Karen has also published under the surname Lykke Syse.
Academic Interests
- Food and Sustainability
- Regenerative Agriculture
- Cultural and historical dimensions of food
- Meat consumption in an historical perspective
- Landscape studies
- Environmental history, philosophy and policy
- Sustainability and Good life
- Environmental discourse and practice, especially with regard to the use and abuse of natural resources
- Social and cultural aspects of hunting and angling
Courses taught
Academic Background
- 2009 PhD Cultural History, University of Oslo
- 2001 - 2002 Norwegian Chevening scholar at the University of St. Andrews. Postgraduate studies in Environmental history under Professor T.C. Smout’s institute of Environmental History and Policy.
- 2000 M.Phil. Ethnology, University of Oslo
- 1992 Agronomist Oslo Agricultural Academy
Positions held
- Director of the Arne Næss Programme at GLOBE, University of Oslo 2025-
- Board member the Norwegian Trekking Association (DNT-Oslo) 2010/2013 and 2013/2016
- Board member for the academically employed at Centre for Development and the Environment 2009/2013.
- Research Fellow at the Centre for Advances Studies at The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters in 2008/2009.
- Board member for the academically employed at Centre for Development and the Environment 2005/2006.
- Representative for the doctoral students at the Faculty of the Humanities Cultural Programme 2003/2004.
Partners
Ongoing projects
- RegenRegion is an interdisciplinary network of farmers, consultants, agricultural teachers, academics and local government. Together we co-create research on soil health and regenerative agriculture.
- Making Meat a Mystery: Industrial meat production has pivoted, and at the same time our modern relationship with livestock is questionable from a sustainable point of view. This project seeks to understand the historical and ideological changes in our relation with the animals we use for food in contemporary society.
- Sustainability and The Good Life: The notion that the good life is lived in proximity to nature has waxed and waned, and the idea is presently being resurrected in diverse locations throughout Western society. What is the cultural and historical anchorage of ideas about The Goodlife, and what are the ethical and environmental issues at stake in modern society?
Tags:
Nature and Culture,
Food,
Landscape
Publications
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Engkvist, Elin Helena Wyller & Lykke, Karen Victoria
(2026).
Curiosity and controversy: The emerging field of regenerative agriculture in Norway.
Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space.
ISSN 2514-8486.
doi:
10.1177/25148486261478093.
Full text in Research Archive
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This article explores the knowledge controversies within regenerative agriculture in Norway, and how farmers navigate this emerging field based on interviews and participant observations throughout four growing seasons. We employ Thomas Kuhn's classic concept of paradigm shifts and Thomas Gieryn's cultural boundaries of science to analyse the agronomic foundations farmers challenge, the scientific fields they combine, and the social barriers they bridge. Regenerative farmers encountered what we coin the microbial anomaly: knowledge about microbes and natural processes that do not fit within the current agronomic paradigm. It triggered a search for knowledge beyond what is usually included in agricultural science and led farmers to apply knowledge that is accepted within the scientific community but has failed to reach them, and to adopt practices that traditional experts deem unscientific but that experience shows can be useful. Farmers called for interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research that goes beyond the established cultural boundaries of contemporary agronomy, which has shown to limit both knowledge and future imaginaries that are fundamental to agricultural transformation. The emerging paradigm shift provides novel opportunities for farmer-led research that combines science with local knowledge, and can have significant scientific, political and societal implications. However, the structural support for an agronomy that foregrounds microbially mediated plant nutrition and health, and the potential futures it enables, remains marginal. Whether a large-scale agronomic paradigm shift is underway, or whether the microbial anomaly is successfully assimilated into the status quo depends not only on scientific and agronomic credibility contests. They depend on which, and whose, visions of the future are invested in. At stake are farmer livelihoods and autonomy over how to grow food, and whether agriculture shifts from driving environmental degeneration to its regeneration.
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Lykke, Karen Victoria & Bjørkdahl, Kristian
(2024).
Pernicious propaganda: The Norwegian Meat Information Office and its "politics of meat promotion".
In Syrjämaa, Taina (Eds.),
Animal Industries
Nordic Perspectives on the Exploitation of Animals since 1860.
De Gruyter Brill.
ISSN 9783110787337.
doi:
10.1515/9783110787337-013.
Full text in Research Archive
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Bonvik-Stone, Dickon & Lykke, Karen Victoria
(2024).
Whose Expertise and Whose Knowledge Matter? Influencing Wind Power Decisions in Norway.
