-Aligned Movement, which claim to represent the Global South, has strengthened this concern. To shed light on those issues, this paper provides an in-depth case study of the 2024 elections crisis in Venezuela and the role of the Global South in resolving it. The question asked is to what extent countries identifying with the Global South were able to simultaneously promote democracy and adopt a foreign policy identity aligned with the Global South. The paper shows how the position and action of different Global South countries differed significantly, from an outright rejection of the fraudulent elections, to their endorsement. There were also concerted efforts by countries strongly identifying with the Global South to facilitate a democratic solution. The main argument developed is that a Global South narrative’s interweaving of anti-imperialism and opposition against foreign interference with opposition against liberal democracy promotion has left a limited space for democracy advocacy among countries with a Global South identity. This may weaken democratic forces among Global South countries in the future.

• Benedicte Bull (2025). The Rise of Authoritarian Capitalism: What Does It Mean for Businesses that Seek Peace? Business Horizons. ISSN 0007-6813. 68(4), p. 413–424. doi: 10.1016/j.bushor.2025.02.013. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The global trend toward authoritarian regimes has significant implications for businesses’ capacity to foster peaceful societies. This article delves into this issue by first examining the concept of authoritarian capitalism. Authoritarian capitalism is characterized by a dominant economic system that favors private property and for-profit production but restricts access to finance, contracts, and investment opportunities on the basis of political loyalty to the ruling government. Economic policies and governance prioritize the regime’s desire to retain power rather than maximizing societal benefits. Furthermore, this article examines the cases of Venezuela and El Salvador, each of which have each taken distinct trajectories toward authoritarian capitalism. Despite differences in their approaches, in both cases, democratic spaces that allowed business advocacy and local initiatives have been gradually closed. Often, the closure of these democratic spaces is a condition to accessing economic opportunities. Hence, the advent of authoritarian capitalism poses deep challenges for businesses. Lastly, this article concludes by proposing ways for businesses to confront the decline of democracy and the emergence of authoritarian capitalism.

• Jamal Maalouf, Jason Miklian & Kristian Hoelscher (2025). Business survival strategies in a polycrisis: SME experiences from Beirut, Lebanon. Business Horizons. ISSN 0007-6813. 68(4), p. 461–477. doi: 10.1016/j.bushor.2025.03.002. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Most existing literature on business and crisis frames a crisis as a singular event that a business must navigate to survive or thrive. What we do not know is how firms survive through a series of intersecting and overlapping crises (i.e., a polycrisis environment) and how their strategies differ when operating amid perpetual crises. In Lebanon, overlapping crises grounded in weak political institutions, economic instability, and disasters have profoundly impacted small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Beirut SMEs operate in a complex urban environment, where neighboring conflicts, urban insecurity, and sectarian divisions impact operations. These firms are often promoted in economic development discourses as engines of resilient livelihood creation, but do SMEs negotiate these conditions in productive ways for the community, and can a perpetual crisis operating mentality deliver positive societal or economic dividends? This article addresses these questions by developing a framework that conceptualizes SME strategies for perpetual crises that draws on 34 in-depth qualitative interviews with SME owners in Beirut. We found that SMEs use nuanced strategies to contend with multidimensional crises that are distinct from singular crisis approaches and discuss how urban crises may shape our understanding of SMEs as peace and development actors. We use these findings to advance theory on the role of SMEs in perpetual crisis and on how survival strategies in such settings can upend business resilience.

• Benedicte Bull & Dan Banik (2025). The Rebirth of the Global South: Geopolitics, Imageries and Developmental Realities. Forum for Development Studies. ISSN 0803-9410. 52(2), p. 195–214. doi: 10.1080/08039410.2025.2490696. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The term ‘Global South’ has seen a resurgence in recent years, evolving from a synonym for the ‘Third World’ to a geo-historical concept representing low- and middle-income countries and emerging powers. Despite growing prominence in global policy debates, its meaning remains contested. In this introductory article to the special issue, we first discuss five distinct interpretations identified in the literature. We emphasize that Global South is characterized by internal diversity, evolving roles, and shifting alliances, while remaining anchored in the broader struggles for global justice and systemic transformation that give the concept its political meaning. The second part analyses the role of the Global South in reshaping global governance as countries within this grouping navigate strategic balancing between major powers, influencing emerging multipolar dynamics. Through a dialogue with the articles in the special issue we illustrate how the role of the Global South moves far beyond being critical of the west and a liberal world order, but rather both challenge and reaffirm some of the norms underpinning such an order. The third part discusses how South-South Cooperation (SSC) emerges as a vehicle for reconfiguring global cooperation, driven by strategic interests and diverse forms of engagement. The articles in this special issues provide examples of the multifaceted nature of this engagement. Overall, this special issue provides insights into how the Global South’s complexities intersect with geopolitical shifts, challenging traditional norms and offering new frameworks for global governance transformation.

• Mariel Cristina Støen, Jostein Jakobsen, Mads Barbesgaard, Rebecca Leigh Rutt & Ada Eldevik-Stjernqvist (2025). Dangerous Liaisons: Unveiling the Co-Constitution of Emerging Infectious Diseases and Industrial Meat Production. Antipode. ISSN 0066-4812. 57(4), p. 1320–1341. doi: 10.1111/anti.70021. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) have intensified over the last decade, spotlighting the concept of “epicentre” as a means of locating disease origins. Although epicentre thinking can facilitate rapid interventions, it often overlooks the political-economic and ecological forces driving outbreaks. Drawing on critical geography, political ecology, and global supply chain analyses, we reconceptualise the epicentre as “a set of relations rather than a place”, emphasising how capitalist production, ecological disruption, and pathogen circulation intersect. From this relational standpoint, epicentres emerge as intersections of multiple capitals, rather than isolated points. Using HPAI in global poultry production as an illustration, we argue that biosecurity measures shaped by epicentre thinking often bolster industrial expansion while deflecting systemic critique. We conclude with a five-point research agenda for a relational geographical approach to disease outbreaks, highlighting turnover times, cost and risk distribution, producer incorporation, labour regimes, and governance mechanisms.

