Current Research Projects
The current research concerns various aspects of the general field of new materialism and social microarchaeology. My main focus at the moment is set on the materiality of imagery in general and Bronze Age rock art in particular. The project Material images: Visual modes of material articulation in south Scandinavian rock art, financed by Riksbankens jubileumsfond, aims at understanding the complex relations between the so called 'northern tradition' of hunter rock art and the 'southern tradition' of Bronze Age rock art in Scandinavia during the third and second millennia BC.
The project concerns the rock art in the Mälar valley of south eastern Sweden with a particular interest in an area south east of the city of Enköping. The studies conducted so far suggest that the rock art in this area was primarily extrovert and directed to the seascape. Instances of iconoclasm also indicate that the Enköping area was a hybrid space during the Early Bronze Age where groups associated with both the northern and the southern traditions interacted.
Another, related project, also concern the rock art of the Mälaren bay. Digital images for research and the public, aims to develop a documentation strategy adapted to the issues stressed in current research. By combining two- and three-dimensional technologies, the project will generate better support for research, heritage preservation and for making the cultural heritage publicly available.
Previous projects:
I also listed a few older research projects that are finished, but by no means out-of-date. The first project, 3D-documentation and analysis of petroglyphs is related to the above-mentioned project and concerns the temporality of Neolithic/Bronze Age rock art using photogrammetry on petroglyphs. Also the project Encounters and Materiality in the Third space is integrated with the main research on rock art exploring the effects of hybridity.
The remaining two projects, The Ageing body. Social aspect of the last phases of the life course and Children and social aspects of the life cycle, both concerns issues of the life cycle, intersectionality and social categorisation (mainly based on Neolithic and Mesolithic case studies). These are the projects which have some kind of funding, all revolving around similar kinds of questions about temporality, the sequence of events and effects of social hybridity; that is, the various things that happen when a group encounter something other, let be people, practices or materialities.