Environmental Communication.
ISSN 1752-4032.
p. 1–16.
doi:
10.1080/17524032.2024.2341931.
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Norway is committed to promoting energy from renewable sources, but wind power installations are often sited in areas where the environment remains relatively untouched. This has generated a debate about the acceptability of such installations in the country. Host municipalities in Norway hold an unofficial veto power over the outcomes of proposals for wind power developments, so the ways that local attitudes and beliefs are influenced could be crucial to the outcome of licensing decisions. This research explores how elected officials come to hear about proposed wind farm developments, whose knowledge and expertise they trust on the issue – as well as whose is discounted – and how this impacts the eventual perceptions that they adopt. We investigate the persuasive influence of narrative messaging on both supportive and oppositional stakeholders in a land-based wind power licensing process in Norway.
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Lykke, Karen Victoria & Taylor, Bron
(2023).
Searching for the Green Man Special Issue Editors' Introduction.
Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture (JSRNC).
ISSN 1749-4907.
17(2),
p. 157–167.
doi:
10.1558/jsrnc.25977.
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Lykke, Karen Victoria & Ohrvik, Ane
(2023).
The Foliate Mask in Vernacular Material Culture from Medieval to Modern Norway.
Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture (JSRNC).
ISSN 1749-4907.
17(2),
p. 297–316.
doi:
10.1558/jsrnc.24300.
Full text in Research Archive
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In this article, we explore the contexts and appearances of what we argue is a Norwegian version of the Green Man – the Glibb – in vernacular settings. We also discuss the figure’s possible meanings in Norwegian secular culture. Most of the objects are part of the digital artifact collection called Digitalt Museum (Digital Museum), which is a common database for Norwegian and Swedish museums and collections. Our collection and analysis of this material provides an initial step toward documenting the figure’s appearances and uses beyond the ecclesial material culture; however, it does not represent an exhaustive list of sources. We investigate the appearance of this particular ‘Green Man’ figure, discussing its material form and iconographical features and analysing its placement and occurrence. We argue that the Glibb’s ambiguous and flexible imagery is also a flexible symbol. Over the centuries, such symbols can enter into new constellations and interpretations of meaning with is new generation that continues to use their material forms.
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Syse, Karen Lykke
(2022).
Hefting the Land: A Locative Heritage of Hooves and Feet.
In Svensson, Daniel; Saltzman, Katarina & Sörlin, Sverker (Ed.),
Pathways : Exploring the routes of a movement heritage.
White Horse Press.
ISSN 9781912186600.
p. 97–113.
Full text in Research Archive
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Syse, Karen Lykke
(2022).
Tools to Kill and Slaughter.
In Ween, Gro Birgit & Lundblad, Michael (Ed.),
Control: Attempting to Tame the World.
Pax Forlag.
ISSN 9788253043609.
p. 79–86.
Full text in Research Archive
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Ramon, Guillem Rubio & Syse, Karen Lykke
(2022).
Establishing nationhood through heritage landscapes: Bear biopolitics in the Catalan Pyrenees.
In Pettenati, Giacomo (Eds.),
Landscape as Heritage: International Critical Perspectives.
Routledge.
ISSN 9781032046235.
p. 102–113.
Full text in Research Archive
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Bjørkdahl, Kristian & Syse, Karen Lykke
(2022).
From ritual loss of life to loss of living rituals: on judicialization of slaughter and denial of animal death.
Food, Culture, and Society: An International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research.
ISSN 1552-8014.
doi:
10.1080/15528014.2022.2083883.
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The increasingly industrial character of meat production has entailed significant changes to the relations we have to the animals we eat. In this article we first describe some of the practices and rituals that characterized slaughter in Norway up to the first decades of the 20th century. In this period, Norwegians drew on rituals to make the killing of an animal meaningful and acceptable. Then, by exploring the original impetus toward “humane slaughter” in the early to mid-20th century, we show how ritual transformations of animals into meat gave way to laws and regulations to justify animal killing. Finally, we provide a contemporary example of how far this “judicialization” of animal killing has come, and argue that this process has enabled the widespread denial of the animal origin of meat.
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Syse, Karen Lykke
(2022).
Kulturarv i lendet: Beitedyras hug, dug og hevd.
Tidsskrift for kulturforskning.
ISSN 1502-7473.
2,
p. 13–31.