• Arve Hansen (2025). Consumption and Global Connections in Vietnam: New Middle Classes and Changing Everyday Practices under Consumer Socialism. In Minh T.N. Nguyen & Kirsten W. Endres (Ed.), Reconfiguring Vietnam: Global Encounters, Translocal Lifeworlds. Yale University Southeast Asia Studies. ISSN 9781732610248. p. 267–286. Full text in Research Archive

View all works in NVA

• Tanja Winther (2025). Why social science energy research and what are the signs of effects? Full text in Research Archive
• Trym Daniel Rødvik (2025). HVA KAN VI LÆRE AV KAPITALEN? Salongen – nettidsskrift for filosofi og idéhistorie. ISSN 2703-7053. Full text in Research Archive
• Kirsten E.H. Jenkins & Tanja Winther (2025). The Just Energy Transition: What are “We” Doing and for Whom? Full text in Research Archive
• Benedicte Bull (2025). Ekko: Panamakanalen. [Radio]. P2. Full text in Research Archive
• Benedicte Bull (2025). USAs utenriksminister Marco Rubio besøker Panama. Her er fem spørsmål og svar. [Journal]. Aftenposten. Full text in Research Archive
• Benedicte Bull (2025). USA truer med «nødvendige tiltak» i Panama: –⁠ Denne situasjonen er uakseptabel. [Journal]. VG. Full text in Research Archive
• Benedicte Bull (2025). Studio 2: Trump vil sende kriminelle til El Salvador. [Radio]. P2. Full text in Research Archive
• Benedicte Bull (2025). Studio 2: Colombia og USA - Hvordan er forholdet egentlig? [Radio]. P2. Full text in Research Archive
• Mariel Aguilar-Støen (2025). Mot en bærekraftig fremtid for alle. Nytt Norsk Tidsskrift (NNT). ISSN 0800-336X. 42(1), p. 71–75. Full text in Research Archive
• Arve Hansen (2025). Balanserer mellom stormaktene: – Særdeles komplisert. [Internet]. ABC Nyheter. Full text in Research Archive
• Benedicte Bull (2025). Latin-Amerika i Trumps skuddlinje. Full text in Research Archive
• Tone Charlotte Gadmar, Eva-Charlotte Mørk, Mari Lundevall & Sophia Leeber (2025). Bibliotekenes bærekraftsuke: Lag din egen kjøkkenhage. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Har du lyst til å dyrke din egen mat? Kom på workshop og lær hvordan du kan lage din egen kjøkkenhage! Vi gir deg alt du trenger for å komme i gang.

• Dan Banik (2025). Aid era gone, experts tell govt. [Internet]. Nation Online. Full text in Research Archive
• Benedicte Bull (2025). Latin-Amerika i en ny global (u)orden. Full text in Research Archive
• Benedicte Bull (2025). BRICS: solidaritet i sør eller Kinas og Russlands ekkokammer? Full text in Research Archive
• Dan Banik (2025). Godfather of soft power leaves legacy of diplomacy at time of volatility. [Internet]. Devex. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Joseph Nye, a U.S. political scientist and scholar known for coining the term “soft power,” passed away this month. Integral to development and aid work, tributes have come in from across the sector.

• Tom Neumark (2025). Caring Cash: Free Money and the Ethics of Solidarity in Kenya. Full text in Research Archive
• Tom Neumark (2025). From hope to prediction: Reflections on an ethnography of Tanzanian Tech innovation and expanding predictive practices in social science. Full text in Research Archive
• Tom Neumark (2025). An anthropology of absent data in Tanzanian machine learning worlds. Full text in Research Archive
• Dan Banik (2025). Navigating aid cuts and debt. [Journal]. Weekend Nation. Full text in Research Archive
• Dan Banik (2025). Leserinnlegg: Europeisk samarbeid er viktigere enn noensinn. [Internet]. Uniforum. Full text in Research Archive
• Antoine de Bengy Puyvallée & Katerini Storeng (2025). 25 years of public-private partnerships and the future of global health collaboration. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Partnership is essential for solving complex global challenges. In global health, however, partnership has become associated with a specific model: public–private partnerships (PPPs), in which the key actors are governments, philanthropic foundations, and the private firms that produce drugs and vaccines. Leading PPPs like Gavi and the Global Fund are facing tough replenishment rounds within an uncertain context marked by major cuts to development assistance and US President Trump’s assault on multilateralism. Drawing on research from the recently completed PANPREP project, this seminar reflects on 25 years of global health partnerships, reviews current reform proposals put forth after the Covid-19 pandemic and argues that these proposals need to herald the start, not the end of a conversation to rethink the models of partnership needed to drive an ambitious post-2030 global health agenda. The seminar draws on research conducted collaboratively with Felix Stein and Desmond McNeill, and a Lancet Viewpoint co-authored with Simon Rushton and Sophie Harman, Global health partnerships for a post-2030 agenda .

