Erica Colman-Denstad

• Colman-Denstad, Erica (2022). Forestillinger om villhet og kontroll: Produksjonslandskap og rekreasjonslandskap i Asbjørnsens folkesagn. Tidsskrift for kulturforskning. ISSN 1502-7473. p. 33–51. Full text in Research Archive

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• Lykke, Karen Victoria; Engkvist, Elin Helena Wyller; Colman-Denstad, Erica & Mortensen, Søren Nørrekær (2026). RIPARAGRO presentation. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Presentation of project aim, methods and themes to discuss across projects at the workshop Inoculating Knowledges: Exchanging Methods and Findings across research projects on regenerative farming in Denmark and Norway

• Engkvist, Elin Helena Wyller; Lykke, Karen Victoria & Colman-Denstad, Erica (2026). RIPARAGRO, BONDEN OG ELVA. Full text in Research Archive
• Colman-Denstad, Erica (2026). Governance challenges in riparian restoration on agricultural land: How conceptions and valuations shape the potential for riparian zone restoration on agricultural land in Norway. doi: https:/sere2026.sciencesconf.org/725332/document. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Riparian zones on agricultural land represent narrow but important corridors for biodiversity and connectivity and contribute to a range of ecosystem services. They are also multifunctional socio‑ecological spaces that are interpreted and valued differently across stakeholders. Drawing on workshop dialogues and documents from a collaborative research project in Norway, this paper examines how the potential for restoration of watercourses and riparian zones on agricultural land becomes entangled with, and weighted against, broader debates about the responsibility of farmers, food security, climate resilience and biodiversity loss. Because legal frameworks provide flexible yet ambiguous definitions of these areas, actors draw on different assumptions about what defines a riparian zone, what constitutes ecological function, what outcomes are non‑negotiable, and which roles and functions should guide restoration decisions. As a result, participants operate with divergent value hierarchies that are left implicit and concealed by flexible concepts, balancing considerations such as food security and agricultural considerations, runoff and erosion, flood protection, water quality and biodiversity in fundamentally different ways. These competing interpretations shape governance processes and influence which restoration pathways are considered legitimate or feasible. Taking an interdisciplinary approach informed primarily by cultural history and philosophy, this paper explores these social and cultural barriers for meaningful and feasible riparian zone restoration, by unpacking how ecosystem services interact with stakeholder value hierarchies.

• Colman-Denstad, Erica (2021). Breaking norms of caution: technology and agency in wild places. Full text in Research Archive
• Colman-Denstad, Erica (2021). Hvordan påvirker naturrestaurering forholdet mellom mennesker og natur? Full text in Research Archive
• Mejia, Guisela Carolina Camacho & Colman-Denstad, Erica (2021). What the 19th Century Norwegian porridge feud can teach us about our current food system. SUM-bloggen. Full text in Research Archive
• Colman-Denstad, Erica (2021). Filosofiske perspektiver på "problemvekst" av krypsiv. Full text in Research Archive
• Mejia, Guisela Carolina Camacho; Wrigley, Kylie; Voinov, Cristiana-Anca & Colman-Denstad, Erica (2020). Are social and environmental rights compatible? Young Researchers Debate. Tvergastein. ISSN 1893-5605. Full text in Research Archive
• Wrigley, Kylie; Voinov, Cristiana-Anca; Mejia, Guisela Carolina Camacho & Colman-Denstad, Erica (2019). Are social and environmental rights compatible? Young Researchers Debate. Full text in Research Archive
• Colman-Denstad, Erica; Lykke, Karen Victoria; Prestvik, Anne & Robbie, Jill (2025). Rapport arbeidspakke 1. RIPARAGRO: Restaurering av kantsoner på landbruksarealer. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive
• Lykke, Karen Victoria; Ohrvik, Ane & Colman-Denstad, Erica (2024). Wildness and control: Mediating technology and perceptions of nature in nineteenth century Norway. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This dissertation explores the relationship between technology, use of nature, and perceptions of nature. It has sought to understand how technology has mediated experiences in nature historically, and how these insights can illuminate present-day issues regarding technology and sense of place. Central to this investigation is the role of narratives as technologies, mediating across social, cultural, spatial, and temporal dimensions. The objectives are: First, to explore the relationship between technology, control, and perceived wildness in nature. Second, to examine how technologies influence uses and experiences of nature, and how varied uses lead to divergent perceptions. Third, to show how narratives as technologies mediate experiences of nature, focusing on their capability to reflect and influence attitudes. The empirical basis for this study consists of texts describing Norwegian nature and experiences in it, notably Asbjørnsen’s Huldreeventyr og Folkesagn (1845, 1848) and Slingsby’s Norway: The Northern Playground: Sketches of Climbing and Mountain Exploration in Norway between 1872 and 1903 (1904). The dissertation shows how narratives frame nature in diverse ways, for instance as resource or recreation. Drawing inspiration from Ricœur’s (1984) theory of mimetic narrative, it underscores narratives’ role in preconditioning experiences in nature and in shaping our perceptions and memory of them. The research also investigates the relationship between perceived control and perceived wildness, highlighting the role of control in transforming “wilderness” into “playground”, fostering a “play illusion” (Henberg, 1984), that narratives in turn contribute to. The dissertation shows that narratives are flexible tools that are open to reinterpretation, adapting to the evolving relationship between humans and nature. It concludes that while narratives and the use of them may change across time, their foundational role in mediating human-nature relationships remains.

• Colman-Denstad, Erica & Mancilla, Alejandra (2019). Domination or Reconciliation? An Ethical Assessment of Ecological Restoration. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This thesis theoretically assesses ecological restoration from the point of view of environmental ethics. I explore how ecological restoration might affect the perspectives and assumptions we have about nature that allow or encourage the activities that drive processes of exploitation and degradation of nature. My focus is on how ecological restoration may affect the relationship between humans and nature by raising questions about the place of human agency in nature, and the possibility of an ethical and constructive, rather than destructive, relationship. Does ecological restoration encourage damaging by repairing damage, thus implying a promise that destruction is reversible? Is it a way of quieting our conscience while we continue to consume our environment? Restoration may potentially contribute to the idea that environmental problems can be solved by technological fixes and do not require change in behavior or restrictions on our consumption of nature. However, restoration also encourages active participation in nature and can possibly be a way encouraging closeness to nature on an ethical as well as practical level. The practice of restoration may also imply blame for destruction and ascribe humans the responsibility for anthropogenically degraded ecosystems. It may therefore encourage ethical consideration of nature. My overarching question is whether ecological restoration entrenches the ethical boundaries between humans and nature by enacting our superiority, or loosens them by allowing ethical engagement with nature. Within environmental ethics, ecological restoration has been controversial. Through a critical review of the existing debate, I will address both objections to, and arguments in favor of, ecological restoration, and analyze them to determine the root of this ambivalence. I argue that a shared assumption of many objections to restoration is a metaphysical dualism separating humans from the rest of nature. If this dualism is assumed, the positive value of restoration as more than management of resources is nearly impossible to grasp, because human intervention in nature, even when assisting recovery, is interpreted as unnatural and dominating. At the same time, ecological restoration may be a way of overcoming this dualism’s ethical implications, by encouraging active engagement and normative relationships. Through assessment of arguments for and against restoration, I argue for interpreting ecological restoration as a way of negotiating a mutually beneficial relationship between humans and the rest of nature, and for incorporating insights from ecological restoration into environmental ethics.

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