Full text in Research Archive
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The first tourists, trekkers and ramblers in Norway found their way and navigated the paths that ran through pastures, forests and mountains. The paths these first visitors walked on, and indeed the paths we still use walking and trekking today, were created by grazing animals and the people who tended to them, walking habitually rather than occasionally. The everyday and seasonal grazing, labour, and transport associated with transhumance created a heritage in its own right, a movement heritage. Arguably, grazing animals were mediators of the land and movement within the land; by following their paths and their sense of place, trekkers could stay safe. Today the situation has changed, trekking rather than transhumance is the prevalent form of movement heritage. By exploring foreign visitor’s topographical accounts, travel literature and yearbooks from the Norwegian Trekking Association (DNT) from 1820–1960, this article sheds light on the transition of this movement heritage and asks, who led the way in the past, who leads the way in the present, and is there still room for the embodied memory of animals, and their heft in the future?
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Sara, Ravdna Biret Marja Eira; Syse, Karen Lykke & Mathiesen, Svein Disch
(2022).
Precious blood and nourishing offal: past and present slaughtering perspectives in Sámi reindeer pastoralism.
Pastoralism.
12(1),
p. 1–16.
doi:
10.1186/s13570-021-00224-2.
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In the Arctic, indigenous reindeer herding peoples rely on a pastoralist food and knowledge system that supplies them with protein, vitamins, and minerals. Reindeer pastoralism is a product of the interaction between animals’ physical needs, their behaviour, and the skills of the herders. The food systems of Sámi reindeer pastoralists depend on indigenous knowledge about mountain slaughtering. When the first stationary reindeer slaughterhouse opened in Guovdageaidnu (Northern Norway) in 1957, rationalisation of reindeer husbandry and methods of reindeer slaughter took place. Animal welfare and reindeer slaughter within slaughterhouses are well-documented in Norway; the historical knowledge about slaughtering reindeer in the mountains, however, is barely documented and is in danger of being lost. A qualitative study entailing interviews with five Sámi reindeer herders (50–80 years old) from Guovdageaidnu and Varanger explains indigenous, nomadic methods of killing and slaughtering reindeer. The traditional Sámi way of killing reindeer (Sámi: giehtadit) was to pierce the heart with a large knife through the chest (Sámi: mielga), particularly in the pastures close to where the herd grazed to avoid distressing the reindeer before taking their lives. This allowed reindeer herders to use the whole reindeer for food, unlike the practice in stationary slaughterhouses, which merely utilises select muscles for human consumption. Although the Supreme Court of Norway in 2008 ruled that traditional slaughter practice without stunning was illegal, this historical account provides evidence that the giehtadit method was a rational way to kill a reindeer, as bleeding (haemorrhage) in the thorax offers both high-quality blood, offal, and meat for human consumption. We conclude that the traditional Sámi method is based on systematic, complex, and holistic indigenous knowledge and determines the foods reindeer herders eat.
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Syse, Karen Lykke & Bjørkdahl, Kristian
(2021).
The Animal That Therefore Was Removed from View: The Presentation of Meat in Norway, 1950-2020.
In Grusovnik, Tomaz; Spannring, Reingard & Syse, Karen Lykke (Ed.),
Environmental and Animal Abuse Denial: Averting Our Gaze.
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
ISSN 9781793610461.
p. 127–144.
Full text in Research Archive
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Grusovnik, Tomaz; Spannring, Reingard & Syse, Karen Lykke
(2021).
Introduction: Introducing Denialism in Environmental and Animal Abuse.
In Grusovnik, Tomaz; Spannring, Reingard & Syse, Karen Lykke (Ed.),
Environmental and Animal Abuse Denial: Averting Our Gaze.
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
ISSN 9781793610461.
p. 1–15.
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.
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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
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Lykke, Karen Victoria
(2025).
From precious flesh to feed efficient genetic production: the journey of Norwegian pigs 1900-2020.
doi:
https:/nhm2025.is/.
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In the early 1900s, Norwegian pigs were farm renovators, upscaling and recycling weeds, roots and domestic waste through their bodies. Farmers and slaughterers would through formal and informal rituals turn the pig into valuable animal flesh, changing its status from family member to edible flesh. In the post war years, the pig became a tool to keep smallholders on the land, thus playing an important role in district politics. At the turn of the 21st century, the pig's role was firmly established as the symbol of bio-industrial engineering. At present, every 5th pig that is slaughtered in the world has its origin in sperm from the Norwegian-Dutch farmer-owned business Topigs Norsvin. The Norwegian pig's journey and the trajectory of its shape-shifting from family member to genetic matter from can be explored through close reading curricular texts and other pedagogical publications from agricultural schools and colleges.
