Erik Hannerz

Erik Hannerz is associate professsor in sociology, mainly working in the field of cultural criminology. He earned his ph d in Sociology at Uppsala University, his dissertation seeking to develop and refine the concept of subcultures so as to allow for heterogeneity and plurality, using punk in Sweden and Indonesia as the case. 

His later research projects include “Rewriting the city” that investigates how graffiti writers perceive and make use of urban space and Citizen police work and digital crowdsourcing that focused on the work and negotiations of internet detectives. He is the author of Performing Punk (Palgrave 2015) Urban Creativity (Dokument Press Akademi 2024, with Peter Bengtsen) and Gängkriminalitet (Liber 2025, with David Sausdal). His research has been published in journals such as Symbolic Interaction, Visual Inquiry, Journal of Youth Studies, Crime Media Culture, Cultural Sociology, New Media & Society. 

Hannerz is co-founder of the research environment Cultural Space, the research group Urban Creativity, as well as of the master program in Cultural Criminology. In 2022 he was awarded the Students of Lund University pedagogical prize. Hannerz is since 2013 Faculty Fellow at the Center for Cultural Sociology, Yale University

Areas of expertise

• Subcultures, Deviance, Crime
• Graffiti, Street Art, Urban Exploration
• Gang Crime
• Punk, Do-It-Yourself
• Digital Media, Flashback