| 1. |
- Rosengren, Anna
(författare)
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Åldrandet och språket : en språkhistorisk analys av hög ålder och åldrande i Sverige cirka 1875–1975
- 2011
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis analyses how old age and ageing were manifested and understood in Sweden from approximately 1875 to 1975. It thus aims to provide historical background to current debate about for instance the retirement age and how to best care for the elderly. Encyclopaedia entries from both the beginning and the end of this period describe ageing as a medical process of physical decline. Since much current research also uses such a medical perspective on ageing, it is tempting to conclude that ageing always was (and is) seen as a medico-biological phenomenon of physical decline. But has this medical perspective always dominated? The three sources studied in this thesis show that this was not always the case. The sources were birthday notices for women and men aged sixty or more, application letters to private old-age homes and, lastly, legislative material related to reforms for elderly people. Rather than establishing certain a priori criteria before conducting the empirical analyses – methods often used in previous historical research – I approached old age and ageing indirectly by examining related expressions. The theoretical perspective of the thesis builds on the work of, among others, German historian Reinhart Koselleck and British historian Quentin Skinner. The approach relies on the assumption of a mutual relationship between language and reality, and on the agency of individuals. I call this perspective “linguistic-historical research” (“språkhistorisk forskning”) to underline its reliance on both language and historical context. The analyses show that old age and ageing tended to be linked to the body and to chronology, alternating and combining the two, with no apparent evolution in a specific direction. By contrast, it is possible to discern a trend from societal to more individual manifestations of old age and ageing. Furthermore, the sources more than once exhibit a correspondence between the manifestations of old age and ageing, and contemporary ideas and events. This thesis therefore suggests that old age and ageing have not had a single well-defined essence at any point in time. Rather, their understanding and manifestations have changed with time, situation and person. Returning to my initial question, the thesis shows that medical perspectives on ageing were clearly distinguishable only towards the 1950s. Finally, the sources shed light on two common hypotheses: that women were perceived to age earlier than men, and that retirement could be seen as a form of “social ageing”. The three sources do not support either hypothesis.
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| 2. |
- Söderholm Werkö, Sophie, 1972-
(författare)
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Patient Patients? : Achieving Patient Empowerment through active participation, increased knowledge and organisation
- 2008
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This study examines patient empowerment in two local diabetes branch organisations in Sweden. In particular, the study focuses on the organisations’ membership, participation and influence on external actors. The overall aim of this thesis is to explore patient empowerment in order to discern what influence patient organisations and individual members can have and how they use it. This study is based on both quantitative and qualitative empirical data. Interviews with active members from two local diabetes organisations were conducted and a survey was carried out to identify the members’ thoughts and feelings about their membership, motivations, participation and influence, as well as to examine their local organisation, its work and influence. The findings form an overall picture of how members experience their organisation, memberships and empowerment. Characteristics of the two local patient branch organisations were identified and the leaders were found to be intensely dedicated people. The interviews, survey and participant observations revealed the members’ opinions about their organisation, their reasons for joining, their involvement, participation and influence, as well as their understanding of the local organisation and the Swedish Diabetic Association (SDA) and their possibility to empower them. Without organisations, members felt that they could not have a significant influence on external actors and events.
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| 3. |
- Edberg, Hélène, 1952-
(författare)
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Kreativt skrivande för kritiskt tänkande : En textanalytisk fallstudie av studenters arbete med kritisk metareflektion
- 2015
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- I högskolesammanhang finns en tendens att betrakta fantasi och känsla som hinder för kritiskt tänkande. I denna studie, som har en högskoledidaktisk utgångspunkt, prövas tvärt om att se subjektivitet som resurs. Studien prövar lärande genom skrivande. Den prövar också hur man kan analysera den skrivna texten för att se vilka läranderesultat som följt avskrivandet. Närmare bestämt är det kreativt skrivande som metod för att öva kritiskt tänkande som undersöks. På en högskolekurs i kreativt skrivande får studenter i uppgift att skriva berättelser utifrån ett moraliskt dilemma. Berättelserna blir underlag för diskussioner och analyser under seminarier. Till sist sammanfattar studenterna sina tankar och iakttagelser i samband med övningen i en reflektionstext. Dessa texter utgör huvudmaterialet för studiens textanalytiska ansats.För att undersöka lärandet genom skrivande har aktivitetsteori, en organisationsteori på sociokulturell grund, använts som en textanalytisk modell. Analysresultaten visar att kritiskt tänkande blir olika i de närmare femtio texterna som undersökts, men att det följer vissa mönster som är beroende av vad skribenterna vill med sitt skrivande och vilka de blir när de skriver, alltså vilka skribentidentiteter som intresserar dem.