• Dan Banik (2025). Turning Tides: Understanding the Political Economy of Declining Foreign Aid. Full text in Research Archive
• Benedicte Bull (2025). USAs kan vinne slaget, men tape krigen i Latin-Amerika. Full text in Research Archive
• Dan Banik (2025). Malawi clamps down on misuse of honorary academic titles. [Internet]. Research Professional News. Full text in Research Archive
• Dan Banik (2025). Council takes a stand against misuse of honorary doctorates. [Internet]. University World News. Full text in Research Archive
• Tom Neumark (2025). Big Data, hype and anthropology. Full text in Research Archive
• Benedicte Bull (2025). Mener Brasil-toll er pressmiddel: – Her har Trump gått over en ny grense. [Internet]. E24. Full text in Research Archive
• Benedicte Bull (2025). Handelskrig mellom USA og Brasil: Bolsonaro-saken i sentrum. [Internet]. NRK. Full text in Research Archive
• Benedicte Bull (2025). Latinamerikansk samling mot Trum? Full text in Research Archive
• Benedicte Bull (2025). – Ligner mer på en konsentrasjonsleir enn på et fengsel. [Internet]. NRK. Full text in Research Archive
• Benedicte Bull (2025). Rubios store svik. Full text in Research Archive
• Benedicte Bull (2025). Nyhetsmorgen: Retttsreform i Mexico. [Radio]. NRK nyhetsmorgen. Full text in Research Archive
• Dan Banik (2025). Unge er aller mest skeptiske til norsk bistand: – Fin ting å bruke penger på. [Internet]. Vårtland. Full text in Research Archive
• Arve Hansen (2025). Nudging og forbruksteori. Full text in Research Archive
• Hege Westskog (2025). Samarbeid med partnere i Include - hvorfor og hvordan? Full text in Research Archive
• Arve Hansen (2025). Breaking the system of moto-mobility? Just everyday mobilities in Hanoi. Full text in Research Archive
• Arve Hansen (2025). Nudging og praksisteori. Full text in Research Archive
• Dan Banik (2025). Demokrati Under Press: Utdanning Som Motkraft. [Journal]. Samfunnsviter'n. Full text in Research Archive
• Hege Westskog (2025). How can municipalities facilitate the needed social transformation? Full text in Research Archive
• Benedicte Bull (2025). Faren med å forklare Trump. Full text in Research Archive
• Hege Westskog (2025). Include som omstillingspartner. Om Include, inngang og resultater. Full text in Research Archive
• Hege Westskog & Marianne Aasen (2025). Omstilling og virkemidler for redusert forbruk. Full text in Research Archive
• Arve Hansen (2025). De rømmer fra en av verdens raskest voksende økonomier. Full text in Research Archive
• Benedicte Bull (2025). Debatten: Trump vil ta tilbake Panama kanalen. [TV]. NRK1. Full text in Research Archive
• Manisha Anantharaman, Mary Greene, Arve Hansen & Ulrikke Bryn Wethal (2025). Everyday life and societal transformations: Inequality, agency and power in consumer society. Full text in Research Archive
• Arve Hansen & Ulrikke Bryn Wethal (2025). Forbruk og endring: Kvifor er det så vanskeleg å vere berekraftig forbrukar? Full text in Research Archive
• Ulrikke Bryn Wethal & Hege Westskog (2025). Bærekraftsregnskap i Hurdal kommune. Full text in Research Archive
• Benedicte Bull (2025). Chinas Changing Presence in Latin America: What does it mean for development and regional cooperation, seminar for EU diplomats. Full text in Research Archive
• Timothy L. Fort, John E. Katsos & Jason Miklian (2025). Business and Peace, Part II: Positioning B+P for the next 20 years. Business Horizons. ISSN 0007-6813. doi: 10.1016/j.bushor.2025.04.006. Full text in Research Archive
• Ulrikke Bryn Wethal & Arve Hansen (2025). Overproduksjon og overforbruk: Hvordan formes forbruket vårt? Full text in Research Archive
• Ulrikke Bryn Wethal (2025). Sufficiency and energy demand: Defining limits and priorities through the concept of consumption corridors. Full text in Research Archive
• Benedicte Bull (2025). Studio 2: Rafael Caro Quintero og forholdet Mexico-USA. [Radio]. NRK P2. Full text in Research Archive
• Helene Kamfjord (2025). Less Waste, More Value? A document analysis of electronic waste in the EU Circular Economy Action Plan. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Despite decades of extensive policy efforts and regulations, the generation of electronic waste flows continues to be a growing issue globally. At a time where over-consumption and planned obsolescence are coupled with an increasingly electrified and technologically dependent world, the quantity of electronic waste is predicted to continue growing. However, recent years have seen a shift in policy discourses which now construe electronic waste not so much as an environmental challenge but as a new and important source of economic value. This is because annual electronic waste streams contain valuable materials estimated to be worth over $60 billion – more than the total economic value of many of the world’s countries. In particular, the European Union’s Green Deal in particular has attached great importance to electronic waste as a key ingredient in the green transition to a so-called circular economy. In this dissertation, I analyse the Union’s Circular Economy Action Plan (CEAP), a strategic policy document that maps out the vision that underpins current climate policy. I examine how the CEAP recasts electronic waste as a new commodity frontier by incorporating it in a framework of ‘sustainable degradation’. By employing practice-oriented document analysis, I unpack how the CEAP shifts between viewing electronic waste as an environmental challenge and as an economic opportunity, revealing deep-rooted tensions between notions of radical sustainability on the one hand and green capitalism on the other. In particular, I analyse how the CEAP reframes electronic waste from being a hazardous byproduct into being a valuable resource, positioning it as a new frontier for capital accumulation. I demonstrate that while the CEAP proposes ambitious strategies for transitioning towards a circular economy, its underlying logic remains rooted in capitalist growth paradigms, thereby reinforcing rather than resolving the contradictions of the current economic system.

• Vincent Pucher (2025). Flows of Power: Untangling Chennai’s Urban Waterscapes. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Water in Chennai, Tamil Nadu’s capital, is scarce, yet water access is experienced differently across the metropolis. While some residents have borewells, filtration machines and a direct tap connection, others must line up at water trucks or public storage tanks to receive a fraction of the water wealthier residents use to wash their cars. As established in the Urban Political Ecology literature, these inequalities are not only products of water scarcity but also underlying power dynamics. Drawing on Embodied Urban Political Ecology and Access Theory, this qualitative study investigates how economic, political and social power shape water access across Chennai’s formal and informal neighbourhoods. Empirical data consisting of interviews and observations, are analysed by grounding the abstract concept of power into six of the eight mechanisms of access (capital, technology, markets, authority, identity, social relations) outlined by Ribot and Peluso. This approach allows for exploring how residents operationalise power to shape and navigate their experience of water access. This research adds to the literature of Embodied Urban Political Ecology by providing a theoretical integration of access mechanisms with the embodied experiences of the urban waterscapes. My findings reveal how power dynamics intersect to create different experiences of water access across the Indian city, highlighting the importance of moving beyond technical solutions to urban water security. While formal households increasingly invest in self-supply technologies such as rainwater harvesting systems, my research shows that it reduces yet does not eliminate the gendered burden of water access, since the maintenance continues to be the woman’s responsibility. In informal neighbourhoods, public water tanks have transformed into gray zones, where formal infrastructure is under informal control. These practices of informal governance and inadequate public water infrastructure have been found to create several barriers to water access, which women have to navigate daily to secure water, thus reinforcing the gendered experience of the urban waterscape. These findings highlight the heterogeneity and gendered burden of the urban water supply in both formal and informal neighbourhoods across Chennai, providing valuable intra-urban insights into how flows of power shape water access in a water-scarce urban environment.

