Academic and professional background

My research-fields are within archaeology, heritage studies, curatorship, gender theory and the environmental humanities. In archaeology I have mainly been concerned with exploring relations with waters and wetland. Currently the work deals with deposition of human- and animal remains in wet-contexts in Sweden in the project Tidens Vatten, particularly focusing on the LBA/EIA, discussing sacrifice and the inhumane (cf. Fredengren 2013, 2015, 2017, 2018). Depositions in water of artefacts and bodily remains, as well as the building of crannogs – man made islands or platforms were topics researched during my time as Director of Irelands research institute in Archaeology – that followed on from the fieldwork in the Crannog Research Programme for my PhD thesis on crannog landscapes at Lough Gara, Co. Sligo, Ireland. In heritage studies my research troubles how heritage is valued in the present, and problematize the link to sustainable development (Fredengren 2012, 2015). This strand of research has been furthered in the meeting point between critical heritage studies and posthumanist feminism that blur the boundaries between nature/culture, material/immaterial and challenge the anthropocentric focus in heritage policy (Fredengren 2015). My research continues in the interface between heritage studies and the emerging field of the Environmental Humanities and curatorship (Fredengren 2016). Of particular interest are questions about Deep Time, materiality, ethics, intragenerational justice and care.