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Lykke, Karen Victoria
(2025).
The changing role of animals and meat in the Norwegian food system from 1870 to 2025.
doi:
https:/ceh.au.dk/news-and-events/events/show/artikel/ceh-talk-with-karen-lykke-the-changing-role-of-animals-and-meat-in-the-norwegian-food-system-from-1870-to-2025.
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Within the last 150 years, animal husbandry and meat consumption has both changed and also increased dramatically in Norway, as it has in the world at large. Using Norway as a case, Karen explores how the industrialisation of meat production has led to an alienation which unfolds along three interconnected dimensions: the spatial, social, and cultural. Across various stages – from farming to dining – the link between living creatures and the meat on our plates has been severed, and this disconnect has also accelerated a series of changes within the agricultural sector and food system. Karen’s method involves a mosaic of detailed observations across different contexts, which she refers to as “agri-cultural studies”, and she will explain both this approach, the archival work ethnography and oral history that has fed into the process.
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Lykke, Karen Victoria
(2025).
Mat fra fjord og jord: Revitalisering av en sirkulær tankegang.
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Presenter and member of the programme committee: Matsymposium 2025. National Museum of Norway
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Lykke, Karen Victoria
(2024).
Regenerating soils and societies – an interdisciplinary endeavour.
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Ph.D. course organised by the Centre for Development and Environment (SUM) (3/10ECT)
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Lykke, Karen Victoria & Engkvist, Elin Helena Wyller
(2024).
Kan regenerativt landbruk redde Oslofjorden?
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Presentation for Faglag for regenerativt landbruk Trøndelag & Grønt kompetansesenter
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Lykke, Karen Victoria
(2024).
På jakt efter djur och naturupplevelser i Norge 1800-2000: Foredrag på Nordiska Museet.
Full text in Research Archive
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Lykke, Karen Victoria
(2024).
Expert panel member for Impact Lab 2.0: Sustainability and democracy lab by Queen Mary's Centre at the University of Copenhagen and The Velux Foundation.
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Lykke, Karen Victoria
(2023).
Kan bærekraftig mat forankres i fortidens landbrukspraksis og matkultur? Foredragsholder og paneldeltaker ved Forskningsdagene.
Full text in Research Archive
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Lykke, Karen Victoria
(2023).
Foredrag og boksamtale på Bjørnsonfestivalen 2023: Hva vi spiser når vi spiser kjøtt.
Full text in Research Archive
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Lykke, Karen Victoria
(2023).
Transforming animal husbandry: Sustainability and the consequences of modern meat production in Norway. Keynote address for public event in Heidelberg: Sustainability, Transitions and Discourse.
Full text in Research Archive
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Lykke, Karen Victoria
(2023).
Spise kjøtt eller spise dyr – er det noen forskjell? Samtaledeltaker ved Matsymposium 2023.
Full text in Research Archive
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Lykke, Karen Victoria
(2023).
Førsteopponent for PhD i Sosiologi Josefin Velander: Hur blir djur mat? En kritisk studie av den etiska djurproduktionen i svenska ekologiska organisationer. Karlstad University, 2023.
Full text in Research Archive
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Lykke, Karen Victoria
(2023).
Kjøttets kulturhistorie: "Hva vi spiser når vi spiser kjøtt" anmeldt i Klassekampen av Gisle Selnes.
Klassekampen.
ISSN 0805-3839.
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Lykke, Karen Victoria
(2023).
Det du ikke vet, har dyrene vondt av: "Hva vi spiser når vi spiser kjøtt" anmeldt i Bergens Tidende av Tone Wang Andersen..
Bergens Tidende.
ISSN 0804-8983.
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Lykke, Karen Victoria & Bjørkdahl, Kristian
(2023).
Intervju til Sunnhetsbladet: Hva vi spiser når vi spiser kjøtt.
[Journal].
Sunnhetsbladet.
Full text in Research Archive
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Lykke, Karen Victoria
(2023).
Agripolicy and power structures in Norwegian food systems: Guest lecturer at University of New England.
Full text in Research Archive
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Lykke, Karen Victoria
(2023).
A New Soil Deal for Europe (2023-2030): Presentation at professional seminar on soil health for teachers of landmanagement.
Full text in Research Archive
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Lykke, Karen Victoria
(2023).
Jordbruk ved Oslofjorden – Vil stoppe fjord-døden: Intervju i Dagbladet.
