Kirsti Stuvøy

Kirsti Stuvøy is a professor in international relations and her research focuses on three main themes: security, war, and violence; state-civil society relations in post-socialist Russia, and cities in International Relations. Across these themes, Stuvøy demonstrates the significance of qualitative results from field research. Her regional expertise on Russia stems from extensive field research experience in the period from 2004 to 2022, working with civil society actors, workers, industry representatives, civil servants, etc. The use of a grounded, empirical approach is characterising her research also in other contexts, including Somalia and Norway. Stuvøy connects context specific social, economic, and political developments to global challenges in security, violence, inequality, marginality, etc. Her approach to international relations draws on sociological, feminist, and political economy-perspectives.

Kirsti Stuvøy’s research is published in journals such as Security Dialogue, International Political Sociology, Political Geography, Eurasian Geography and Economics, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, Europe-Asia Studies, Journal of etc. A list of her publication can be found in Cristin or via her Google Scholar profile. Her expertise in qualitative methodology was for example important in research on urbanisation and migration in Somalia, which is featured on the website securityonthemove.co.uk. In this research, collaboration with the UN Habitat and local stakeholders in bringing research results back to the community was important. The research led to several articles on displacement in Somalia (Stuvøy, Bakonyi, and Chonka 2021; Bakonyi, Chonka, and Stuvøy 2019) and on security research methodologies (Chonka, Edle, and Stuvøy 2022). Stuvøy’s Russia-expertise and methodological rigour was key to the design of the comparative research in the project “Urban margins, global transitions: Everyday security and mobility in four Russian cities” (funded by the Norwegian Research Council, 2019-2023). This type of research is more difficult following Russia’s full-scale military invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Stuvøy continues to explore approaches to understanding everyday experiences of war in Russia.

Kirsti Stuvøy enjoyes teaching and is actively engaged in study program development as co-chair of the Master’s in International Relations at NMBU. She has course responsibility for the courses “Introduction to International Relations” (EDS203), “Feminist and Critical International Relations Theory” (EDS381) and “Global Transitions and the City” (EDS383). She has taught courses in international relations and development studies at NMBU and other universities in Norway and abroad (UK, Russia), and has extensive teaching experiences in courses such as International Relations Theories, Global Political Economy, Model UN, Security, War and Violent Conflict, Activism and Governance, and Foreign Policy. She has supervised more than 50 master students to completion of their theses and two PhD students. Kirsti Stuvøy’s aims to inspire students through mentorship, fostering curosity and dedication within the academic community. 

Kirsti Stuvøy joined NMBU in 2014 and has served as Head of Education at the Department of international environment and development (NORAGRIC) (2014-2016) and the Faculty of Landscape and Society, and served in several other duties in her academic community. She completed her doctoral degree in 2009 at the University of Tromsø, where she started in 2004 after completion of Magister-studies in political science, Eastern European Studies, and Economics at the University of Hamburg in Germany. Stuvøy speaks English, German and Russian, with Norwegian as her mother tongue.

Since 2023, Stuvøy is together with Professor Stig Jarle Hansen co-leading the research project “EXIT and effective reintegration of violent extremist in Scandinavia (funded by the Norwegian Research Council, 2023-2027).