• Ylva Julsrud Jalling (2025). Fueling the Future: How policy experts frame fossil fuels in the EU energy crisis (2021-22). Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive
• Tom Gardner (2025). Reclaiming the Cosmos: Engaging with the Enclosure of Outer Space. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive
• Ragnhild Holtan (2025). Perceptions of food - Working-class perspectives on “eating right” and ethical eating in Norway. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive
• Silje Abrahamsen (2025). Peace in a Changing Climate: Theoretical and Practical Considerations for Climate-Inclusive Peacebuilding. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This thesis interrogates how perceptions of peace and peacebuilding have changed and gradually allowed for an increased inclusion of climate change perspectives. In a world grappling with the effects of climate change and conflict, globally and locally, many have sought to explain the linkages between climate change, violence, conflict and peace. This has resulted in “turns”, as they are called, in the peacebuilding literature that seek to explain how efforts to establish lasting peace can succeed. Moreover, the climate, peace and security nexus is receiving more attention, and international organisations, like the UN, have started recognising the adverse effects of climate change on peace and security. This thesis brings new perspectives to the peace research field by critically analysing the turns in peacebuilding, specifically after 2016 and the introduction of the sustaining peace concept. By analysing the literature and examining processes in the UN Security Council and the UN Peacebuilding Architecture there is an indication that the sustaining peace agenda has led to a shift in how researchers and policymakers view peacebuilding, climate change and the inclusion of environmental perspectives in peace efforts. Additionally, by studying peacebuilding efforts in two cases, Somalia and South Sudan, and by conducting interviews with practitioners and scholars, this study seeks to bridge the gaps between the local and the global and between theory and practice highlighting benefits to interdisciplinary and hybrid approaches. The concluding discussion illuminates the need for further research in an emerging, but small, field. However, geopolitical tensions and silo culture in the UN persist, and funding in conflict affected areas is complex. Nevertheless, opportunities for peace and social cohesion reveal themselves in climate adaptation and environmental management efforts, and this is worth exploring. Future research concerning conceptualisations of peace, hybrid, climate sensitive and conflict sensitive approaches to peacebuilding are encouraged.

• Toril Finbråten (2025). Localizing circular consumption: A case study of Hamar municipality’s work with reuse initiatives. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The current linear consumption system faces increasing criticism due to its significant climate and environmental impacts stemming from resource extraction, production processes, and end-of-life waste management. Circular consumption has been put forward as consumption strategy as it minimizes the need for new resource extraction, production and reduces waste, and has been integrated into national policies. This thesis investigates the role of municipalities in facilitating this transition towards circular consumption, utilizing the case of Hamar municipality and its engagement with reuse initiatives as a starting point. Through mainly semi-structured interviews with municipal politicians, administrative employees, and actors related to the inter-municipal waste company - Sirkula IKS, this research identifies opportunities and barriers associated with the municipality's efforts to promote reuse. The thesis is framed by a sufficiency consumption approach and analyzed through the lens of socio-technical transitions. Specifically, the diffusion of reuse as a niche innovation and the hindering effects of “lock-in” – the findings from Hamar offer broader implications and transferable lessons for other municipalities seeking to advance circular consumption within their local contexts. The findings indicate that municipalities are important actors for promoting circular consumption, as they have different measures to implement circularity either within their own operations, or as a catalyst within their local communities. Furthermore, this thesis identifies the need for more policies related to circular consumption within the municipality, alongside state-level support to enable municipalities to enact these policies.

• Maria Varvara Varelaki (2025). Narrating Landscapes of Loss: Ecological Grief and Environmental Care Ethics in Urban Environments. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  As climate change progresses, extreme phenomena such as floods, hurricanes and wildfires become more frequent and reach populations that are not directly connected to the natural environment through their profession, lifestyle or cultural identity. This thesis explores the following questions: First, it investigates whether the concept of ecological grief can describe the emotive responses of individuals in urban environments in the face of climate crisis-related catastrophes. Second, if ecological grief is indeed present, how does it relate to post-catastrophe moral deliberation for environmental behaviour. The main argument that I will present in this thesis is that if individuals in urban environments experience ecological grief, then ecological grief can reveal new ways in which individuals connect and relate to their environment and this relation influences their post-catastrophe behaviour. That is, individuals’ environmental behaviour is not a response to the experience of ecological grief but rather to the realisation of the individual’s relation to place. As grief is an emotive response to the loss of a meaningful other, its presence towards the environment (in the form of ecological grief) can signify a) a relational, situated ontology which contrast traditional western conceptions of the individual as an independent moral agent, and b) valuing of the environment beyond the instrumental approach. Additionally, ecological grief allows for a broader interpretation of the environment as place (whether natural or anthropogenic) and for human-environment continuity through the narrative identity approach.

• Sara Maria Pane (2025). Life in Borderland: Exploring How People Navigate Liminality Through Local Humanitarianism on Lesvos. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This thesis explores how refugees, local Greek residents, and foreign volunteers navigate life in the borderland of Lesvos, Greece, within the constraints of a prolonged humanitarian context. Challenging dominant narratives that frame borderlands as spaces of passivity and stuckness, the study shows how people actively engage in practices of care, resistance, and future-making. Through ethnographic fieldwork, the thesis examines a locally rooted form of humanitarianism that fosters relational, reciprocal, and long-term responses to displacement. Drawing on Ortner’s framework of serious games, it reveals how individuals build livelihoods and meaningful lives within structures that constrain, but do not determine, their actions. In doing so, the thesis contributes to debates on humanitarianism, liminality, and agency, advocating for a shift in how we understand liminality of borderlands and humanitarianism at Europe’s borders.

• Holly Mackenzie Benna (2025). “Worth More Standing”: Exploring narratives of climate justice and coloniality at the Ada’itsx / Fairy Creek Blockades. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive
• Alzbeta Hlobenova (2025). Right-Wing Populist Parties in the European Union and Climate Skepticism: Alternative for Germany, Sweden Democrats, and Party for Freedom. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This thesis investigates the relationship between right-wing populist parties and climate skepticism, focusing on three case studies: Alternative for Germany (AfD), the Sweden Democrats (SD), and the Party for Freedom (PVV) in the Netherlands. Despite originating in countries often perceived as leaders in climate protection, these parties exhibit varying degrees of climate skepticism, ranging from complete denial to selective support that often goes hand in hand with climate nationalism. Through a collective case research approach and a qualitative discourse and framing analysis of party manifestos, public statements, and social media content, this study investigates the underlying factors of climate skepticism in these parties’ rhetoric and political agendas, and the ways these parties further construct and exploit climate skepticism. The analysis reveals that climate skepticism is shaped not only by ideology but also by political strategy and cultural identity. Across all three parties, anti-elitism emerges as the key unifying factor behind their construction of climate skepticism. Their skepticism is shaped by populist rhetoric that employs “the people” versus “the elites” narrative and portrays climate policy as an elitist agenda, out-of-touch with people’s common struggles, and an economic burden. Ultimately, this skepticism is then often selectively employed to oppose climate policies perceived as threatening to economic interests, national sovereignty, or cultural values.

