| 1. |
- Hylmö, Anders
(författare)
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Disciplined reasoning : Styles of reasoning and the mainstream-heterodoxy divide in Swedish economics
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Economics is one of the most influential social science disciplines, with a high level of internal consent around a common theoretical and methodological approach to economic analysis. However, marginalised schools of thought have increasingly unified under the term “heterodox” economics, with their critical stance towards the “neoclassical mainstream” as common denominator. This has spawned debates among scholars about how to understand the nature of the mainstream-heterodoxy divide in economics.This thesis sets out to explain how such a common approach to science is generalised and stabilised in modern economics, and how this process is related to heterodoxy. Grounded in the sociology of science, it aims first to provide an empirical account of the mainstream-heterodoxy dynamics in Swedish economics, and second, to contribute to theory development. Drawing on the literature on distinct styles of reasoning in the history of science, I develop a theoretical framework of relational disciplinary styles of reasoning, which is used to analyse two bodies of empirical material from Swedish economics. The first is an in-depth interview study with researchers in economics, and the second is a document study of expert evaluation reports from the hiring of professors of economics at four of the top Swedish universities during 25 years. Through the two empirical studies, the fine-grained qualitative material provides an insight into the ways economists understand their discipline and the character of proper knowledge production.I argue that the mainstream-heterodoxy divide is fruitfully understood in terms of the institutionalised stabilisation of a disciplinary style of reasoning, and show how economists understand their scientific approach and its merits. The maintenance of the style of reasoning is the achievement of the thought collective of economists, where boundaries are constructed in relation to contesting heterodox economics and to other scientific disciplines. I show how the disciplinary style with its conception of good science and the notion of a core of the discipline is linked to the reproduction of disciplinary boundaries. I trace how this plays out through shifting quality evaluation practices, and show how top journal rankings have become a powerful judgement device which links the hierarchical ranking of top journals to the notion of a disciplinary core, and effectively functions as a mechanism of disciplinary stabilisation. In conclusion, I argue that these processes form a self-stabilising system in which the disciplinary style of reasoning and its boundaries is reproduced, with potential implications for how we understand intellectual dynamics and pluralism.
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| 2. |
- Yakhlef, Sophia
(författare)
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United Agents : Community of Practice within Border Policing in the Baltic Sea Area
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The risks and insecurities emphasised in contemporary societies have given rise to diverse forms of policing, such as transnational and intelligence-based police collaborations. This dissertation focuses on a border police collaboration project, called Turnstone, that took place between 2014 and 2015, aiming to address issues related to irregular migration and cross border crimes in the Baltic Sea areas. The purpose of this study is to provide a community of practice perspective on cross- border police collaboration drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with a number of intelligence police, coast-guard, and border guard officers from Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania and Sweden. The study illustrates the everyday interactions as well as the formal processes and practices that have generated a trust-based collaborative environment, which is necessary for sharing secret intelligence information. Increasing demands of collaboration places the officers in an ambivalent position: their neighbouring countries are both their work partners and the ”source” of the cross-border criminals. Two processes account for the emergence of a community of practice: 1) the development of a common linguistic repertoire (a set of norms and values that served as guidelines for streamlining and guiding the pursuit of their joint daily activities), and 2) the actors’ engaging in what they consider “real police work”. The study shows how the participants are at pains to reconcile between these two demands: “real police work” involving “action” and aiming at catching criminals, versus formal work practices, such as attending formal meetings and writing reports, thereby catering to bureaucratic needs. By focusing on their joint activities organized during the project (referred to as Power Weeks), the study shows how a trust-based relationship, which is necessary for the exchange of culturally, politically and professionally sensitive information, has gradually developed by the participants in and through their joint engagement in these everyday practices. The study highlights the importance of both informal face-to-face encounters and more formal processes in the development of the group as an entity. The findings of this study suggest that working together, attending formal meetings, producing reports, sharing sensitive information, and profiling suspects are equally important as the informal after-work activities. The Power Weeks included various episodes of telling stories and sharing jokes and this has proved to a be a fertile context for generating trust, knowledge, and innovative work practices. The study emphasises the relevance of community of practice for understanding how participants from different organizational and cultural contexts brought together in a project can develop a collaborative environment around sensitive issues.
