Fredrik Hoppstadius

My research focuses on sustainable development, tourism planning, and place-based processes for change, with particular interest in how people, technologies, landscapes, and policies interact in the creation of, among other things, tourism landscapes. Through an assemblage perspective, I explore the relationships between material and social practices and how these shape places, attachments, and values.

My research interests include assemblage thinking, lifestyle migration, digitalisation, mobility, method development, and local and regional development. I am also interested in embodied, nature-oriented everyday practices, such as berry picking, mushroom foraging, hunting, fishing, endurance sports, and outdoor recreation, and how these practices express values and relationships to place.

Previous work has examined the interplay between technology and place in tourism, sustainable everyday lives among counterurbanising families, and biosphere reserves as arenas for learning and sustainability practices. I have also developed digital place-based experiences and participatory methods for innovation and development.

I am the editor of an upcoming anthology on tourism and place design, to be published in 2026. My current projects explore how tourism landscapes can be understood and designed as assemblages of people, species, materialities, and technologies, with the aim of contributing to sustainable and inclusive development processes.

Programme director of the Tourism and Place Design programme at Karlstad University.

Mainly teaching within this programme, as well as in the Spatial Planning programme and the Geomedia Master’s programme.

Academic degrees:

2018: Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) - Human Geography, Karlstad University, Karlstad, Sweden

2012: Master of Science (MSc) - Human Geography with specialization in tourism, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden

2011: Master in Business Administration (MBA) - Tourism, Leisure and Event Management, Groupe ESC Troyes, France

2010: Bachelor of Science (BSc) - Human Geography with specialization in tourism, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden

Academic work:

Associate Senior Lecturer in Human Geography (2024 - present). Department of Geography, Media and Communication, Karlstad University

Lecturer in Human Geography (2018 - 2023). Department of Geography, Media and Communication, Karlstad University

PhD Candidate in Human Geography (2013-2018). Department of Geography, Media and Communication, Karlstad University

Project Assistant (August 2011 – December 2012):
Mistra Artcic Futures - Tourism and mining in Norrbotten, Sweden. Umeå University

Mistra Arctic Futures - Sami tourism entrepreneurship. Umeå University