• Hanna Mortensdatter Vandeskog (2025). “There’s no such thing as a free lunch”: Depoliticised decarbonisation, derisking and the production of ocean space in the Norwegian opening for deep-sea mining. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive
• Ida Silmarién Moen Snoksrud (2025). To live well, within limits: Exploring potentials for sustainable consumption through an economic disruption. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Unsustainable consumption patterns have long been recognised as demanding urgent action if we are to limit global temperature rise and prevent environmental degradation. While the problem has been studied from many angles, this thesis explores the potential of a disruption to initiate or suggest avenues for sustainable consumption change. By applying a practice theoretical framework combined with concepts and terminology from the sufficiency- and wellbeing literatures, I qualitatively analyse responses to a period over approximately three years (Dyrtida) of increased interest rates and prices on necessary goods and services. While the period is said to have begun in 2021, discussions of whether it was over still circulated at the time this thesis was written. The participants who partook in this project shared both changes and experiences they had made during this time, which were used to provide insight into aspects of routinised and habitual practices that tend to be hidden under the cover of ‘normality’. The findings point to how both former and novel constellations of the practice elements material, competence, and meaning are sought in response to disruptions. While some responses held potential for sustainable consumption change, others pointed in the opposite direction. More specifically, the study explores how notions of necessity link to standards of consumption in the element of meaning. Through this element, my analysis suggests how disruptions can motivate more sufficient value orientations in multiple practices that share specific configurations of this element. How often the practices analysed were enacted during the three-year long period proved decisive to how well new ways of performing them were habituated. The study further highlights how greatly differences in economic capital impacts responses to this kind of disruption and the extent to which wellbeing is affected. Thereby, it shows the importance of matters of equity and justice in efforts toward sustainable consumption change.

• Austra Apsite (2025). En-chanted Trees: Towards an Animistic Turn in Latvian Singing Tradition. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This thesis argues that in Latvia, there is a living, indigenous singing tradition that has relevance not first and foremost from the point of view of ethnography or anthropology, but from ontology – the question of Being and our relationship with it. This thesis re-evaluates the animacy of the world through traditional ritual and song in relation to oak trees – our Latvian tree of life. The rediscovery of animacy in Western intellectual canons comes from phenomenology. This thesis shows that the knowledge and practice of such animacy has been kept alive in the margins of Europe all this time in the mythopoetics of Latvian oral tradition. This thesis argues that its survival is a philosophical concern. To weave together tradition and philosophy is also to re-discover living tradition in its relevance, to reveal it in its full generative – read: ontogenic – potentiality. This thesis contributes an important voice to the canons by revealing Latvian traditions in their animacy and placing them in the wider discussion of phenomenology.

• Julie Charlotte Ruby Clausen (2025). Cultivating Interconnectedness: The Practice of Environmental Ethics in Contemporary Buddhist Monasteries. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This thesis explores how Buddhist principles of interconnectedness, interdependence, and no-self are manifested in the relationship with nature at two contemporary European Buddhist monasteries. During two months of ethnographic fieldwork at Temple Zen Taikosan Ryumon Ji in France and Amaravati Forest Monastery in England, I examined how these principles are translated from abstract concepts into ethical practices in everyday life. Using participant observation and semi-structured interviews, I analysed these relationships across three dimensions: personal connections with gardens and animals; monastic institutional practices centred around food; and spiritual experiences that dissolve the conventional boundaries between self and nature. The findings indicate that these Buddhist monasteries cultivate states of consciousness in which ethical care for nature emerges spontaneously through recognition of interconnectedness, rather than through imposed moral frameworks. At the personal level, the development of attentiveness and harmlessness enables monastics to recognize the intrinsic value of natural beings. At the institutional level, food practices function as total social facts that integrate religious, economic, environmental and moral dimensions to create tangible networks of relationships that extend beyond human boundaries. At the spiritual level, direct experiences of boundary dissolution transform practitioners’ perception of their relationship with the natural world. These communities demonstrate how a transformation of consciousness can serve as a foundation for a change in perspective leading towards a more sustainable relationship with nature. By means of stories pertaining to encounters with trees, bee homes, garden philosophies and interspecies friendships, this thesis illuminates paths towards active hope – not as an emotional state, but rather as a practice of cohabitation that recognizes our fundamental interconnectedness. The research suggests that Buddhist approaches to environmental ethics may offer valuable resources for addressing contemporary ecological challenges, not through technological solutions, but rather through transformed ways of perceiving and relating to our natural environment and non-human cohabitants.

• Roman Patrick Paluch-Edwards (2025). The Limits to Growth Agnosticism: A Critical Analysis of Doughnut Economics in Theory and in Practice. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Since its publication in 2017, Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economics (DE) has fast become a popular approach to sustainable development. Not only has DE received rave reviews, it is being put into practice, including at the level of local governance in major cities such as Amsterdam. The former deputy mayor of Amsterdam suggested it was ideally suited to dealing with challenges related to housing, climate, jobs and communities and overcoming Thatcherite economic thinking. However, although highly critical of neoclassical economics and economic growth, Raworth largely eschews a direct critique of capitalism and ultimately advocates growth agnosticism; i.e. in favour of a socially just and ecologically sustainable economy that ‘thrives’ regardless of whether it expands or contracts. Others advocate degrowth in high-income nations, where decoupling economic growth from material throughput in time to meet the 1.5C to 2 C degree target(s) as per the Paris Agreement is not supported by historical evidence. Moreover, several authors have argued economic growth is an irreconcilable feature of capitalism hence a post-growth economy must be a post-capitalist one. It is therefore unclear whether DE and the position of growth agnosticism open up space for such a transformation or not. This thesis undertakes a critical analysis of DE on two planes: 1) at the theoretical level and 2) at the empirical level. It first considers Raworth’s political economy and programme for change as found primarily in her book before moving on to an investigation of how Doughnut Economics has been adopted by Cornwall Council, UK. Pertaining to the former, Doughnut Economics is situated alongside both orthodox pro- growth literature and critical scholarship from Marxian, eco-socialist, degrowth and eco- feminist traditions, to ascertain the merits of Raworth’s approach to economic growth and the solutions found within her model. In the latter, analysis of policy documents and semi- structured interviews have been used to explore the extent Cornwall Council’s approach to Doughnut Economics marries with the objectives of its original author, inclusive of local understandings of economic growth and the advantages and disadvantages corresponding to scale. This thesis suggests that there is potential to be found within Raworth’s analysis and normative vision. However, DE may be encumbered by certain weaknesses in its politics, Raworth’s argumentation and the model itself, which when combined with the local and national agendas studied, obfuscate the transition towards a post-growth economy.

