The project deepened the Nordic cooperation within methods, material development and networking within gender equality work with a focus on masculinity.

Through a two-day inter-Nordic meeting on arranged by Ekvalita and DareGender worked on method and material development to support work within the Nordic nations on a broad front.

20 representatives from various organisations that already carry out important work relating to masculinity around the Nordic region were invited. The project carryined out concrete and dynamic work in connection with issues such as violence, models for bringing up young people, sex education and discussions on pornography and masculinity.

Extremely valuable work is already being carried out in the Nordic region to create a more empathic, responsible and mature model for manliness, and the project brought this work to new levels within the Nordic nations.

More information is available in the Material and Methodology Bank

To mark the 15th anniversary of the journal Fett, the project aimed to arrange a panel discussion during 2019 between the editors of sister journals in the various Nordic nations about the situation of Nordic feminism. The project highlighted how Nordic feminists can influence the political agenda through feminist critique, investigate the causes behind the emergence of far-right attitudes that are hostile towards women, and discuss how Nordic feminists can work together to combat these attitudes. The idea was that the panel discussion should put these themes on the agenda in a Nordic context, and should contribute towards sharing experiences, building networks, securing commitment and increasing knowledge across national borders.

The project aimed at promoting new knowledge that contribute to the enhancement of gender equality among caregivers in the aging sector. The project has developed a broader network through two workshops, and conducted a small-scale study. The participants has contributed to the gathering of existing knowledge on women as caregivers in elderly service sector suffering from inequality and social injustices from diverse perspectives;

•  how women’s career path as care service providers and the value of the job are apparently inconsistent;
• how low salary and early retirement  interact with each other, and provide an unequal situation for women caregivers at the end of their career, which apparently affect their socio-economic status;
• how policies prevailed in labor market interplay in Nordic welfare model when other job sectors are compared?

The project has developed a common understanding, and a methodology to address the issues presented above, identify concrete gaps, and specific socio-cultural challenges in given contexts. The results of the workshops has been used to produce a short report.

People who flee persecution because of their sexual orientation or gender identity and expression (SOGIE) constitute a particularly vulnerable group of migrants in both asylum and integration processes.

During a two-day workshop at the Nordic House in Reykjavik, experts from all of the Scandinavian countries came together to discuss the prospects of researching SOGIE asylum and integration processes, including the mapping of existing data, analyzing relevant policies, examining the role of digital media, and carrying out in-depth interviews with four different stakeholder groups: SOGIE refugees, gatekeepers, advocacy groups, and service providers.

The goal of the workshop was to strengthen our scholarly communities in a way that address challenges of SOGIE asylum and integration at an intra-Nordic level. This was the first time researchers from all the Nordic countries came together to organize qualitative cross-national knowledge about SOGIE refugees in the Nordic region.

The workshop concluded with the formation of QUEE-N (QUEEr refugee research Network), the purpose of which is to sustain Nordic research collaboration on SOGIE refugees. For more information on the network, feel free to contact Thomas Brorsen Smidt.

This project established a cross-national network to develop analytic and strategical tools to combat inequalities on the rise in the Nordic region, Russia and Turkey.

The project had two goals:

1) to establish a cross-national and cross-professional network of academics and activists who work on women’s and LGBT-rights in three geographical contexts: the Nordic countries, Russia and Turkey;

2) to develop novel analytic and strategic tools to use in the struggle against gendered, sexualized, ethnicized and racialized inequalities that currently are on the rise in the Nordic region and beyond.

The project deepened and nuanced our understandings of the particularities that characterize the struggles for gender equality in various contexts. It gathered crucial insights into how activists and researchers in these varied locations challenge anti-gender and homophobic policies in times of political backlash against democracy and the rise of the far-right. The project resulted in novel tools that are urgently needed in contemporary struggles against expressions of violence, hatred and inequalities in an increasingly transnational world.

The main purpose of the Nordic-Baltic Network of Policewomen (NBNP) was to focus on why unaccompanied girls and boys, young women and men arriving to the Nordic and Baltic countries become victims of human trafficking. 

The aim was to share knowledge, experiences and raise awareness of Nordic and Baltic police, prosecutors, social and health workers, immigrant authorities, politicians, researchers and NGOs on identifying unaccompanied children and young people as victims of human trafficking, and discuss how to combat human trafficking of girls and boys and young women and men in the Nordic and Baltic countries. The project included a police and a gender perspective in the activities.

NBNP arranged two activities on human trafficking:

• An expert seminar for police and border guards in Malmö. Authorities and organisations working daily with unaccompanied girls and boys arriving in Sweden presented challenges of identifying child victims of human trafficking and tools developed to combat human of children and young people. The experts also visited organisations working with victims of human trafficking.
• A two-day seminar was arranged in Vilnius, Lithuania for Nordic and Baltic experts working daily with human trafficking. At the seminar the experts shared knowledge and experience on girls and boys as victims human trafficking, and discussed problems unaccompanied children and young people meet, when they arrive to the Nordic and Baltic countries. Questions as: Why do they disappear, live in the streets and are in the risk of becoming victims of human trafficking, was discussed. The seminar was arranged in cooperation with the Lithuanian Police and Nordic Council of Ministers Office in Lithuania.

Transforming Identities brought together scholars, activists, artists and authors to discuss current challenges to democratic participation and shifting understandings of diversity, minorities, and solidarity. At a time when minorities, broadly defined, are increasingly positioned as threats to majority rights and democratic values, the project explore how and to what ends minority mobilization challenges Nordic social and political landscapes – what’s at stake, why, and for whom?

In three workshops (in Stavanger, Gothenburg and Helsinki) the project explored the impulses for new understandings of equality and rights, solidarity, marginalization and democracy, in the context of the rise of rightwing activism, growing nationalism, local and global insecurities. The project aimed to facilitate collaborations and thinking across disciplines and platforms, expand understandings of how democratic participation transforms the social and the political, and to establish lasting avenues for debate, insights, and new research.

The health sector has a high share of part-time and temporary employments, as well as high rates of sick leave. As such, it is particularly vulnerable to different forms of power abuse.

This project developed a Nordic network that mapped how Nordic municipalities counteract sexual harassment in the health sector. The comparative work resulted in a booklet on how to work pro-active to counteract sexual harassments.

The results were presented in conjunction with a Nordic digital conference, and were also made available in the different municipalities.

For more information, please see the final report.

More and more fire and rescue services within the Nordic countries need to recruit part time and volunteer firefighters and respond to an increasing diverse population. However, the fire and rescue service is still a primarily male dominated place of work, with very few women or ethnic minorities represented.

To respond to the above-mentioned challenges, we wanted to offer the first Nordic conference on how to promote gender equality, diversity and social inclusion within the fire and rescue service to create a sustainable recruitment base and diverse workforce, which corresponds to, and reflects, the local community demands.

The conference took place in Malmö, Sweden, in November 2018.