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| 3. |
- Ahlstrand, Roland
(författare)
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Förändring av deltagandet i produktionen : Exempel från slutmonteringsfabriker i Volvo
- 2000
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation focuses on the changes in the organization of the production process that occurred at Volvo Cars and Volvo Trucks in the early 1990s. The changes were directed at the established division of labor – both vertical and horizontal – between different groups of employees: managers, foremen, white and blue-collar workers. The questions posed are primarily concerned with the changes for production workers and foremen. The interpretive framework is developed in this dissertation through a constant dialogue between, on the one hand, established theories, and on the other, analyses of the empirical material: interviews with executives, managers, white and blue collar workers, and local trade union representatives, as well as company documents, and notes from participant observation. This work results in a sociology of organizations approach and changes in the organization of production is understood based on the interaction of the company with various environments, and with reference to the interaction between actors within the two companies. The explanation of what occurred is largely based on the appraisal that actors have access to power resources that they are able to activate when they find it appropriate. In the studies presented here, this comes to expression in management having an exclusive right to initiate various changes based on its knowledge of markets, competitors, and other actors. At the same time, actors can strengthen their resources by joining forces with others. This is precisely what happened when the management of Volvo formed a coalition with trade union organizations, developing together processes of training and change to broaden and deepen the employees, primarily the assembly workers and foremen participation. The changes can be understood against the background of not just Volvo, but the entire industry, attempting to come to terms with the well-known production and personnel problems arising from the Taylorist system of production. But this is far from an exhaustive explanation. The changes are also impacted by the companies’ need to increase their competitiveness and an increased challenge from Japanese companies. Efficiency in terms of quality, delivery times, and the balance sheet was believed to be able to be improved by increased use of Japanese organizational principles and coupling the market with organization in a novel way. Furthermore, there has been an interest on part of trade unions to form a coalition with management as they, like management, want to introduce decentralized wage systems and see opportunities to have their demands met for increased skills training and more rich and diversified jobs for their members.
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| 4. |
- Alkvist, Lars-Erik
(författare)
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Max Weber och kroppens sociologi
- 2004
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis is about the social body in sociology, represented by the classical sociologist Max Weber. Traditional sociology has not taken the body into account. The body has been considered to belong to the realm of the natural sciences. Sociology has seen the body merely as an instrument or a tool for social action. The mind/body dichotomy, homo duplex, prevails in sociology. The purpose of this investigation is to show that Weber does not totally neglect the social body. I claim that the body is “absent but present” in Weber’s texts. The above-mentioned view that the body is ignored by sociology must, in other words, be modified. I claim that Weber’s texts imply a conception, although rudimentary, of the social body. This conception co-exists, however, with Weber’s tendency to see the body as a natural object. This is in accordance with the general picture of the way sociology treats the body. To examine the question of the social body I turn to philosophy. I believe that some philosophers have been interested in viewing the body as a social rather than a natural object. Plato, René Descartes, Friedrich Nietzsche, Immanuel Kant and finally Maurice Merleau-Ponty have all tried to come to terms with the relationship between the mind and the body. The above-mentioned philosophers, with the exception of Kant, are all therefore concerned with the body as more than simply a biological organism. They try to reconcile the dualistic difference between body and mind. They are, however, mainly concerned with finding a philosophical answer to how mankind can attain knowledge about the object. They are concerned with epistemology and ontology. Sociology, on the other hand, is more concrete and its corresponding concepts are “subject” and “structure”. Sociology fills these concepts with a more non-epistemological and ontological content. He has been described as a subjective sociologist or a micro sociologist, but I claim that this does not give the whole picture. Weber also sees individual intentions and purposes as determined by objective and structural constraints. I divide the works of Weber into two parts. I have named the subjectivist approach “the empowered individual”. Here Weber works at the level of the individual subject. He focuses on the subject’s own experience. The ethically shaped, and therefore systematically self-controlled, body becomes a vehicle for being in the world. The body is subjected to the governing ascetic ethic. The feelings and desires of the body become rationalised into a method and a system. In this way a far-reaching rational discipline is created, a so called “ethical conduct of life is created”. In the writings of Weber the “conduct in life” is described by the concept “habitus”. However, Weber is classical in the sense that he considers habitus as a mental attitude. Other works by Weber include a discussion of the constraining structural surroundings, but Weber prefers to use the concept “life orders” rather than “structures”. Weber describes a number of different life orders which he says form the specific cultural habits adopted by individuals in society.
