With help and encouragement of Jean Rouch, Lisbet conducted her first fieldwork in Niger in 1970. She spent one year in Mainé -Soroa in the south east of the country. During her stay she learned Hausa and focused on gender, ethnicity, education and social change.

Based on her fieldwork she wrote her master thesis about ethnicity and status in multi-ethnic setup of Mainé -Soroa and a book “Karuwai – Free women in Manga, Eastern Niger.” (the latter with another Danish anthropologist, Mete Bovin)

Returning to Norway, she brought photographs, drawings, material objects as well as film and audio footage. The material was displayed at a travelling exhibition in Tromsø, Oslo and Copenhagen and was later used to make the film, Niger – Norway, a didactic cross-cultural comparison which, in a provocative way, questioned the stereotypes about life in both countries.

Since the early 1970’s, due to the political instability in south-east Niger, Lisbet spent only short periods of time in the region.

In 1989, she was part of the team which conducted an evaluation of an agroforestry project in the Maradi district of south-central Niger.

In 2006, she re-united with her first fieldwork collaborator Gorjjo bii Riima and traveled again to Mainé -Soroa in 2006 in 2009. Since then, Gorjjo has been twice in Tromsø.