Olov Dahlin
Senior Lecturer
About the researcher
My previous research interests were mainly related to religious and medical diversity; culture encounter issues/multiculturalism; religion/health/integrative medicine/care.
Current research interests mainly focus on whether the sociality changed by digitalisation and technologisation affects us on an existential level and may be a contributing cause of mental illness. Linked to this is also an interest in the importance of animals and nature to us and their ability to act as restorers of human health. Can the widespread mental ill-health of young people in part be related to constantly being online, a way of living which is overly abstract and "ungrounded" in which the more bodily and sensual dimension of life is attenuated?
I teach at both basic and advanced levels. I share teaching in the didactic-pedagogical strand of the Study Programme in Humans-Culture-Religion together with teachers in drama pedagogy.
Roles of Responsibility within the University
- Head of the subject group for Religious Studies since January 2019.
- Director of Education for the Human-Culture-Religion program since 2016. Led a revision of the program and the revised program was launched autumn semester 2018.
- Member of the Academy Council for AUE during the years 2014–2019. Reinstated as subject coordinator in the Academy Council as of spring semester 2020.
Employment History
2001–
Lecturer in Religious Studies at the University of Gävle, first as a substitute and as a permanent employee since 2003.
1996–2002
Occasional teaching at departments of religious studies at Stockholm University, Uppsala University, Dalarna University, Södertörn University and Gotland University.
Participant in the project "Anthropologists come to school" at the Ethnographic Museum in Stockholm.
1992–1996
Employment as a museum guard at the Ethnographic Museum in Stockholm.
Current Research
- Interview study on the difference between digital and analog teaching from a perception phenomenological, social psychological and existential perspective.
- Qualitative follow-up research of a preventive green rehabilitation intervention for people on the verge of exhaustion in Hofors municipality.
Previous Research
- Knowledge review regarding green rehabilitation, commissioned by Hofors municipality.
- Survey of how students feel about the current teaching situation.
- Interdisciplinary project on the use of fluid replacement/sugar-salt solution (Oral Rehydration Therapy) in developing countries (together with two economists and a social medicine specialist).
- Interview study of an orthodox Christian "shaman" in Hälsingland.
- Report on a feasibility study of an integrative health clinic at Fjärran Höjder in Gävle. A project funded by Gävle Municipality and Region Gävleborg.
- Literature and film study on tradition and change in Indian film.
- Environmental analysis of interdisciplinary health research at Swedish universities.
- Literature study of how ethnic religions are presented in Swedish teaching materials.
- Fieldwork for the thesis Zvinorwadza. Being a patient in the religious and medical plurality of the Mberengwa district, Zimbabwe.
This page was last updated 2025-05-26