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| 5. |
- Anving, Terese
(författare)
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Måltidens paradoxer : Om klass och kön i vardagens familjepraktiker
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In this thesis the relation between the everyday meal, the doings of family and the reproduction of difference in Swedish everyday family life is explored. The thesis has a qualitative approach and interviews with parents from different class and ethnic backgrounds and family constellations, but all with children under the age of 8 years old, is the empirical basis. Using sociological and feminist theories that focus on peoples’ experiences and doings and how they are related to relations of ruling, the analysis aims to understand how family is done in Sweden. Taking the point of departure in questions such as how can the practice of feeding be understood as a central hub for how family is done? What does the work of feeding imply in relation to assumptions of the gender equal Sweden? How do the parents interviewed relate to norms about feeding and parenting and what importance do these attitudes have for how class is experienced and reproduced? In the thesis it is argued that the practice of feeding is fundamental for how family is established in today’s Sweden. It is also an important point of departure to understand how relations of class and gender are being reproduced in everyday life. It is also argued that children play a central part in what is considered as “family” in Sweden. The practice of feeding is at the same time a unifying and separating practice where communion between family members, generations, friends and others is established but also a practice where difference is recreated and manifested. Even though Sweden has a long history of approaching gender equality women still continues to have the main responsibility for housework and care of children and a significant relationship between gender and feeding work is identified. Here it is argued that there is a need of an expanded work-concept that also includes the emotional and caring work. The work is not only about performing certain tasks but also how (mainly) the women live with and keep the family and its needs “in their head”. It is also argued that certain types of food, products and ingredients (such as sugar) are fundamental for how a division of class is recreated on a level of everyday life in Swedish families and that there is a strong relationship between “good” meals and “good” and respectable parenting. By taking the point of departure in the practice of feeding the dissertation contributes to the understanding of how family is done in today’s Sweden and how unequal relationships are recreated in one of the most central practices of everyday life.
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| 6. |
- Apelmo, Elisabet
(författare)
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Som vem som helst : Kön, funktionalitet och idrottande kroppar
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The main aim of this thesis is to explore young women’s lived experience of the body, which, on one hand, is viewed as deviant – the disabled body – and, on the other hand, is viewed as accomplished – the sporting body. The questions posed in the thesis are the following: how do the young women handle the two subject positions that emerge as a result of the perception of them as respectively deviant and accomplished, which forms of femininity are available to them and what are the strategies of resistance they develop. Based on the work of philosophers Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Simone de Beauvoir, phenomenologies create in this thesis a sociological theoretical framework that includes the body. Participant observation was conducted at a disability sports camp for young disabled people and at four disability sports contests. The participants were recruited from both the sports camp and disability sports clubs. Ten semi-structured interviews were done with young women ages 15 to 28. Three of the participants were asked to keep video diaries: they were lent a small camcorder and a lightweight tripod for two months. In this study a polarization paradoxically is apparent between the weak, which is expressed through the expression of belonging as ”we”, and the strong individual. The subject position as capable and positive – as a reaction towards the weak, the negative – is one of the few positions that are available to them. With the positive and strong attitude, as with distancing from the victim position, the consequence is the difficulty, not only to complain but also to express pain, despair or discomfort in one’s everyday life. In this study many critical voices are raised. They also tell about stumbling and incontinence. At the same time the answer ”no, it’s fine” is given in many different forms. In this thesis this is interpreted as an unwillingness to express negative emotions. The phrase ”I am like everyone else” and the many variations on the same theme in the empirical material are interpreted as a wish for normality. Using the same logic – that attributed weakness leads to the expression of strength – the deviance that is attributed leads to a nearly extreme expression of normality. The lack of gender attributed to disabled people appears to imply that if functionality is not ”normal”, there is no room for another categorization. One interpretation of the material is that disability is seen in the family and in society as a different landscape, in which vulnerability needs to be compensated for by normality, which in turn results in the interview persons’ socialization into a compensatory normalcy.
