Josephine Munch Rasmussen is a researcher with a background in history, law, and cultural heritage research. She began her studies at the University of Bergen and earned a PhD in archaeology at the University of Oslo in 2014. Her research interests include the history of institutions and collections, and she has extensive experience in research communication on topics such as ownership, repatriation, and diplomacy related to cultural heritage, as well as the role of cultural heritage in contexts of war and conflict.
In addition to research and teaching in the higher education institutions, Josephine has worked at museums and in the Directorate for Cultural Heritage in Norway. From 2018 to 2022, she carried out her postdoctoral project at University of Agder in Kristiansand, focusing on research ethics in relation to stolen, manipulated, and forged manuscripts. From 2022 to 2025, she was a Senior Researcher at the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research in Oslo. Here, she led the European research project DECOPE, which studied the effects of civil society and cultural institutions’ mobilization in the aftermath of Russian’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Since 2025, she has been the Head of R&D at Arkivet Peace and Human Rights Center, with responsibility for research and knowledge production, as well as the development of Arkivet Memorial site.
Josephine is interested in how cultural heritage is used as a goal, tool, and source of resilience and resistance in war and conflict, and how the experiences and expertise of marginalized groups and minorities are used in preparedness work as well as post-conflict reconstruction and reconciliation