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Nerina Weiss

Researcher

Nerina Weiss is senior researcher at Fafo Institute for Labour and Social Studies. She holds a PhD in social anthropology (University of Oslo 2012), and worked as a Marie Curie IE Fellow at Dignity-Danish Institute against Torture from 2011 to 2013.

Much of her academic and applied research has focused on citizen-state relations, which she explored through a focus on political violence and migration, radicalization, as well as torture and trauma.

Regionally she has worked in the Mediterranean and Middle East, with extensive fieldwork experience from Cyprus and Eastern Turkey, as well as from Denmark, Norway and Austria. She is the co-editor of “Violence Expressed: An Anthropological Perspective” (2012 Routledge).

Education

PhD Social Anthropology, University of Oslo

Area of work

Violence and conflict, gender, political anthropology, migration, torture and social suffering, asylum, radicalization.


Current projects

Designing Equitable and Effective Strategies to Combat Violence, Hate, and Discrimination

The aim of this research project is to further develop the knowledge of society's efforts against violence, violations and discrimination. Researchers from Fafo, Nordland Research Institute and NOVA/OsloMet collaborate on the accomplichment. The project will be carried out in 2022-2025 on behalf of The Norwegian Directorate for Children, Youth and Family Affairs (Bufdir).

Activism and its moral and cultural foundations: alternative citizenship and women's roles in Kurdistan and the diaspora

ALCITfem is an interdisciplinary research programme that is rooted in Literary Studies, Cultural Anthropology, Gender Studies and Sociology. It investigates how the Kurds, who lack state structures and state institutions, have operated outside of such structures by building cultural and social institutions of their own in the different states of which they are citizens.

The future of resettlement: vulnerability revisited

This project explores changes in resettlement policies, specifically related to the concept of “vulnerability”, and how these policy changes shape the processes of how refugees are selected for resettlement.

Evaluating "Snakke" and "Jeg vet"

The overall objective of this project is to evaluate the implementation process as well as the effect of, and experiences with, two learning resources about violence and abuse against children: "Snakkemedbarn.no" (talk with children) and "Jeg Vet". (I know)

Articles and book chapters

Other publications

Completed projects

Evaluating the quality of asylum interviews

The overall goal of the project is to investigate whether the UDI's conduct of asylum interviews is in line with current quality requirements.

To hear children in deportation cases

The project will examine how current regulations and the immigration authorities' practice safeguard children's right to be heard in deportation cases that affect them.

Children and youth in immigration

The project's overall objective is to contribute to better pediatric expertise in the immigration administration's various agencies and better meetings between children and the immigration administration. The assignment consists of evaluating whether the process for children who meet the immigration administration and the pediatric competence in the agencies UDI, UNE, and PU, has improved between 2016 and 2019 after various measures have been initiated to strengthen these target areas. The evaluation will examine both children and employees' experiences with the implemented measures and the results of these - that is, how the implementation of the measures in the agencies has contributed to change. The results from the evaluation will contribute to the agencies' continued efforts in meeting children.

Torturesurvivors in asylum

The projects main objective is to study UDI's obligations and recommended practice towards tortursurvivors during the asylum prosedure

Competence mapping and career guidance

The project examines how early competence mapping and career guidance, two recently introduced measures, can help recently settled refugees make more targeted qualification and career choices, and help municipalities to better adapt their services to refugees.

Slippery Suffering? A comparative ethnography of the encounter between survivors of war and the Scandinavian welfare states

The primary objective is a comparative anthropological study of the encounter between

Middle Eastern survivors of violence and the Scandinavian welfare states.

Searching the unknown

This project focuses on the Scandinavian countries' effort against radicalization and violent extremism. Taking the three national action plans against radicalization as point of departure, we ask what discourses on what levels inform preventive actions and how they impact 'suspect communities' and society at large.