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| 7. |
- Arvidson, Malin
(författare)
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Demanding Values : Participation, empowerment, and NGOs in Bangladesh
- 2003
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The concepts participation and empowerment are frequently used in development projects in the third world. The meaning given to the concepts today signal a normative orientation, marking an alternative, people-centred approach to development. When used in development projects, the concepts demand detailed descriptions. They also demand project implementers, often local NGOs (non-government organisations), to possess certain values – commitment, solidarity, altruism. These requirements are important in order to make sure the normative meaning of the concepts is not lost on its way from policy to the grassroots. NGOs are chosen as partners in development due to their ideological orientation. Commitment and sincerity are values that NGOs repeatedly claim as their trademarks. However, concern is being raised about changing characteristics of NGOs. Furthermore, the increasing availability of funds provided by the international donor community appears to have encouraged the emergence of NGOs with dubious intents. Discussions about the characteristics of NGOs, and about the use of participation and empowerment strategies are distinguished by a practical orientation, often promoting the strategies and NGOs as partners in development. Analyses are mainly aimed at identifying solutions that will ascertain more accurate development policies. Furthermore, the analyses are often based on experience confined to the development discourse. This means that a wider sociological perspective is neglected; the analyses prioritise accurate and detailed descriptions of the particular rather than identifying and trying to understand general social phenomena. Theoretical perspectives that emanate from empirical backgrounds that are different from the development arena, but that share a focus on similar social dilemmas, are seldom used to enhance our understanding of NGOs, or of the problematics involved with participation and empowerment strategies. The thesis discusses the meaning ascribed to participation and empowerment, based on a review of literature and on field work in two development projects in Bangladesh. Particular focus is put on how local NGO staff relate to the values that participation and empowerment strategies demand that they possess. The NGO staff in the study exhibit ambivalent behaviour and attitudes compared to what is expected from them and to the attitudes they themselves claim to hold. In exploring the ambivalence of staff motivation and performance, it is suggested that a sociological, or academic, rather than a practically oriented approach is used. Instead of focusing on staff behaviour as such, focus is put on the general dilemma of the concept of altruism, the core value related to development NGOs. Using organisation theories, the problematic relationship between organisational control and staff is examined, with particular focus on the dilemma of controlling staff motivation in normatively oriented organisations aiming to achieve social change. The study aims at debating and illustrating the difference between a practical and an academic analytical approach. The analysis presented has profound consequences for what expectations we may attach to development projects based on NGO implementation. It also has consequences for our expectations of participatory and empowerment strategies, which rely on implementing organisations that are characterised by altruistic motives.
