I am a Human Ecologist and Geographer currently committed to writing-up my PhD dissertation at Lancaster Environment Centre at Lancaster University (UK). During my writing-up stage I am a visiting researcher at the Faculty of History and Social Sciences at the University of the Faroe Islands where one of my supervisors is employed. 

The title of my PhD project is “Forking paths? Engaged research on food-political visions and changes in the Faroe Islands and in São Tomé and Príncipe”. The aim of the project is to support local food-political visions and initiatives in two small island countries (respectively São Tomé e Princípe and Faroe Islands) by engaging practically with small-scale food producers and food activists, while theoretically exploring connections between these very unique island societies and contextualising them in relation to global environmental challenges, political-economic dynamics, historical colonialism and contemporary food political discourses/agendas on food security and food sovereignty.

My PhD supervisors are Dr. Giovanni Bettini and Dr. Rebecca Whittle, both from Lancaster University, and Dr. Ragnheiður Bogadóttir from the University of the Faroe Islands.

Olsen ES and Whittle, R. (2019). Transcending binaries: a participatory political ecology of the Faroese foodscape. Nordia Geographical Publications 47(5), 55-73.

Olsen, ES, Orefice, M and Pietrangeli, G. (2018). “From the ‘Right to the City’ to the ‘Right to Metabolism’” in Nelson, A & Schneider, F. Housing for Degrowth: Principles, Models, Challenges and Opportunities, Routledge (Environmental Humanities series).

Bogadóttir, R and Olsen, ES. (2017). Making degrowth locally meaningful: The case of the Faroese grindadráp, Journal of Political Ecology 24, 504-518.

Themes: Food & Agricultural Policy | The Political Ecology of Food | Environmental Conflicts | Access & Control of Natural Resources | Sustainability Discourses | Environmentalism(s) | Housing & Livelihoods | Systems of Discrimination, Marginalisation & Privilege | Racism & Whiteness | Socio-ecological Inequality | Alternative & Informal Economies | Research for Degrowth/Postgrowth | Climate Justice | Social Movements | Gender & the Environment | Science, Knowledge & Power | Decolonisation & Postcolonial/Decolonial Research.

Geographic focus: Faroe Islands | São Tomé and Príncipe | Ghana | Italy | The Arctic | West Africa | Small Islands | International/Transnational Civil Society | 

Political Ecology | Global Inequality | Food Geography | Society & the Environment | Sustainability & Sustainable Development | Degrowth/Postgrowth | Critical Development Studies | Intersectionality | Feminist Economics | Participatory Methodologies | Critical Theory | Feminist Methodologies | Researcher Reflexivity | Decolonisation & Postcolonial Theory.