Lynn Akesson

Since January 2018 I am director of the acdemic think tank LU Futura. After being Dean of the Faculties of Humanities and Theology for nine years, it is rewarding to work within the university with this new challenge. With its sights set on the future, LU Futura’s specific role is to use knowledge from all the LU faculties for active engagement in wider society.

My research focuses on waste from a cultural analytical perspective. I want to explore the meaning of refuse, recycling, clean and unclean, both symbolically and in real terms.

Empirically speaking, my research career has been varied to say the least. The common link between all the fields I have studied is an interest in drawing boundaries, exclusion, normality and divergence. It links my thesis on local characters, and my research projects on genetics and genetic engineering, death and burial, and now refuse and waste. In general I am a keen advocate of interdisciplinary cooperation.