Ruth Bjorkenwall

Ruth Bjorkenwall, a sociologist, began her career as a police officer in Sweden before earning her undergraduate degrees in journalism and peace-and-conflict studies in Berkeley, California. Her Ph.D. candidacy at the University of California at Berkeley focuses on social deviance and comparative police interrogations. Ruth Bjorkenwall now studies extreme techniques of influence, global terrorism, and state emergency responses. She regularly teaches a course on terrorism, torture, and truth but remains focused on power, social structures, and agency, also researching labor migration, state power, and the social safety net in the Nordic countries of Europe.