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| 4. |
- Jukkala, Tanya, 1981-
(författare)
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Suicide in Russia : A macro-sociological study
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This work constitutes a macro-sociological study of suicide. The empirical focus is on suicide mortality in Russia, which is among the highest in the world and has, moreover, developed in a dramatic manner over the second half of the 20th century. Suicide mortality in contemporary Russia is here placed within the context of development over a longer time period through empirical studies on 1) the general and sex- and age-specific developments in suicide over the period 1870–2007, 2) underlying dynamics of Russian suicide mortality 1956–2005 pertaining to differences between age groups, time periods, and particular generations and 3) the continuity in the aggregate-level relationship between heavy alcohol consumption and suicide mortality from late Tsarist period to post-World War II Russia. In addition, a fourth study explores an alternative to Émile Durkheim’s dominating macro-sociological perspective on suicide by making use of Niklas Luhmann’s theory of social systems. With the help of Luhmann’s macro-sociological perspective it is possible to consider suicide and its causes also in terms of processes at the individual level (i.e. at the level of psychic systems) in a manner that contrasts with the ‘holistic’ perspective of Durkheim. The results of the empirical studies show that Russian suicide mortality, despite its exceptionally high level and dramatic changes in the contemporary period, shares many similarities with the patterns seen in Western countries when examined over a longer time period. Societal modernization in particular seems to have contributed to the increased rate of suicide in Russia in a manner similar to what happened earlier in Western Europe. In addition, the positive relationship between heavy alcohol consumption and suicide mortality proved to be remarkably stable across the past one and a half centuries. These results were interpreted using the Luhmannian perspective on suicide developed in this work.
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| 5. |
- Jurkane-Hobein, Iveta, 1984-
(författare)
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I Imagine You Here Now : Relationship Maintenance Strategies in Long-Distance Intimate Relationships
- 2015
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Today, individuals can relatively easily meet and communicate with each other over great distances due to increased mobility and advances in communication technology. This also allows intimate relationships to be maintained over large geographical distances. Despite these developments, long-distance relationships (LDRs), i.e. intimate relationships maintained over geographical distance, remain understudied. The present thesis aims to fill this knowledge gap and investigates how intimate partners who live so far away from each other that they cannot meet every day make their relationship ongoing beyond face-to-face interaction.Theoretically, this study departs from a symbolic interactionist viewpoint that invites us to study phenomena from the actor’s perspective. Conceptually, the thesis builds on the recent development in sociology of intimate lives that sees intimacy as a relational quality that has to be worked on to be sustained, and that focuses on the practices that make a relationship a relationship. Empirically, the thesis is based upon 19 in-depth interviews with individuals from Latvia with long-distance relationship experience.The thesis consists of four articles. Article I studies the context in which LDRs in Latvia are maintained, focusing on the normative constraints that complicate LDR maintenance. Article II analyses how intimacy is practiced over geographical distance. Article III examines how long-distance partners manage the experience of the time they are together and the time they are geographically apart. Article IV explores the aspect of idealization in LDRs. Overall, the thesis argues for the critical role of imagination in relationship maintenance. The relationship maintenance strategies identified within the articles are imagination-based mediated communication (creating sensual/embodied intimacy, emotional intimacy, daily intimacy and imagined individual intimacy); time-work strategies that enable long-distance partners to deal with the spatiotemporal borders of the time together and the time apart; and creating bi-directional idealization. The thesis is also one of the few works in the field of intimate lives in Eastern Europe and analyses the normative complications that long-distance partners face in their relationship maintenance in Latvia.
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| 6. |
- McWilliams, Anna, 1975-
(författare)
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An Archaeology of the Iron Curtain : Material and Metaphor
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The Iron Curtain was seen as the divider between East and West in Cold War Europe. The term is closely connected to the Cold War and expressions such as ‘behind the Iron Curtain’ or ‘after the fall of the Iron Curtain’ are common within historical discussions in the second half of the twentieth century. Even if the term was used regularly as a metaphor there was also a material side with a series of highly militarised borders running throughout Europe. The metaphor and the material borders developed together and individually, sometimes intertwined and sometimes separate.In my research I have carried out two fieldwork studies at sites that can be considered part of the former Iron Curtain. The first study area is located between Italy and Slovenia (formerly Yugoslavia) in which the division between the two towns of Nova Gorica on the Slovenian side and Gorizia on the Italian side was investigated. The second study area is located on the border between Austria and Czech Republic (formerly Czechoslovakia) within two national parks. A smaller study was also carried out in Berlin as the Berlin Wall is considered of major importance in the context of the Iron Curtain. This research has resulted in large quantities of sources and information and a constant need to re-evaluate the methods used within an archaeology of a more recent past.This thesis falls within what is usually referred to as contemporary archaeology, a fairly young sub-discipline of archaeology. Few large research projects have so far been published, and methods have been described as still somewhat experimental. Through my fieldwork it has been possible to acknowledge and highlight the problems and opportunities within contemporary archaeology. It has become clear how the materials stretch both through time and place demonstrating the complex process of how the material that archaeologists investigate can be created. The material of the Iron Curtain, is also well worth studying in its own right.
