| 1. |
- Berg, Linda, 1974-, et al.
(författare)
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A conversation about the state in pandemic times : Necropolitics and the legacy of social democracy in Sweden and Nicaragua
- 2021
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Ingår i: Kulturella perspektiv - Svensk etnologisk tidskrift. - : Publicera, Kungliga Biblioteket. - 1102-7908 .- 2004-0288. ; 30:2-3
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Established ideas about state responsibility and state violence are placed in a new light in times characterized as states of emergency. The following conversation addresses the role of the state in the safeguarding of public health, taking its departure in media debates and political debates about state responsibility in two countries that have been criticized for not taking strong enough measures to protect the very futuriority of the nation in times of a pandemic Sweden and Nicaragua. Both countries have been castigated for avoiding total lockdown and for having taken a passive approach to what Wendy Brown has called “the political management of the virus” (Brown 2020). At the same time, the rhetoric used to describe their respective strategies has differed vastly in dialogue we explore notions about governance, biopolitics and necropolitics as they are articulated and negotiated in national contexts that claim the label social democracies. One of the points of departure is that while the response to Covid-19 is often described in war metaphors, and hence as a state of emergency, the unjust and unequal distribution of life and death is by no means exceptional.
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| 2. |
- Alm, Erika, 1975, et al.
(författare)
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Parenting the nation : state violence and reproduction in Nicaragua and Sweden
- 2023
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Ingår i: Struggles for reproductive justice in the era of anti-genderism and religious fundamentalism. - London : Palgrave Macmillan. - 9783031312595 - 9783031312625 - 9783031312601 ; , s. 213-240
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Reproduction is a core question for the state, a site of struggle between the reproduction of the nation and the reproduction of liveable lives, especially for those citizens whose rights are rarely recognized in the first place. What role does the exceptionalisation of reproductive rights play in the reproduction of the nation-state? Nicaragua and Sweden are countries where debates about reproductive justice highlight tensions in the projection of a state that cares for its citizens. Nicaragua, the second-poorest country in the Western hemisphere with one of the most repressive and punitive legislations on abortion in the world. Sweden with its reputation as a pioneering nation in matters of gender equality and reproductive justice. This chapter draws on a particular formulation of the centrality of the state in theories and practices of reproductive justice: the notion of the state as a parent with a particular responsibility to protect and foster, but also discipline and subjugate, its citizens. Political leaders, Fathers and Mothers of the Nation, form the discourse within which the state regulates its imagined children’s, the citizens, reproductive rights. As such the governance of reproduction is a vital aspect of the political fantasy about the nation-state and its futuriority.
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| 3. |
- Wedel, Johan, 1962
(författare)
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Healing and spirit possession in the Caribbean
- 2009
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Ingår i: Stockholm Review of Latin American Studies. - 1654-0204. ; :4, s. 49-60
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article takes a comparative look at spiritual healing and its implications among followers of Afro-Cuban Santería and among the Miskitu people of Nicaragua. It shows how illness and suffering is located in a sacred domain allowing transformations on social, psychological, and physiological levels. Healing is achieved by creating a sacred reality by means of powerful symbols and spirit possession. In this process, spiritual beings are representations of people’s conditions. At the same time, spirits also represent a model for healing.
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| 4. |
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| 5. |
- Berg, Linda, 1974-
(författare)
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"25 dollar rebel": Identity politics, Legislation and Class in stories from Lesbian Activists in Nicaragua
- 2010
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Ingår i: Dissident Citizenship: Queer Postcolonial Belonging.