• Maria del Carmen Gonzalez Torres (2025). Building Worlds Beyond the Colonial Gaze. How Coloniality is represented in Contemporary Latin American Science Fiction tales and the construction of other possible futures. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The Science Fiction literary genre reflects the realities of societies and nations, and it is a channel through which individuals can imagine different worlds, possibilities and futures. This genre, however, has been dominated by Anglo-Saxon narratives that describe realities and possible futures through their specific perspectives as hegemonic and global powers. These narratives usually describe myths related to the exploration, discovery and transformation of new planets where humans can migrate in the future; the adaptation to new technologies and the implications of science that challenge the human control over their own technological creations; the invasion of other species to Earth through the destruction of the world as we know it, etc. The genre is now used to express other narratives from different regions in the world to represent other realities and to propose alternative narratives as it is the case of Latin America. The thesis analyses narratives presented in contemporary Latin American Science Fiction short tales, asking what the realities and how possible futures from different locations in Latin America are expressed in these short tales. It also analyses the perception of the authors of these tales to better understand their narratives and motivations when writing such tales. More specifically, the thesis explores five Science Fiction short tales published in a Latin American Science Fiction anthology published in 2021, as well as the responses obtained from open-ended interviews conducted by the authors of these tales. By applying a coloniality and decoloniality framework developed by Latin American scholars to the thematic analysis (TA) of texts and interviews, this thesis examines how the different types of coloniality such a coloniality of power, coloniality of knowledge, and coloniality of gender continue to reproduce in Latin America and how Science Fiction genre is used to denounce this reproduction but also how the genre is used as a decolonial tool through a decolonial attitude, delinking and decolonial love.

• Amalie Bjørnsen (2025). Corporate Sustainability Reporting under CSRD Legitimacy, Transparency, and Change? Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive
• Clementine Clemence Aurore Fraunie (2024). «Regenerating starts with us»: AlmaOhana ecovillage’s practices for more-than-human (re)connections. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The Anthropocene equates times of worldly vulnerability. In the face of growing threats for life sustenance, scholars launch calls for places of refuge. Simultaneously, the failure of traditional conservation and sustainability policies make it clear that such oases cannot rest on the separation of humans from their more-than-human environments. Ecovillages, intentional communities integrating humans into ecological systems, appear as one solution to support life in its human and other-than-human forms. There, people work to bridge the present into regenerative cultures, to collectively build safe place-communities through a re-connection between humans and other-than-humans. This research seeks to unravel how the ethics of place-based regeneration translates into practices of more-than-human reconnections in the ecovillage AlmaOhana, in Portugal. An immersive multispecies ethnography combined participant observation, workshops, and auto-ethnography, directed towards human ecovillagers, other-than-humans on the land, and the researcher herself. The results show that AlmaOhana cultivates a sense of belonging that encourages human integration to, and connection with, the more-than-human land. With connection as a central social norm, the ecovillage makes encounters between lifeforms matter. When peaceful co-existence is easily achievable, the practice of neighboring is developed. When conflicting interests arise, the ecovillage questions its human-defined boundaries with the help of communication cues given by other-than-humans. The efforts put in by the ecovillage to cultivate more-than-human relations (in spite of the challenges) demonstrate their desire and ability to care. Through practices of noticing, protecting and healing, AlmaOhana humans adapt their pace to the more-than-human land they belong to. The state of vulnerability of the ecovillage and its inhabitants, humans and not, constitutes at once a condition of their earthly existence and a power to create social change, in the direction of acknowledgement of the multispecies entanglements that we all, ultimately, rely on.

• Wanxian Zhang (2024). Brewing Change - Coffee Value Chain Upgrading and Community Capital in China Yunnan’s Pu‘er Region. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive
• Marianne Emilie Seppola-Simonsen (2024). Selling the Family Silver: A Gramscian analysis of the effect of state regulation of riverscapes on the retention and transfer of Kven culture and language. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  In the summer of 2023, the Norwegian Truth and Reconciliation Commission published their report detailing the effects and consequences of the assimilation of national minorities and Indigenous peoples during the last two centuries. The report raises questions concerning access to natural resources, yet states that there are gaps in existing knowledge pertaining to Kven nature-understandings and relations in particular. This thesis seeks to examine how Norwegian state regulation of nature has affected, and continues to affect, the transfer and use of Kven culture and language. Specifically, it aims to assess how state regulation of salmon fishing in the Northern-Norwegian rivers Raisinjoki and Lemmijoki has affected the retention and transfer of Kven culture and language. Through qualitative interviews with 11 participants, the fishing technique known as “lohipato”, or salmon weir fishing, made illegal in 1979, is discussed. In this discussion, a Norwegian hegemonic understanding of human-nature relationships is defined and compared to a subaltern Kven understanding of the same. The conflicts produced in the meeting of ontological differences is further explored in the context of river fishing in the North, viewed through a Gramscian theoretical framework, as well as through the lens of political ecology. The thesis concludes that while balancing the survival of wild salmon populations with the role of salmon fishing – as both a Kven cultural carrier and as a source of recreation – is a complex matter, the Kven language is severely threatened by current day hegemonic nature-regulation. Thus, current efforts by the Norwegian state to facilitate reconciliation, in the light of historic assimilation, is being counteracted by ongoing regulation, which has an implicitly assimilatory effect. As such, granting Kven fishermen preferential rights to the natural resources upon which culture and language relies is suggested as a partial solution, as well as opening for Kven participation in decision making processes relating to such resources.

