Sunniva is a PhD candidate at the Centre for Women's and Gender Research (SKOK). In their project, they explore sexuality and gender norms and more specifically how expectations about sexuality (compulsory sexuality) have a bodily dimension, with a particular focus on how being fat can affect how a person experience, understand and navigate sexuality and gender.

Sunniva has a master's degree in interdisciplinary gender studies from the University of Oslo and a bachelor's degree in sociology from the University of Stavanger.

Sunniva has also been a research assistant for the research project EuroWARCHILD from 2021 to 2022, and as an extension of this work, they published a research article about Samí and Kven children born of war where they discuss the importance of including ethnicity and race as perspective in research on children born of war.

In their PhD project, Sunniva pays particularly close attention to which structures underlie our norms concerning gender, sexuality and fatness. Whose sexuality is not questioned and who experiences being desexualized or hypersexualized? What are the bodily boundaries of normative gender and sexuality, and what are the experiences of people viewed as breaking those norms? How does this affect how fat peoples gender and sexuality is constructed? Through interviews with people that are or have been fat, Sunniva will contribute knowledge about the bodily framework for a normative understanding of sexuality and gender. Sunniva will also emphasize language, as we do not use neutral language when we talk and write about body size and fatness. Also, how people talk about themselves and their experiences can tell us something about the normative framework for subject formation in relation to sexuality, gender and the body.

This project is unique in Norway, since critical fat studies has not yet been established as a research field, and since very little research on fat people is being done outside the scope of medical or health research in Norway. This is a project that seeks to contribute to establishing critical fat studies in a Norwegian context, as well as contribute to the international research environments that emphasize fat perspectives and fat people's own experiences in the context of gender and sexuality.

At SKOK, Sunniva is a member of the interdisciplinary and interfacultary research group Foundational Questions in Gender and Sexuality Research.

Sunniva is also a member of Queer Research Group at the University of Stavanger.

The last couple of years, Sunniva has actively communicated research about sexuality norms and asexuality in Norwegian media. They have also participated in several panels at Pride events.

Communication as PhD candidate at SKOK

• Å være tjukk - en debatt om normer, fordommer og holdningsendring (Being fat - a debate about norms, prejudice and attitude change). Moderator and organizer of the annual SKOK debate, 04.03.2024
• A fatter gender and sexuality research. Interview on uib.no, 22.09.2023
• Den tjukke skeive kroppen (The fat queer body). Panel conversation during Skeivå - Rogaland Pride, 26.08.2023

Sunniva has taught at both bachelor and master level at the University of Oslo. They have taught classes in gender, sexuality, equality and diversity, as well as theory of science and academic writing.

At SKOK, Sunniva leads the seminar in the course KVIK100 Kjønnsforskinga sine tenkjemåtar (Introduction to Gender Studies)

Academic lecture

• Tobiasen, Sunniva Árja (2024). Examining the fat-bodied boundaries of sexual norms. (external link)

Interview

• Tobiasen, Sunniva Árja (2023). Augeblikket «Kristoffer» (24) skjønte at han ikkje var som «alle» andre. (external link)
• Tobiasen, Sunniva Árja (2023). «Dina» er berre 18 år, men trur at ho aldri kjem til å ha sex. (external link)
• Tobiasen, Sunniva Árja (2023). Da Linnéa møtte kjæresten, ventet hun seks uker med å avsløre hemmeligheten hun bar på. (external link)
• Tobiasen, Sunniva Árja (2023). Når «Aisha» fortel om legningen sin, trur ikkje alle på ho. (external link)
• Tobiasen, Sunniva Árja (2021). Hva vil det egentlig si å være aseksuell?. (external link)

Lecture

• Tobiasen, Sunniva Árja (2023). Compulsory Sexuality and Asexuality . (external link)
• Tobiasen, Sunniva Árja (2023). Queering Research - keynote. (external link)

Academic article

• Tobiasen, Sunniva Árja (2023). Samiske og kvenske krigsbarn – en diskusjon om betydningen av etnisitet. (external link)

Reader opinion piece

• Stotz, Lina; Elvebakken, Johanne Rokke; Ødegaard, Ingvill Constanze et al. (2022). Children Born of War Should be More Than an Afterthought. (external link)

See a complete overview of publications in Cristin.

Sunniva's PhD project has the working title Sizing Up Desirable Bodies- Examining the fat-bodied boundaries of sexuality and gender.