Dr. Cathrine Thorleifsson
Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Oslo; Head, Norwegian Government´s Commission on Extremism
2021, 2023, 2024
Dr. Cathrine Thorleifsson (1982) is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Oslo. Thorleifsson is the Head of the Norwegian Government´s Commission on Extremism, that will recommend strategies for improved P/CVE and CT policy and practice. She holds a Ph.D in anthropology from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Her chief theoretical interests lie in the study of radicalization and extremism. Thorleifsson has conducted extensive ethnographic fieldwork amongst supporters of extremist movements and political violence in Europe and the Middle East. The past decade she has been researching and writing on far right mobilization and more recently on cyberfascism and lone actor terrorism. Her books include: Nationalist responses to the crises in Europe: old and new hatreds (Routledge 2019) and Nationalism and the Politics of Fear in Israel (I.B. Tauris 2015).
Thorleifsson has previously been a Principle Investigator at the Horizon2020 funded DRIVE- examining the drivers of far right and Islamist radicalization in North-Western Europe. Previously, Thorleifsson was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the ERC-funded “Overheating: the three crises of globalization” at the University of Oslo. She has been a visiting scholar at University of Haifa and The Norwegian Center for Holocaust and Minority Studies. In addition to her academic pursuits, Thorleifsson has worked for the United Nations Development Program in Syria and consulted for the World Bank, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the European Commission on countering and preventing violent extremism.
Cathrine was born in Washington D.C and grew up in Oslo, Norway. She has lived, worked and carried out fieldwork in the UK, Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Hungary and Norway. She speaks Hebrew and Arabic. She lives in Oslo with her husband and two daughters.
At the Summit
The Summit was more than empty words – it made clear that a solution-driven approach is the only way to fight hate. That’s why the working group activities, which are results driven are going to be critical in defeating violent extremism. The Summit brought together the best minds in government, private sector, academia, and civil society. Being surrounded by these experts sparked new ideas – some of which I’ve already implemented or have written about.
