Maja Viktoria Spigseth Vestad
Background
Vestad is part of LAW22JULY: RIPPLES and has previously been a research assistant at the Department of Criminology and Sociology of Law.
Academic interests
Vestad is interested in how various forms of conflict is understood and expressed, and how participants in conflict experience agency.
Her Master’s thesis The Anatomy of a Conflict: The Cabin Ban from a Perspective of Rural Criminology examined reactions to the national cabin ban of 2020 (an early pandemic control measure) in four Norwegian “cabin municipalities”. A main finding was that latent tensions and historical relative deprivation between cabin owners and local residents allowed for the ban to create a conflict which escalated to varying degrees the four municipalities. The cabin ban created a situation where the power of decision-making and the right to belong became increasingly important in a context of fear of disease and financial loss, which led to suspicion, stalking, violent and non-violent threats, exclusion of cabin owners through road blocks, and the involvement of police and army. By combining criminological, anthropological, sociological and legal perspectives, the thesis also questioned to which extent established social science theory is apt to investigate rural contexts.
Education
2021: MA Criminology, Department of Criminology and Sociology of Law, UiO [Thesis: The Anatomy of a Conflict: The Cabin Ban from a Perspective of Rural Criminology]
2016: ABA Crime, Justice and Legal Studies, La Trobe University
2016: ABA Anthropology, La Trobe University
Teaching
Vestad teaches KRIM1100 and JUS4122.
Publications
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Vestad, Maja Viktoria Spigseth (2021). Mistenksomhetens spiral : Autoktoni og eskalasjonsmomenter i den norske hytteforbudkonflikten. Nordisk Tidsskrift for Kriminalvidenskab. ISSN 0029-1528. 108(3), p. 468–482. Full text in Research Archive
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Vestad, Maja Viktoria Spigseth (2021). The nation as memorial cartography: mapping commemorative sites outside the canon.
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Vestad, Maja Viktoria Spigseth & Sandvik, Kristin Bergtora (2021). Transitional Justice and Contested Memorialization after Terror: The Norwegian 22 July Attacks.
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Vestad, Maja Viktoria Spigseth (2021). Nordiska experterna om svenska skjutningarna: En hotbild. [Newspaper]. Aftonbladet.
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Vestad, Maja Viktoria Spigseth (2021). Overrasket over at ikke flere har saksøkt staten. [Internet]. NRK.