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- One interviewee says she has always been a marimacha, another view herself as a lesbian identified with gay men and a third talk about the importance of being a woman and not a cochóna. At manifestations they all have t-shirts with a person screaming “Soy Rebelde, Soy lesbiana, Soy mujer, Soy Ciudadana!!!” and “Exijo mis Derechos!”. The common political symbols and rhetoric are a huge part of the campaigns for sexual diversity, towards being able to exist as a sexual minority and a Nicaraguan citizen. To get finance for the work towards “sexual freedom”, identity politics is absolutely necessary. Fighting for acknowledge GLBT rights (in the ‘west’), are legitimate reasons for funding through international non-governmental organizations. Through this perspective identity politics, rather than queer theory, seem to be part of a colonial heritage. Hence categories such as lesbian, gay and trans- are presented as liberating space in the work for “a sexuality free from prejudice” and I find it interesting to ask how, why and when the identity-labels are being used.One important goal for the lesbian activists in Nicaragua is still visibility – to be recognized and accepted as lesbian women. In 1992 a law against same-sex, Article 204, was initiated and upheld by the Nicaraguan Supreme Court in 1994. The main target of article 204 was not women; but the initiative was part of an increased security for (heterosexual) women. Fortunately the article was abolished 2008, when a new Penal Code was drafted. Hence as in so many places and for such a long time the sexuality of women has been ignored in the legislation. On top of this, lesbian women generally have a hard time getting an independent life in Nicaragua. Women in the popular classes are often expected to take care of a common household and are economically dependent on male relatives. In the following paper I will discuss strategies to survive as a lesbian and lesbianism as part of survival as a queer citizen in Nicaragua.
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| 6. |
- Kroon, Ann
(författare)
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The ruins of Managua vieja : the use of expressive photography in urban ethnography
- 2016
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Ingår i: Visual Studies. - 1472-586X .- 1472-5878. ; 31:3, s. 191-205
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article proposes a method of conducting urban visual work – a practice-led visual study in which researcher-generated expressive photography explores the ‘city-as-archive’ (Hetherington 2013) and contributes to the urban visual archive. The photographs used in this article focus upon the social world of material remnants in the setting of the old downtown of Managua, Nicaragua. The aim of the article is four-fold: to suggest the epistemological gains of expressive photography, to discuss the methodology and style, to present the use of these images in an urban visual ethnography of Managua and to address related ethical concerns. Although expressive photographs are used to some extent by scholars, there is a noticeable lack of discussion of the method and empirical examples in urban visual studies. In this article, I propose intentionally using expressive photography to convey the subjective and affective knowledge that is generally not communicated by more conventional, ‘realist’ documentary visual techniques. Moving into a more explicit conversation of the work process, I point out three arenas for inquiry, for which this method can be useful. I detail my own visual ethnographic practice, and present my primary visual aims in three image clusters: expressive photography in conjunction with historical images, theorising the oscillation between absence and presence and visually interpreting the vernacular design of the ruinscape. The article concludes with a consideration of ‘ruin romance’ as an ethical concern, as well as some reflections over perceived difficulties in using this method as a means of doing academic research.
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| 7. |
- Stein, Alfredo, et al.
(författare)
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Innovative financing for low-income housing improvement: lessons from programmes in Central America
- 2005
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Ingår i: Environment & Urbanization. - : SAGE Publications. - 1746-0301 .- 0956-2478. ; 17:1, s. 47-66
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper discusses what has been learnt from housing and local development programmes in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua supported and funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) during the last 15 years. It identifies common financial mechanisms that have proven to be effective and affordable by the urban poor in their search for better housing. It also discusses the different policies and interventions by national and sub-national governments and the "non-market incentives" that were required to make low-income housing programmes feasible and affordable, and what these imply for the financial and institutional sustainability of such programmes. It ends with recommendations for other international donors and national institutions that are seeking to design new financial services for housing for low-income groups.
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| 8. |
- Berg, Linda, 1974-
(författare)
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Testimonio and representation : An analysis of articles about women workers in Nicaraguan free trade zones
- 2005
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Ingår i: Politics conference.
