Anna Sparrman

Anna Sparrman is a Professor at the Department of Thematic Studies - Child Studies (TEMAB) at Linköping University, Sweden, and holds a concurrent position as Professor II in Children's Culture at the Department of Art and Cultural Studies, Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences (2021-2025). Her academic work bridges visual culture, childhood studies, consumption, and sexuality, with a particular focus on how norms and values are created in the everyday practices of children's lives.

Sparrman's research is unified by the concept of visual culture as a social theory that questions taken-for-granted aspects of visual everyday practices. She examines how norms and values are created and reproduced through visual interactions: Who gets to look at whom and who gets to be seen in society? Her work focuses on children aged 6-12 years and how children "are made" both by children themselves and through societal conceptions of childhood. She has developed the theoretical framework "Child Studies Multiple," which views children as unstable, changing, hybrid, and complex rather than solid and universal.

Her research spans interconnected fields including children and sexuality, children and consumption, children's cultural heritage, and visual methodology. Her current projects investigate how to integrate children's cultural heritage into Swedish cultural heritage and examine children as professional influencers and internet celebrities in the digital age. Methodologically, she combines visual ethnography, photo-elicited focus group discussions, image analysis, and internet-based visual methods, with special attention to the productivity of research methods themselves.

Sparrman serves on the Advisory Board for the Childism Institute, the Editorial Board for Childhood journal, and the Advisory Board for the research project "(Re)configuration of parenthood: Political agendas entangling everyday family life" at Roskilde University. She has also participated in media discussions on topics such as "The pedophile gaze" and children's rights to cultural heritage participation.