Nina Törnqvist

Nina Törnqvist’s research delves into the world of legal professionals, with a particular focus on emotions, identity work and intimate partner violence. With a PhD in Criminology, her research interests combine a victimological perspective with interactionist and constructivist framework. Her research is centered on qualitative methods and the last years she has been involved in several projects using courtroom ethnography. She coordinates the Research Group Emotion-Justice-Interaction (EmoJI).

Törnqvist’s research is primarily oriented around the criminal justice process, sociology of emotions and professional narratives. In her doctoral thesis (criminology), she critically explored the professional identities and dilemmas of prosecutors who specializes in intimate partner violence. In her postdoctoral project, she was involved in an international, comparative research project funded by the ERC, JustEmotions (2020-2024), seeking to understand the role of emotions in courtroom interactions and legal decision-making. Together with project leader Stina Bergman Blix, she has recently explored the rationales behind legal anger, its logic and origins, drawing on the perspectives of judges and prosecutors in Italy, Sweden, the USA, and Scotland in Rational Anger – An international comparison of legal systems (Routledge Criminology and Criminal Justice).

In ‘Justice and accountability for busisnesss involvement in international crimes: Legal struggles and strategies in the Lundin case’ funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, the overall aim is to explore the strategies of, and struggles between, legal professionals taking part in the criminal trial of Lundin Oil/Orrön Energy. Against the backdrop of a growing trend of attempts on international and domestic levels to hold corporations criminally accountable for their involvement in international crimes and human rights abuses, this project explores legal and interactional battles in the Lundin trial from a Bourdieusian perspective. The project is carried out together with Isabel Schoultz, Lund University and Fanny Holm, Umeå University.

The research project ‘Police and crime victim interactions – a study of the emotional dynamic in preliminary investigations of intimate partner violence’, funded by the Swedish Crime Victim Authority, sets out to study how emotions guide and motivate police work in preliminary investigations concerning intimate partner violence. Methodologically the project brings together observation, shadowing, interviews and audio-diaries in order to understand the stream of emotional consciousness that permeates legal meaning-making and decisions in preliminary investigations. The study is a joint project with Stina Bergman Blix.