[Journal].
Dagbladet.
Full text in Research Archive
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Lykke, Karen Victoria
(2023).
Josefin Velander. Hur blir djur mat? En kritisk studie av den etiska djurproduktionen i svenska ekologiska organisationer. Karlstad University, 2023. Doktorsavhandling.
Sociologisk forskning.
ISSN 0038-0342.
60(3-4),
p. 357–361.
doi:
10.37062/sf.60.25969.
Full text in Research Archive
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Lykke, Karen Victoria
(2023).
Intervju til forskning.no: Hva vi spiser når vi spiser kjøtt.
[Journal].
Forskning.no.
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Lykke, Karen Victoria
(2023).
Visjon for norsk matproduksjon i 2030: Deltaker i Landbruks- og matdepartementets "Nasjonal dialog om bærekraft i det norske matsystemet", gruppe 1.
Full text in Research Archive
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Lykke, Karen Victoria
(2023).
Erfaringer fra samarbeid med brukerpartnere i forskningen samt fra samarbeid på tvers av faglige og sektorale grenser: Presentasjon til workshop ved Norges forskningsråd.
Full text in Research Archive
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Lykke, Karen Victoria
(2023).
Hvem skal bestemme hva vi spiser? Paneldeltaker i "Ubehagelige samtaler" på Arendalsuka.
Full text in Research Archive
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Jørgensen, Finn Arne; Fojuth, Marie-Theres & Syse, Karen Lykke
(2023).
Innledning: Å finne veien – stedsansen som kulturell praksis.
Tidsskrift for kulturforskning.
ISSN 1502-7473.
21(2),
p. 3–11.
Full text in Research Archive
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Lykke, Karen Victoria & Engkvist, Elin Helena Wyller
(2023).
Oppskalering av regenerativ dyrkingspraksis i Viken: Foredrag for Jordløftets Avslutningskonferanse.
Full text in Research Archive
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Lykke, Karen Victoria
(2023).
Møte- og panelleder på sluttseminaret til Referansegårdsprosjektet – veien mot en levende matjord.
Full text in Research Archive
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Lykke, Karen Victoria
(2023).
Motivasjoner, barrierer og behov for oppskalering av regenerativt landbruk: Workshop 1, Regenerativ Region.
Full text in Research Archive
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Syse, Karen Lykke
(2022).
Kan Norge bli selvforsynt? God morgen Norge.
[TV].
TV2.
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Krigen i Ukraina har ført til hvetemangel og økte matvarepriser i Europa og Norge - hva betyr dette for norske matvaner?
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Syse, Karen Lykke
(2022).
Why we walk were we walk: Exploring the particularities of everyday movement.
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Mobile good life: healthy natures
Baroniet, Rosendal Norway 2-4 May 2022
A walking workshop arranged by The University of Oslo and Gothenburg University
sponsored by NordForsk (NOS-HS
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Syse, Karen Lykke
(2022).
Direktesending TV2 fra Grøset seter med God Morgen Norge, samtaler om seterdrift og grasbasert kjøtt og melkeproduksjon.
[TV].
TV2 God Morgen Norge.
Full text in Research Archive
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Syse, Karen Lykke
(2022).
«At norsk gjæstfrihed er ikke nogen handelsvare» Om uanmeldte og ubudne gjester i fjell og dal - kulturell motstand 1830-1900.
Full text in Research Archive
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Syse, Karen Lykke
(2022).
Med huggorm i bøsseløpet og reinsdyrblod i skjegget: kulturhistorisk forskning på jakt i Norge fra 1865 – 1965.
Full text in Research Archive
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Syse, Karen Lykke
(2021).
Kampen om nærskogenene
Hvorfor vekker nærskogen så sterke følelser i oss, det er jo nok av skog i dette landet?
[Radio].
NRK P2.
Full text in Research Archive
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Syse, Karen Lykke
(2021).
Direktesending fra Hovelsrud gård. Hvordan forstå forskjellen på offisielle matmerker som Debio eller Dyrevelferdsmerket og uoffisielle utsagn/reklame.
[TV].
TV2 God Morgen Norge.
Full text in Research Archive
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Syse, Karen Lykke
(2021).
Hooves and feet, places and paths: Consensuality in Past and Present Norwegian Landscapes.
Full text in Research Archive
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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.
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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.
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Published
Aug. 15, 2011 2:53 PM
- Last modified
Oct. 8, 2026 3:23 PM
