
Grete Swensen
- Ethnologist —
- Forsker —
- Researcher
Phonenumber: +47 414 51 052
E-mail: grete.swensen@niku.no
-
Department:
- Heritage and society
Grete Swensen is an ethnologist and senior researcher, and has worked in NIKU since 2000. Her field of interest is the study of the relationship between people and the environment.
Many of her studies have a social history profile, whether studies rooted in issues related to the processes of change in the urban landscape, the built environment in rural areas or in cities. Cultural historic knowledge is used to shed light on the processes of change that take place in contemporary society. Recently, much of her research has been focused on how cultural heritage can be included as components of the current physical planning, including integration of cultural heritage in a vibrant urban development.
She has been project manager for several research projects funded by the Norwegian Research Council as well as research coordinator in three strategic institute programs in NIKU. She has also taken part in the methodological development of vulnerability analysis in the built environment. She emphasizes the need for multidisciplinary research and the use of qualitative methods.
She has previously worked at the University of Oslo, in the museum sector (Industrial Workers Museum in Rjukan, the county museum in Akershus) and has also been head of research in the Norwegian Research Council’s Research Programme on Cultural Heritage (FOK program, 1989-1993).
Grete Swensen has a doctorate in ethnology and defended it in 1996 with the thesis ‘Modern but obsolete? The non-governmental organisations’ building activities in formative perspective 1870-1940′.
Selected publications from Cristin:
Visionscapes: Combining Heritage and Urban Gardening to Enhance Areas Requiring Regeneration
Swensen, Grete; Stafseng, Vebjørn Egner; Simon Nielsen, Véronique Karine.
- 2022
- International Journal of Heritage Studies (IJHS)
- Academic article
Strengthening Subjective Links to Nature: The Psychology of Heritage Places in an Era of Rising Environmental Awareness
Swensen, Grete.
- 2021
- The Historic Environment
- Academic article
Between Visions and Realities: Testing Shared Governance in Adaptive Reuse of Industrial Heritage
Swensen, Grete.
- 2021
- Academic chapter/article/Conference paper
The 'garden city' in the green Infrastructure of the future: learning from the past
Swensen, Grete; Berg, Sveinung Krokann.
- 2020
- Landscape Research
- Academic article
Tensions between Urban Heritage Policy and Compact City Planning - A Practice Review
Swensen, Grete.
- 2020
- Planning Practice & Research
- Academic article
Illusionary equality? Museum politics, practice and immigrant heritage
Swensen, Grete; Guttormsen, Torgrim Sneve.
- 2020
- Museum Management and Curatorship
- Academic article