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| 8. |
- Basic, Goran, 1972-
(författare)
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Samverkan blir kamp : En sociologisk analys av ett projekt i ungdomsvården
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In this dissertation a collaboration project in Swedish youth care is analysed. The aim of the project was to enhance coordination between the Social Services and the Swedish National Board of Institutional Care in order to make the efforts more efficient. The project also employed a number of coordinators. The overall purpose of this dissertation is to analyse conflicts, alliances and comparisons identifiable in interviews and observations. The analytic findings are put into an overall “collaboration context” represented by earlier research on the social phenomenon of “collaboration”. In this way the dissertation tries to contribute to a sociological understanding of a contemporary widespread phenomenon. The empirical materials of the study consist of recorded conversational interviews with 147 project participants (youngsters, parents and various professional categories) as well as observations of meetings, informal get-togethers and visits to institutions, Social Services offices, the head office of the National Board of Institutional Care and coordinators. The material was analysed using the analytic perspectives of Georg Simmel (1950/1964), Theodore Caplow (1968) and Erving Goffman (1959/2004). The analysis shows that the project manifested and led to struggles between organizations involving representatives from the Social Services, the National Board of Institutional Care and the project, as well as to several interpersonal conflicts between representatives from various categories of involved professionals, and the youngsters and their parents. The study also shows that the client, in such human service organizations, faces a significant risk of being marginalized. Professionals who appreciated the collaboration often drew their conclusions based on their interaction with other professionals, but the collaboration did not guarantee a successful treatment of the client. Conflicts concerning the roles of the coordinators and their written documents (“the agreements”) emerged and were actualized through the creation of the project. The coordinators and their “agreements” can be seen as the project’s most visible representatives and symbols, which during the project become both themes for conflict and actualize already established conflict patterns. The youngsters and their parents appreciated the projects’ coordinators who appeared as personally involved and able to make concrete changes. However, many of youngsters and their parents criticized the coordinators and even portrayed a victim identity in relation to the project. The coordinator’s relationship with the youngsters and their parents was mostly characterized by passivity. This is clearly apparent in the analysis of the administrative and/or passive coordinator. Different alliance constellations became visible in these presentations. When the coordinator roles were altered in the description, the alliance constellations change. It is a common strategy for clients in human service organizations to try to enter into alliances with professionals involved in their cases and, in so doing, try to alter the situation to their own advantage. The fact that these alliances are often sought by the client indicates, among other things, the client’s will to fight against the situation in which he/she finds him/herself. I believe that this can be seen as something productive rather than problematic.
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| 9. |
- Berg, Martin, 1977-
(författare)
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Självets garderobiär : självreflexiva genuslekar och queer socialpsykologi
- 2008
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Det övergripande syftet med föreliggande studie är tudelat. För det första syftar den till att på teoretisk väg etablera en dialog mellan queerteoretisk och socialpsykologisk teoribildning om aktörer och aktörsskap med utgångspunkt i en kritisk läsning av Judith Butler och George Herbert Mead. För det andra syftar den till att på empirisk väg utveckla och fördjupa denna dialog i syfte att demonstrera och resonera kring de möjligheter som uppstår i spänningen mellan dessa teoretiska perspektiv. På detta sätt är avsikten att föra ett bidrag till såväl den queer- och genusteoretiska debatten som dess socialpsykologiska motsvarighet. Ambitionen är att detta sammantaget kan utgöra ett ramverk i vilket möjligheterna med en queer socialpsykologi skisseras. I jämförelsen mellan dessa teoretiska perspektiv fokuseras på frågan om hur människor antas bli till som aktörer och under vilka villkor och genom vilka processer detta äger rum. I centrum för denna diskussion positioneras relationen mellan deras respektive antagande om struktur och aktör samt hur denna relaterar till och förutsätts vara uppburen genom något slags praktik. För det andra diskuteras individens möjlighet att omförhandla sitt förvärvade aktörsskap och genom vilka processer och praktiker detta eventuellt kan göras möjligt. Avhandlingen är uppdelad i fyra delar. Den inledande delen (del 1: Inledande ord) introducerar studiens övergripande bakgrund, teoretiska position, syfte, material och de metodologiska överväganden som har gjorts under forskningsresans gång. Den andra delen (del 2: Teoretiska interventioner) utvecklar i tre kapitel den diskussion om spänningen mellan queerteori och socialpsykologi som påbörjades i avhandlingens första och