Lake Mjøsa is a vital resource for various groups of people each with diverse interests and objectives which do not always align.

Governed by a decentralized and polycentric system, the lake is a complex interplay of human activities and ecological systems.

This PhD project seeks to explore this complexity. Using Social Ecological Systems (SES) approach, this project will explore how different actors interact in the governance of Lake Mjøsa and how this constellation of actors aligns or diverges with social-ecological processes in shaping the lake’s social ecological system.

My thesis centres around an applied ethical analysis of Mission Mjøsa, and the notion of sustainability more generally. This ethical analysis is done from a Marxist perspective with a focus on capitalism as the contemporary and contingent context in which we operate, whether we want to or not.

This has certain bearings on our relationship with nature and our efforts at interacting sustainably with our natural environment. I aim to highlight a series of ethical challenges tied to the socio-economic context that we engage with lake Mjøsa, and the rest of nature, under.

By mapping out the human-nature relationship through historical materialism, that is to say the ontological theory that the history of human societies can be best explained through the material relations and modes of production in any given epoch, we can divorce our contemporary understanding of nature from universalism.

In other words, we can challenge any perceived objectivity and neutrality, and expose capitalist and historically contingent biases in our dealings with nature both as humans and as researchers.