I am a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Food, Nutrition and Culinary Science, Umeå University. My research concerns food, meals and gastronomy as social, material and cultural phenomena, with particular interest in how eating is shaped by practices, places, technologies, sensory experiences and broader food systems.
My research has developed from studies of commercial meals, consumer experience and business travellers’ eating practices towards a broader programme addressing gastronomic practices, sustainability, resilience and food-system transformation. A recurring theme is how food and meals acquire meaning and function through the contexts in which they are produced, prepared, evaluated and consumed. Theoretically, I work primarily with social practice theory and process-oriented perspectives, with particular interest in relations between people, materiality, place and time.
An increasingly important strand of my research concerns sensory and consumer science. Within the Horizon Europe project FlavourFerm, I contribute to research on the sensory properties and consumer acceptance of fermented plant-based foos and map societal challenges to adoption. This research examines, among other things, how sensory expectations, product categories, ideas of naturalness and authenticity, processing and trust influence how novel foods are interpreted and accepted.
I also work on questions concerning future and resilient food systems. This includes research on fermentation, preservation and storage practices in the restaurant sector, as well as interdisciplinary work on fireweed (Chamaenerion angustifolium) as a potential future crop and food resource for northern Sweden.
Methodologically, my work spans qualitative, quantitative and computational approaches. I use interviews, observation, surveys, consumer and sensory research, qualitative content analysis and thematic analysis, as well as computational linguistic methods for analysing larger text corpora and public discourse.
Across these areas, I am interested in understanding food beyond the individual product or isolated consumer choice. My research instead examines how sensory properties, embodied experience, social norms, material conditions, historical processes and cultural categories jointly shape what people eat, how they value food and how food practices change over time.