About me
I have previously worked at the Centre for alcohol and drug research, SoRAD (2010-2017). There I worked on several projects, covering topics such as young women's views on alcohol, media presentations on women’s drinking between the years 1955-2010 and the interaction of conceptions of masculinities and drinking. In addition to this, I have participated in the European comparative projects "AMPHORA" and "Second Multi-City Study on Quantities and Financing of Illicit Drug Consumption – QUAF2".
Research
In my dissertation project I studied the assemblage of political and scientific practices within which drugs emerge as a problematic during the period 1980-2014. The study specifically focused on the changing ways in which drug prevention has been conceptualized during this period with an eye on the ideological closure that specific problematizations of drugs exert on the political discourse on drugs, notably the shift towards "evidence based" policy making.
The dissertation can be found here.
I am currently working on a project on the changing conceptions of democracy and drug users possibilities to participate in political processes. This project aims to provide a historical analysis of how issues of recognition and representation have been handled through an examination of various claims for political legitimacy put forth by drug users, client and user organizations, political and other actors speaking about and on behalf of drug users. This includes a broad investigation, covering the period 1960–2018, of the actors and arguments for and against the inclusion of drug users in the political sphere, as well as the conceptualization of “democratic participation” underlying such arguments. The main research questions are: How has the issue of drug user participation been formulated over time? What concept of democracy has this issue been founded upon? Has the very meaning of the concept of democracy shifted during this period? Which actors have been involved in this issue and what tactics have they employed in the pursuit of this issue? In relation to which issues have drug users been recognized as legitimate participants? On what platforms (political, organizational, medial) has this issue been discussed? Through an analysis of material emanating from client and user organizations, official publications as well as drug policy debates in the daily press, this investigation seeks to provide a deeper understanding of the forms that user engagement has taken and the role of client and user organizations in enabling political engagement.