Johanna Pettersson Fürst is an Associate Research Fellow in the Global Politics and Security Programme at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs. Her research interests are issues related to borders, border policy and sovereignty.
In November 2018 she defended her doctoral thesis What's in a Line? Making Sovereignty through Border Policy. In the thesis, she studies the introduction of a visa-free border zone between Norway and Russia and analyzes how states can create and manifest the idea of sovereignty through the policies pursued towards their territorial borders.
In future research projects, Johanna will look more closely at the issue of internal border controls within Schengen, with particular focus on the introduction of border controls between Sweden and the other Nordic countries.
Johanna has a PhD in political science from Uppsala University. During her doctoral studies she was a visiting researcher at the Department of Geography at UCLA and at the Barents Institute at Tromsø University. She has taught political science, primarily on international relations, public administration and international migration and ethnic relations (IMER) at Södertörn University College. Johanna is currently teaching at Uppsala University.