Research subject Cultural utterances, Rituals and Play

"Form" = how something is said or done. "Expressive" = expressive, something that attracts attention.

Expressive forms can be symbolically lavish, but the expressiveness can also be created with small means (such as a whisper or a long pause in a presentation). Focus on the expressive is an important analytical strategy in ethnological studies of communication; storytelling, music, dance, visual and material representations and last but not least rituals and play in the broadest sense.

The questions that ethnologists ask about expressive forms are about both their aesthetic power and their societal significance, including their ability to both strengthen and question communities and ideologies. Examples of phenomena that have been studied in recent years are young women's performances of hip hop, the celebration of Norway's national day in Norway and Sweden, the play between improvised and planned in funerals at sea, and the co-creation of new ceremonies when museum objects are returned to indigenous people.