inledande kapitel. I ett första kapitel fokuseras på Judith Butler för att ringa in och granska några centrala argument och faktorer i hennes tänkande. I ett andra kapitel diskuteras George Herbert Mead för att, i likhet med föregående kapitel, presentera hans övergripande argument och huvudsakliga tankegångar. Avslutningsvis avrundas avhandlingens andra del med ett kapitel som syftar till att summera och utveckla den spänningsrelation som hittas mellan dessa två teoretiker samtidigt som en diskussion förs om de möjligheter en empirisk utveckling av den teoretiska problematiken skulle kunna bidra med. Den teoretiska spänning som lokaliseras mellan Mead och Butler kretsar i första hand kring deras förståelse av relationen mellan aktör och praktik och med utgångspunkt i denna formuleras arbetsbegreppen transaktör och transpraktik som genomgående används i presentationen av det empiriska materialet. Avhandlingens tredje del (del 3: Empiriska nedslag) är i första hand av empirisk karaktär och är uppdelad i två kapitel. I det första av dessa förs en diskussion om hur de självreflexiva genuslekarna inbegriper formulerandet av ett särskilt transgenus och på vad sätt det är möjligt att förstå iscensättandet av genus som en i första hand självkommunikativ praktik. Gradvis demonstreras hur det går att utläsa en önskan om att iscensätta genus tillsammans med andra människor och därför kretsar det följande kapitlet kring en diskussion om betydelsen av social interaktion för detta iscensättande. Med andra ord går det att utläsa en rörelse från självkommunikation till (önskad) social interaktion och detta är ett tema som tydligt ringar in en stor del av den teoretiska problematik som genomsyrar denna studie. I den fjärde och avslutande delen (del 4: Avslutande reflektioner) knyts i tre kapitel de resonemang som hittills har presenterats och diskuterats ihop. Det inledande kapitlet för en teoretiskt orienterad diskussion om den föregående genomgången av det empiriska materialet. I ett därpå följande kapitel fokuseras på olika aspekter av självreflexiva genuslekar i relation till den klädda kroppen för att visa hur den tidigare presenterade praktik- och aktörsproblematiken är avhängig den klädda kroppens genusprägling. I detta sammanhang visas hur det är möjligt att upprätta en relation mellan självets framväxt, subjektivitet och den klädda kroppen. Avslutningsvis förs ett kortfattat resonemang kring avhandlingens huvudsakliga argumentationslinjer och vilka möjligheter ett tänkande inspirerat av queer socialpsykologi för med sig.
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| 10. |
- Berg, Pernille
(författare)
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The Reluctant Change Agent : Change, Chance and Choice among Teachers, Educational Change in the City
- 2011
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation critically analyses the discourse on educational change. By placing educational change in the context of globalisation and innovation the author argues that the current discourse on educational change is un-nuanced and omits the important perspectives on change. The author has analysed an educational district in Sweden and one of its projects on competence development, named 'Striving for Action Teachers' in the dissertation. The project has involved 75 teachers and both pre-school, primary, secondary and special ed. schools. By interviewing some of the participating teachers and analysing their reflections on the competence development programme the author is able to develop four different types of categories of teachers and their perception on change and teaching. The four categories consist of the change agent, the reformer, the passionate pioneer and the dedicated teachers. These four different types of teachers are placed in the spectrum of top-down initiatives and focus areas encompassing teaching to the school as an educational organisation. By providing this research the author is thus able to elaborate on the research regarding educational change. By analysing the proposed four categories the author critically assesses the way in which top-down change initiatives may fallaciously assume that change can be brought about. The author presents different explanations to why change initiatives may be rejected and argues that when change is represented in a physical manifestation in one teacher supposed to be the vector of change, the teachers expected to assume this role of change end up rejecting this responsibility. In critically discussing the research on educational change and innovation the author situates the discourse on educational change in the growing research and discourse on innovation, especially public and social innovation. The author addresses similar concern when it pertains to innovation as previously purported in relation to educational change. The discussion illustrates the problematic tendency that the ambiguity inhibiting these debates leads to obfuscation. This obfuscation manifests itself in the way in which educational organisations address and respond to these demands. With the four categories of teachers the author argues for a further debate and nuanced perspective on innovation and educational change in order to continuously ascertain and critically assess the why’s, the who’s and the how’s behind each innovation and change. The dissertation is based in a cross-disciplinary field of theories: innovation, globalisation, sociology of education and organisational theories. Methodologically the dissertation is based within qualitative methods: observations, interviews and written materials.
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