Trine Olsen Møgster
About
Social anthropologist, PhD.
In November 2025, I defended my PhD thesis, City-making on Layers of Land: An Anthropology of Land and Property at Fornebu, at the Department of Geography and Social Anthropology, NTNU. In the thesis, I develop a theoretical and empirical vocabulary for understanding how changes in property relations shape Norwegian urban development. Through the concept of layers of land, I build an analytical framework showing how land carries different historical, cultural, and social meanings, and how these are activated in the process of urban development. Together with the concept of city-making, the thesis illuminates how governance, planning, and valuation practices intersect to produce the city of the future.
Central to the thesis is a theory of land as an asset—a distinct form of value, different from that of commodities, whose value is realized through immediate market exchange. Assets acquire their value by being held, in order to secure access to future returns. Asset value is extracted prior to realization; that is, it capitalizes on expectations of value not yet realized. The developments I uncover at Fornebu challenge established governing rationalities and raise new, fundamental questions about ownership, futurity, and power.
I am currently working on the project Beyond the Project: Long-term Value Creation in the Built Environment, in which I examine what happens to the values and ambitions defined when a building undergoes transformation. The question I ask is how these values are actually translated—or fail to be translated—into governance practices, systems, and everyday decisions once the building moves into management and operation. A key analytical move in the project is to identify where in the building's life cycle so-called "value leakages" occur: moments where ambitions set in an early phase lose their governing force over time, and which organizational, technical, or institutional conditions explain why these leakages occur.
Before beginning my doctoral work, I spent many years working outside academia. These experiences have given me an operational weight and capacity for execution that I bring into my research. I remain affiliated with AFRY (formerly tegn_3/Gottlieb Paludan), where I work in interdisciplinary teams on strategic area and campus development: analyses of existing land use, early-phase studies, cost–benefit assessments, benefit realization plans, and participatory processes.
Earlier in my career, I worked on innovation and digitalization projects at Nordea—including the establishment of digital customer solutions and e-signature—and helped develop and implement Nordic operating models, as well as lead consolidation and organizational change through new digital infrastructure and new ways of working. For a number of years, I co-developed and ran the social-anthropological consultancy Kulturell Dialog AS, and at the Instituut voor Maatschappelijke Innovatie in Leiden, the Netherlands, I gained valuable experience running innovation processes grounded in user dialogue, democracy, and participation.
Together, these experiences have given me a bridging competence between institutional and economic value regimes on one hand, and socio-technical implementation on the other—that is, between how value is defined and legitimized, and how it is actually realized in practice, within organizations and multi-stakeholder processes.
Research
I am currently working on the project Beyond the Project: Long-term Value Creation in the Built Environment, in which I examine what happens to the values and ambitions defined when a building undergoes transformation. The question I ask is how these values are actually translated—or fail to be translated—into governance practices, systems, and everyday decisions once the building moves into management and operation. A key analytical move in the project is to identify where in the building's life cycle so-called "value leakages" occur: moments where ambitions set in an early phase lose their governing force over time, and which organizational, technical, or institutional conditions explain why these leakages occur.
City-making on layers of land.
Publications
2025
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Møgster, Trine Olsen;
Røyrvik, Emil André;
Vike, Halvard;
Fyhn, Håkon.
(2025)
City-making on layers of land. An Anthropology of Land and Property at Fornebu.
Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet
Doctoral thesis
2022
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Møgster, Trine Olsen.
(2022)
Alle veier fører til eiendom. Om «fornebuskatten» og omstridte eiendomsrelasjoner.
Norsk antropologisk tidsskrift
Academic article
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Møgster, Trine Olsen;
Bertelsen, Bjørn Enge.
(2022)
Urban polarisering: Antropologiske bidrag.
Norsk antropologisk tidsskrift
Academic article
Journal publications
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Møgster, Trine Olsen.
(2022)
Alle veier fører til eiendom. Om «fornebuskatten» og omstridte eiendomsrelasjoner.
Norsk antropologisk tidsskrift
Academic article
-
Møgster, Trine Olsen;
Bertelsen, Bjørn Enge.
(2022)
Urban polarisering: Antropologiske bidrag.
Norsk antropologisk tidsskrift
Academic article
Student thesis or dissertation
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Møgster, Trine Olsen;
Røyrvik, Emil André;
Vike, Halvard;
Fyhn, Håkon.
(2025)
City-making on layers of land. An Anthropology of Land and Property at Fornebu.
Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet
Doctoral thesis
Outreach
2026
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Conference lectureMøgster, Trine Olsen. (2026) Assetization and the modalities of urban planning. ENHR 2026 Homeownership, Prosperity, and Inequality in the 21st Century
2023
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Conference lectureMøgster, Trine Olsen. (2023) ‘Making city’. Trøbbel i tiden og byromstrøbbel. Norsk Antropologisk Årskonferanse
2021
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LectureMøgster, Trine Olsen. (2021) Grenser for eierskap? Om rettigheter og regulering av privateide byallmenninger. Storbykonferansen
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Conference lectureMøgster, Trine Olsen. (2021) Eierskap til besvær? Om allmenning og medvirkning i byutvikling. Norsk Antropologisk Forening Årskonferanse
2020
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Lecture