• Angelique Kristine Rein (2024). Vegan for a month, vegan for life? Exploring how food practices change through participation in a short-term vegan challenge. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The pervasive preference for animal products in global diets is compromising planetary health and causing mass undue suffering. Despite evidence that plant-based diets are more sustainable, more ethical, and healthier than diets rich in meat, dairy, and eggs, the (over)consumption of animal products remains a deeply entrenched cultural norm. Campaigns challenging people to try veganism for a month have the potential to disrupt this norm by facilitating practices like vegan shopping, cooking, and eating. This research applies theories of social practice to explore the influence of short-term vegan challenges on food practices, including what facilitates and complicates efforts to change. 31 participants took part in a vegan challenge and shared their experiences through surveys, qualitative interviews, and food photo diaries. The study provides insight into how existing everyday food practices tend to be deeply entrenched despite active efforts to change. The findings suggest that agentive power is distributed across social, material, and bodily pillars, facilitating and hindering efforts towards vegan eating in various ways. Participant experiences revealed how societal norms complicated vegan eating by instilling feelings of social discomfort while social support and sharing positive experiences with vegan food aided dietary change efforts. The availability of affordable, tasty, and filling vegan food was necessary to carry out vegan food practices. Eating vegan in a meat-intensive food environment required extra work to build competence, especially without prior knowledge; participants had to learn how to shop for and cook healthy, tasty, and filling vegan food. Vegan challenges offer an opportunity for experimenting with new foods, gaining competence, reflecting on food habits and values, and learning in a shared community of practice. However, embedded sociomaterial histories and carnistic environments complicate dietary change efforts. Participation in the vegan challenge more often led to flexitarianism rather than veganism and many participants largely returned to old habits. Nevertheless, the challenge facilitated experimentation with unfamiliar, socially deviant practices and led to increased competence in vegan shopping, cooking, and eating, which was sometimes integrated into existing food practices, reshaping them to be more sustainable.

• Maria de Los Angeles Ochoa Velazquez (2024). Defending the environment amidst a struggle for electricity access: The case of a resistance movement in the Southeast of Mexico. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The Consejo Autónomo Regional de la Zona Costa de Chiapas (Regional Autonomous Council of the Chiapas Coastal Zone) is a social movement that operates in Chiapas, Mexico (Consejo Autónomo, n.d), which core project has revolved around electricity access since its origins in the 1990s. However, in the last decade, the central leaders of the movement have adopted a socio-environmental agenda that they refer to as defensa de la tierra y territorio (defence of land and territory). Such an agenda aims to create a sense of activism against capitalist projects among all the members. This thesis seeks to understand this new socio-environmental agenda and to assess its impacts among the Consejo Autónomo members. It does so through the defence of land and territory framework that the Latin-American and Mexican socio-environmental struggles have constructed collectively, but from the perspective of the members of a movement that is primarily fighting for electricity access. This study is guided by an ethnographic approach that involved semi-structured interviews among the Consejo Autónomo members, participant observation in various assemblies and activities of the movement, living with the local and central leaders, and analysing documentation written by the central leaders and secondary scientific sources. Ultimately, I argue that the sense of the inclusion of a defence of land and territory agenda in the Consejo Autónomo, relies on the presence and plans of capitalism projects in their region and in the fact that this agenda entangles with environmental and dispossession issues that derive from electricity production. Yet, this agenda presents different challenges: it does not align with the immediate need for electricity access among the rest of the members; it is being challenged by the lack of a strong social capital; and it has the risk of being perceived as a project imposed from above and/or as a project that is not ensuring a symmetrical distribution of work between men and women.

• Ingrid Knutsdatter Forsberg (2024). Taking Climate Change to Court. A Case Study of the Legal Mobilisation Process of Norway’s First Climate Change Litigation Case. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  As a way to slow down global warming and prevent damaging climate change, activists are increasingly turning to the courts. This growing trend of climate change litigation marks a radical shift in the strategies of many civil society actors, as they expand their battles from the political realm into the legal one. Yet, we still know little about this changing battlefield. Why and how are civil society actors adopting litigation as a strategy to address climate change? Through a case study of Norway’s first climate litigation case, People v Arctic Oil, with a specific focus on the plaintiffs, Greenpeace Nordic and Nature and Youth, this thesis adopts an interpretative approach to examine the decision to initiate litigation. Based on empirical data obtained from interviews with key actors in the legal mobilisation process and a judge, complemented by secondary data, the analysis identifies factors that influenced the adoption of litigation as a strategy for addressing climate change matters. The findings suggest that the Norwegian environmental movement faced limited opportunities to influence petroleum policy, primarily due to a lack of political receptiveness towards their demands to cease further petroleum exploration on the Norwegian shelf. This, in combination with the relatively open rules governing legal standing in Norway, as well as the expansion of the environmental movement’s legal and cultural stock following the revision of the Norwegian Constitution Article 112 (the environmental provision), the adoption of the Paris Agreement, and the increase in climate change litigation cases globally, were understood as factors facilitating litigation. On the other hand, the main barriers to litigation were the high and unpredictable cost of litigation along with the quite conservative nature of Norwegian courts. These different factors were classified into two categories: opportunity structure explanations and organisation-level explanations. The analysis suggested that the identified factors not only influenced the decision to pursue litigation but also shaped the form of the litigation case. Overall, the thesis demonstrates the dynamic relationship between the different explanation factors and argues that an interpretative, bottom-up approach that considers both opportunity structure explanations and organisation-level explanations is needed to fully grasp the dynamics of a legal mobilisation process.

• Helene Greibesland (2024). Tanzanian Female Engineers: Exploring Employment of Female Engineers in Tanzania. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This thesis explores the social, cultural, economic, and political factors that create barriers for female engineers’ employment in Tanzania. By taking a multidisciplinary and interpretive approach the thesis discusses findings from fieldwork in Tanzania in relation to secondary data. The thesis sheds light on social, cultural, and political structures stemming from the colonial past and the African socialist Ujamaa period that are hindering women from fully taking part in the engineering sector. Barriers to female engineers’ employment that are revealed through this thesis are corruption, trust deficit, low perception of Tanzanian engineering skills, competition from foreign companies, gender structures in Tanzania, and maternity leave. This in turn reveals the gendering of the engineering workforce in Tanzania. By doing so the thesis contributes to acknowledging that women need to be included in the engineering workforce and recognizing the barriers will enable policymakers, organizations, and governmental and non-governmental institutions to implement programs, policies, and interventions to enhance female representation and inclusion in the engineering field in Tanzania, and perhaps other developing countries, to reach their development goals of economic growth and gender equality.

