An ethnographic Study of Climate Scepticism and Gender Performance in Southern Norway

This ethnographic research delves into climate skepticism in Southern Norway and how this can act as an expression of underlying frustrations connected to gender, moral evaluations, and masculinity. This research builds on symbolic interactionism and role performance when examining how gender perceptions are intertwined with climate-skeptical attitudes. This paper aims to explore how gender-based identity markers can function both as identity expression, and as a way of expressing group belonging to a self-proclaimed silenced and excluded group of climate-skeptical, privileged men in Southern Norway. Ethnographic fieldwork from January 2022 to March 2025 unveiled that climate skepticism often worked as a strategy to express frustrations regarding gender and changes in the status quo. The question thus emerges: how can we have fruitful conversations about climate, if climate skepticism can be a mask to express underlying frustrations of something else?

About the speaker

Marthe Elden Wilhelmsen is a PhD research fellow at the University of Agder (Norway) at the department of Global Development and Planning. Her PhD thesis is called “What are we really talking about when we discuss climate policies? An ethnographic study in Southern Norway”.  

Her research focuses on different underlying values related to climate policies, especially for those who are skeptical of anthropogenic climate change and/or climate related policies. She is excited to both share her insights from her research, and engage in conversations with fellow curious individuals at this event.