Role: Research Sociologist, Nordic Women's University
Nesna, Norway

  Contact: margunn.bjornholt@gmail.com

  Research Interests:
Alternative Financial Institutions | Cultural Heritage | Flexible Working Arrangements

Margunn Bjørnholt is a sociologist and researcher, affiliated with the Nordic Women's University in Norway. Her academic interests and research cover a wide range of topics, from alternative financial institutions, cultural heritage and flexible working arrangements.  Her main emphasis is on work, family and gender equality and currently, she is working on social justice, gender equality, and feminist economics.

Before entering the academy in 1997, Bjørnholt worked as a civil servant and consultant, promoting women's entrepreneurship and regional development. She was also engaged in community initiatives, including a feminist radio station and an initiative to establish an “interest free bank”.

Bjørnholt has published a range of research reports and journal articles. Among her most recent publications are "From work-sharing couples to equal parents: Changing perspectives on men and gender equality", in Maria Jansdotter Samuelsson, Clary Krekula, Magnus Åberg (eds), Sexus ubique: On gender in power, politics and everyday practices, Karlstad University Press (in press).  “Theorising love, work and family in early Norwegian family research and today”, in Ann Ferguson and Anna G. Jónasdóttir (eds.), Love in Our Time: A Question for Feminism (in press). “How Men Became the Local Agents of Change towards Gender Equality”, Journal of Gender Studies, 20(1), 3–18 (2011). She is the co-author, with Ailsa Mckay, of an anthology, Counting on Marilyn Waring: New Advances in Feminist Economics, to be published by Demeter Press, Toronto.

While at Emory, Margunn worked with Martha Fineman, exploring the applicability of the vulnerability theory for the study of gendered patterns of privilege and disadvantage in Norway. She is generally interested in the possible relevance of the vulnerability approach as a basis for justice in the context of the fairly universal and relatively egalitarian Scandinavian welfare states.