Livia Johannesson

I teach at all levels and in both Swedish and English. The major part of my teaching has been devoted to qualitative methods, research design, and public administration. At the School of Public Administration at the University of Gothenburg, I am responsable for a bachelor course about the role of law and courts in Swedish society. 

My research covers migration policies, asylum determinations, studies of law and society, public healthcare planning and political ethnography. I have a background in feminist political theory and a general interest in sociomateriality, symbols, and interpretive methods. In 2014, I was a visiting scholar at Melbourne Law School and in 2022 I was a visiting scholar at International Institute for The Sociology of Law at Oñati, the Basque Country, Spain.

In a research project called “Dilemmas in Courtrooms: How Judges Practice Equality before the Law at Swedish Administrative Courts” (2019-2023) funded by the Swedish Research Council, I study how legal principles such as equality before the law, objectivity, and justice are practiced and perceived by judges at the Swedish administrative courts when deciding compulsory care cases and asylum appeals.

Within another research project called “The Materialization of Changes: How Built Spaces Drive, Prevent, and Modify Organizational Changes in Two Swedish University Hospitals” (2020-2024) funded by the Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare I explore the tensions between managerial strategies to reform public healthcare and the strategies of resistance, innovation, and modification used by healthcare professions in two University hospitals in Sweden.

My research has been published in both Swedish and English, among others in journals such as Citizenship Studies, Journal of International Migration and Integration, Social & Legal Studies,International Migration Review, and Policy Sciences.