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Marit Ruge Bjærke
Photo: Erling Espolin Johnson

Marit Ruge Bjærke

Position

Researcher, Cultural Studies

Affiliation

E-mail
marit.r.bjerke@uib.no
Phone number
+47 55582204
+47 92 80 18 52
Visitor address
Øysteins gate 3
5007 Bergen
Postal address
P.O. Box 7805
NO-5020 Bergen
Norway

Marit Ruge Bjærke

Position

Researcher, Cultural Studies

Affiliation

Research groups

Short info

My research interests lie within the environmental humanities, with three main areas of interest: 1) environmental policy and politics, 2) environmental temporalities, and 3) understandings of nature and biodiversity, with a special focus on underwater nature.
Research

My research interests lie within the environmental humanities, with a focus on biodiversity loss, climate change, temporal understandings, and invasive alien species. I am especially interested in how different environmental problems are understood and presented in political texts, mass media and popular science, and how understandings of different environmental problems intertwine. My background is in marine biology (phd), history of ideas (master), and cultural studies (postdoc).

Presently, I am PI of the project Charting the Seabed Multiple. Knowledge and Values of Norwegian Seabed Areas (INVISEA), which is is funded by the Research Council of Norway. The project runs from 2026 to 2029. INVISEA will examine the knowledge base and values that shape decision-making about Norwegian seabed areas today and develop new critical tools and research interventions that can bring forward a larger plurality of stakeholder knowledges and values in the future.

From 2021 to 2025, I was part of the project Gardening the Globe: Historicizing the Anthropocene through the production of socio-nature in Scandinavia, 1750-2020. Here, I investigated the management of so-called "invasive alien species" and examined how authorities navigate the tension between stopping an ecological threat and developing an economic resource.

From 2017 to 2021, I was part of the project The future is now: Temporality and exemplarity in climate change discourses. Here, I explored how the relationship between climate change and biological diversity is conveyed in mass media and popular science.

Publications
2016
2021
2018
2024
2022
2001
2023
2025
2019
2020
2004
2003
1999

See a complete overview of publications in Cristin.

My most recent books are:

Bjærke, M.R., B. Brenna, A. Ekström & J. Ødemark (eds.) 2025. Cultural History and the Anthropocene: Old Turns, New Encounters. Bloomsbury Publishing. Open Access.

Bjærke, M.R. 2025. Natur på ville veier? Fremmede arter og vi som flytter dem. Oslo: Dreyers Forlag. Excerpt.

For other publications, see the list below

Projects

I am PI of the project Charting the Seabed Multiple. Knowledge and Values of Norwegian Seabed Areas (INVISEA), which is is funded by the Research Council of Norway. The project runs from 2026 to 2029. 

INVISEA examines the knowledge base and values that shape decision-making about Norwegian seabed areas today and will develop new critical tools and research interventions that can bring forward a larger plurality of stakeholder knowledges and values in the future. 

We will do this for two different types of seabed areas that are contested with regard to area use in Norway: kelp forests and areas considered eligible for deep sea mining. Although very different in terms of physical factors and legal status, these are both subject to different sector interests and important in terms of biodiversity and climate mitigation. 

INVISEA asks the following questions: 

  • How do people know kelp forests and deep seabed areas? 
  • Whose claims and voices carry weight in decisions about these areas, and whose are excluded? 
  • What do different stakeholders and stakeholder groups consider valuable about kelp forests and deep seabed areas – and why? 
  • How can we bring forward the plurality of these stakeholder knowledges and values in ways that are just, transparent, sustainable, and democratically inclusive? 

The questions will be explored through an interdisciplinary investigation based in the humanities and social sciences, with three methodological approaches: document ethnography of governance and policy documents, ethnographic research on how different stakeholder groups understand and value seabed areas, and an exploration of experimental tools for displaying a plurality of stakeholder knowledges and values.

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From 2021 to 2025, I was part of the interdisciplinary project "Gardening the Globe: Historicizing the Anthropocene through the production of socio-nature in Scandinavia, 1750-2020”. 

From 2017 to 2021, I was part of the project The future is now: Temporality and exemplarity in climate change discourses.