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The following presentation discusses representation and testimonio in Swedish information on Nicaraguan women workers that has been produced by so called ‘development workers’. In Spanish the word testimonio is literally translated as ‘testimony’, as in the act of testifying or bearing witness in a legal or religious sense. In articles such as “The slave market in Nicaragua is growing” and “Karla – an ordinary robot” the journalist and development worker, Victoria Myrén, translates and mediates stories by women workers in Nicaraguan free trade zones for Swedish speaking readers. The articles express a sense of urgency to communicate experiences of repression and a desire to represent the way marginalized positions are used to legitimate capitalist recolonizing. In an attempt to demonstrate the suffering of women within the free trade zones, the articles position the reader as a jury in a courtroom listening to close descriptions of violations. The story of Karla Manzanares (translated and mediated by Myrén) depicts colonial domination, economic exploitation, sexism and racism.In this paper I argue that by speaking out, re-establishing a ‘voice’, Karla is also re-inscribing a subordinate position in society. The contradictions inherent in the project of representing the subaltern and simultaneously deconstructing the discourses that constitute the subaltern are evident. As Gayatri Spivak has pointed out, the recovery of the ‘voice’ of the subaltern also entails its erasure, since the mode of representation given in testimonio is no longer located in the space of subalternity but is instead more like a ‘ventriloquist’s dummy’.Karla’s written destiny stand for something inhuman happening in a country far away. The image of the tragic woman worker capture our fears. Like a safe place to contain horrible things in the world, she becomes a projection of desire for the solution of insoluble conflicts. These stories about Karla and other women workers are emancipatory actions yet they also act as surfaces of projection for desire, disgust and anger. This paper therefore explores the fine balance between mediating testimonios and reconstructing an image of Nicaraguan woman as the Other, as a negative mirror to the idea of white, western (Swedish) women.
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| 9. |
- Johansson, Sverker
(författare)
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All you need is love... or what?
- 2017
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- All you need is love… or what?Language is essentially always present in groups of modern humans. Even in the exceptional groups that for some reason are formed without language, language will invariably emerge in short order. Examples of language emergence in recent times include deaf communities in e.g. Nicaragua and Israel. Such newly-formed languages converge within a few generations towards the same general form and features as mainstream human languages.Language is essentially never present in groups of non-human primates. Even in the exceptional groups that are heavily exposed to language and explicitly trained in language use, progress in language acquisition is invariably modest at best. Language never emerges spontaneously in non-human groups.What’s special with humans? It is sometimes argued that “all you need is merge” (e.g. Berwick 2007), that a small genetic change provided a language-ready brain and the rest is history. This saltational view of language evolution is wrong for many reasons (e.g. Tallerman 2014), but I would add here another one.A language-ready brain is not an all-or-nothing affair, nor is it sufficient for language emergence. The results of language training in apes are modest, but not nil. Apes do learn to connect symbols with referents and use them communicatively. One may quibble about whether to call this “language”, and it is far from full human language, notably lacking in syntax. But it does show the presence of some language-relevant abilities in apes, and it is a functional communication tool at some protolinguistic level.But if ape brains are protolanguage-ready, why doesn’t protolanguage emerge in the wild among apes, as it does among humans? Clearly, some extra-linguistic key factor is lacking. A language-ready brain is not all you need for language emergence. In a group of hypothetical creatures with a human language faculty (narrow sense) but otherwise ape-like in psychology and behavior, language would not emerge.Human prosociality and shared intentionality are likely key ingredients in language emergence (e.g. Tomasello 2010), but are not the whole story. In this talk, I will explore the minimal extra-linguistic requirements for protolanguage emergence to get off the ground in protohumans. References:Berwick, R C (2011) All you Need is Merge: Biology, Computation, and Language from the Bottom-up. In di Sciullo & Boeckx The Biolinguistic Enterprise OUP.Tallerman M. (2014) No syntax saltation in language evolution. Language Sciences 46, 207-219.Tomasello, M (2010) Origins of human communication. MIT Press.
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