• Eira Elisabeth Lien Jacobsen (2024). Breeding Between Conservation and Improvement: standards and care in Norwegian sheep breeding practices. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This master´s thesis explores the intricate interplay of sheep, farmers, scientists, computers, knowledge, and material devices in Norwegian sheep breeding practices in southeast Norway. Through ethnographic fieldwork on two distinct sheep breeds - Gammalnorsk spælsau and Norsk kvit sau - I delve into the multifaceted dimensions of sheep husbandry and breeding in the country to analyze how environmental and economic aspects converge to influence both relations of care and the making of standards. Essentially, this thesis examines the dynamic reconfiguration of the value of sheep through the past, present, and future of Norwegian agriculture and husbandry. The primary objective of this study is not only to understand how the distinct breeds are enacted in the worlds they partake in, but also how changes to ecologies and agricultural economics influence the breeding objectives upheld by the respective breeding communities. Exploring how the breeds in question respond to these themes differently illuminates not only an aesthetic diversity, but also an antagonistic dependency in how their breeding communities and ideologies are developed. The breeding practices will be explored on three scales: (1) the scale of the flock and the farm, (2) the scale of the county organizations for sheep and their selection shows, and (3) the scale of the national and centralized system for sheep breeding encompassing breeds like Norsk kvit sau. Through participant observation at farms in Buskerud and Akershus, as well as interviews with employees at the national association for sheep breeding (NSG), this research ultimately engages with fundamental questions about the processes, practices, and ideals that make sheep - as we know them - come into being.

• Melissa Cristine Arbiter (2024). A Tenuous Link Exploring the role of trust and alienation in halal butcher shops in Oslo. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Abstract Amidst the growing global climate crisis, meat consumption habits have come under heavy scrutiny. The industrialisation of the meat industry has fuelled a rapid increase in meat consumption on a global scale, particularly in the last 60 years. Along side this industrialisation, in some countries, such as Norway, the traditional butcher shop has become a rare sight to see. However, there is an exception: halal butcher shops. In a small neighbourhood in Oslo, there at least nine halal butcher shops within a short walking distance of each other. Why is this? Based on ten semi-structured interviews with halal meat consumers, halal butcher shop owners and a halal certification representative, this thesis seeks to explore experiences of halal meat consumption in Oslo. By using the role of trust, the social construction of halal as well as the role of alienation as frameworks, this thesis shows that halal meat consumption is a complex and changing practice. Fundamental to halal meat consumption is the role of trust. This trust is based on both familiarity and confidence, but more importantly, is based on the Islamic concept of trust: that Muslims are obliged to cultivate a trustworthy character. Trust allows halal meat consumers to believe that the meat they’re eating is halal, despite a lack of consensus within the global Muslim community about what halal actually means. While halal meat consumers appear to be spatially separated from the places where animals are raised and slaughtered, there are signs of a connection to the animal origin of meat from a social and cultural perspective. However, the cultural connection to the animal origin of meat combined with the trust that the meat they’re eating fits their interpretation of halal, could also be serving as a way of denying the reality of industrial animal slaughter. The global Muslim population currently sits at just over 2 billion. While the Muslim minority population in Norway is relatively small compared to other European countries, understanding the complexities of halal meat consumption can help address current and future issues, opportunities, and conflicts. This thesis seeks to fill a gap in research on halal eating practices in Norway as well as provide nuance to existing research on this minority population in other European countries.

• Jonas Kittelsen (2024). Making the invisible visible: An ecological analysis of the logics of Norwegian oil licensing. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  As cumulative scientific evidence warns of devastating impacts without a fair phase-out of fossil fuels, the Norwegian government handed out 62 new oil and gas licenses in 2024 and described Norwegian petroleum as sustainable. This thesis investigates this paradox by exploring how ecological concerns are operationalized and understood in the licensing system in order to grasp the premises, beliefs, and values upholding the current system. By analyzing regulations and guidelines, political documents, Ocean Management Plans, specific license processes, and conducting semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders in the petroleum sector, the thesis seeks to shed light on how the licensing system considers, and operates within, the planetary reality of 2024. The thesis reveals how ecological concerns consistently are operationalized into a technical and economic lens, narrowing the relevant scope to meet technological and economic requirements for responsible activity, prioritizing quantifiable and instrumental types of knowledge, and ignoring consequences in time and space, and global justice issues. Key stakeholders in the licensing system are confronted with these ecological blindspots to assess potential entry points for transformative change, and in response, promote shallow interventions with technocratic and economized logics. The analysis discloses and exposes how different rationales present in economized and ecological logics are incompatible to each other, and argues for a shift from viewing the planetary predicament as a technical problem to an adaptive challenge.

• Elida Wiik Lenth (2024). For People, Planet, or Profit? An ecolinguistic analysis of sustainability 'stories' in the Norwegian salmon farming industry. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Farmed salmon is at present Norway’s second largest export and has been described as ‘the new oil’. Thus, the industry currently finds itself deep in growth-oriented discourses, with the government expressing policy wishes of a five-fold increase in production by 2050. At the same time, awareness of multiple environmental and social controversies exacerbated by industry growth, such as animal welfare issues and exploitative North-South relations is amplifying, and contributing to the ‘contested’ narrative space in public and academic discourse. The thesis analyses elements of this narrative space where sustainability concepts are created in a context permeated by the growth paradigm, asking what sort of worldviews and ontologies are expressed in the sustainability discourses. Specifically, the thesis explores discursive constructions of sustainability concepts found in the sustainability reports published by five prominent salmon farming companies in Norway in 2022. Applying an ecolinguistic analysis framework to the methodology of critical discourse analysis (CDA), the thesis examines the construction of various ‘stories’ (cognitive structures in individuals’ minds influencing thought, language and action) that underpin, guide and sustain current sustainability practices in the industry. In line with principles of ecolinguistics and CDA, the thesis establishes a normative framework based on theories from deep ecology, as well as critiques of green growth and technology optimism, and considers how ‘stories’ identified in the sustainability reports produce and reproduce social and ecological realities. Through close textual analysis, using the ecolinguistic inquiry tools of framing, metaphor, evaluation, conviction, erasure, and salience, the constructed realities are examined in light of the normative framework, i.e., ideologies and worldviews are assessed as they are realised in discourse. The thesis thus combines detailed linguistic analysis with discussions of wider, hegemonic ontologies structuring language to discuss what forms of human-nature relationships are naturalised in the discourses of the salmon farming industry in Norway

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