Researcher
Thor Olav Iversen
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Summary
Thor Olav Iversen is a development economist with rich experience in working with international affairs as both a practitioner and an academic. At NUPI, Iversen do research on the impact of climate change on conflict and security through the Climate-related Peace and Security Risks-project.
He also has a strong research interest pertaining to sciences and technology adjacent to the development and humanitarian field. In June 2023, Iversen defended my PhD dissertation in the field of theory of science with the title “Making world hunger legible: The politics of measuring global food insecurity”.
From 2015 to 2017, furthermore he worked as a regional programme officer at the UN World Food Programme. A pronounced feature of his academic life is furthermore love for dissemination and public debate, as he has significant experience as a journalist, editor and moderator of public conversations.
Expertise
Education
2023 PhD, Theory of Science, University of Bergen
2013 Master's degree, Economics, University of Bergen.
2010 Bachelor's degree, History, University of Bergen
2009 Bachelor's degree, Economics, University of Bergen
Work Experience
2023- Senior Research fellow, Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI)
2023 Journalist and editor, Agenda Magasin
2018-2023 PhD candidate, Centre for the Study of the Sciences and Humanities, University of Bergen
2015-2017 Regional programme officer, UN World Food Programme
2013-2015 Research assistant, Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI) 2012 Trainee, Royal Norwegian Embassy in Seoul
Aktivitet
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Clear all filtersClimate, Peace and Security Fact Sheet: Haiti
Located on the Atlantic hurricane belt, Haiti is susceptible to earthquakes and is particularly vulnerable to the adverse impacts of climate change due to its geographical location as well as political instability, extreme poverty and gang violence. Rising sea levels, changing precipitation patterns and frequent natural disasters and extreme weather events, such as hurricanes, floods, droughts, landslides and earthquakes, exacerbate the country’s humanitarian crisis. Flooding during El Niño years worsens existing food insecurity and drives displacement, increasing population pressure on host communities and fuelling social tensions.
Navigating the Era of Indicators (Navigator)
The European Research Council funded Navigator project (2025-2030) explores how public and private bodies, civil society and the state, navigate the era of indicators in global governa...
Climate, Peace and Security Fact Sheet: South Sudan
South Sudan is one of the least peaceful countries in the world and one of the most vulnerable to climate change. Rising temperatures and changing precipitation patterns have led to both drought and flooding, impacting river flows and the groundwater availability and water quality for a population highly reliant on agriculture and pastoralism. Decades of violent conflict have also eroded the population’s coping capacities. Weak governance and the lack of infrastructure further undermine the capacity of state and social institutions to adapt to climate change. Beyond the existing tensions between armed groups in South Sudan, the spillover effects of the war in Sudan are exacerbating a complex and persistent humanitarian crisis.
Care, Control and Calories: A Genealogy of Measuring International Undernutrition
This article documents the historical development of the calory and its application in international measurement of undernutrition. It provides an empirical account of the origins of caloric measurement as a scientific instrument, its uptake into international statistics on undernutrition produced by the League of Nations and the United Nations, and eventual use in monitoring global development goals. The historical analysis explores and discusses how a dialectic of care and control is embedded in macrosocial measurement of hunger: Caloric statistics have served as a condition of possibility for states and international agencies to render food systems governable through constituting a novel form of legibility that pushed the frontiers for modern schemes of top-down intervention and control. Such measurements have furthermore served as a vital resource to legitimize and justify the ambitions of the UN and modern development agenda, serving to establish and shape grand narratives of humanity’s progress under different food regimes. Based on this historical analysis, the article provides a normative and epistemic argument for centring the perspectives and knowledges of those affected by hunger in the enumeration of nutrition and food security. Such democratic agency should however not just be an object of measurement but be leveraged through participatory methodologies that draw upon the voices of the food insecure to better capture the multidimensional nature of food security through numbers.
Managing Climate, Peace and Security Risks from the Borderlands of the Lake Chad (CPS-Lake Chad)
How can local efforts in the Lake Chad Region teach us how to manage the effects of climate change on peace and security? ...