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| 7. |
- Wolrath Söderberg, Maria
(författare)
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Topos som meningsskapare : Retorikens topiska perspektiv på tänkande och lärande geonom argumentation
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- De flesta teorier om meningsskapande som är moderna inom ramen för den högskolepedagogiska diskursen i Sverige idag utgår från en perspektivisk kunskapssyn. Det kan emellertid vara svårt att realisera en didaktik som tar många synsätt på allvar i klassrummet utan att landa i hållningslös relativism. Det är detta övergripande problem som motiverar denna avhandling som anknyter till den retoriska toposläran. Den utvecklades som en kognitiv verktygslåda för tänkande och argumentation i problematiska, föränderliga och mångfacetterade frågor. Den byggde på antagandet att en fråga skulle kunna hanteras genom att teman, skäl och resonemangssätt som fungerat tidigare i liknande frågor skulle kunna ställas mot varandra i debatt och på så vis erbjuda en mångsidig perspektivprövning. Det finns skäl att anta att den därför också skulle kunna vara värd att pröva i arbetet med att utveckla en högskolepedagogik för problematisk kunskap och för en dynamisk värld. För att en sådan didaktik ska vara intressant bör den emellertid vara förankrad i en genomtänkt teori om meningsskapande. Det mer konkreta syftet med avhandlingen är därför att undersöka förutsättningarna för en sådan teori. Frågan som ställs är: Hur kan vi förstå meningsskapande om vi ser det genom toposbegreppets lins? Utifrån en undersökning av toposlärans framväxt och historiska kontext och en rekonstruktion av dess bakomliggande kunskapsteori föreslås en utvecklad toposmodell. Denna används sedan för att komplettera och vidareutveckla ett sociokulturellt och dialogiskt synsätt på meningsskapande, inspirerat av Bachtin. Till sist prövas dessa tankar som utgångspunkter för design av högskoleundervisning i seminarieform.
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| 8. |
- Huss, Markus, 1981-
(författare)
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Motståndets akustik : Språk och (o)ljud hos Peter Weiss 1946–1960
- 2014
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This study explores how language is thematized in a selection of literary texts written in Swedish and German by Peter Weiss between 1946 and 1960. The textual interpretations seek to establish how Weiss’s literary work forms a multifaceted reflection on language and its cultural, historical and material preconditions. The various literary conceptualizations of language in Weiss’s texts are shown to be intimately linked to historical processes, where early postwar Germany plays a crucial role as a contextual framework. The study demonstrates how the texts explore an acoustic dimension of language, where non-articulatory sounds and noises oscillate between two poles: they either pose a threat to the narrator, or form a promise of a future emancipatory linguistic expression beyond a territorializing and violent language. Furthermore, the study argues that the sounds and noises permeating Weiss’s literary work form a soundtrack of past violence haunting the present. Finally, this soundtrack is shown to undermine a German postwar literary discourse that postulates a historical break after the Second World War (Stunde Null) as well as a new German literary language cleansed of Nazi contamination (Kahlschlag).The study draws its theoretical framework mainly from research concerned with mono- and multilingualism in literature, as well as from intermedial studies examining the interaction between literary texts and other artistic media such as the visual arts and music.The material examined in the study consists of six short stories in Swedish published between 1946 and 1953 in the literary journals 40-tal, Prisma and All världens berättare; the prose manuscript “Der Vogelfreie” (1947), later published as Der Fremde. Erzählung (1980); as well as the “micro novel” Der Schatten des Körpers des Kutschers (1960). Aside from these literary texts, Weiss’s documentary film Enligt lag (1957) and his feature film Hägringen (1959) are also analyzed.
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| 9. |
- Aasmundsen, Hans Geir, 1967-
(författare)
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Pentecostalism, Globalisation and Society in Contemporary Argentina
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In Argentina, Pentecostalism had a breakthrough in the early 1980s, and today more than 10 per cent of the population are Pentecostals. The revival coincided with a socio-political transformation of Argentinean society. After half a century of dictatorships and Peronism, democracy was restored, and structural changes paved the way for a certain “autonomisation” of politics, law, economy, science and religion. The "new" form of society that developed resembles what in this study is called a Western model, which to a large degree is currently being diffused on a global scale. This work examines the new religious sphere and how Pentecostals relate to society at large, and the political and judicial sphere in particular.Social systems theory and an idea of communication as constitutive of social spheres, such as religious, political and judicial ones, form the theoretical foundation for the study. Methods that have been used are fieldwork, interviews and analyses of written material. It is concluded that evangelisation and transformation are of major concern to Pentecostals in contemporary Argentina and that this follows a global trend. Evangelisation has always been important to, even a hallmark of, Pentecostalism. What has become as important is the urge for transformation, of the individual, the family and society. This leads to increased socio-political engagement. However, Pentecostals do not have a “fixed” idea of how society should be organised, i.e., they do not yet have a full-fledged political theology, a public theology or what could be called a Pentecostal ideology. This is mainly because they experience a lack of “compatibility” between the Pentecostal and the political communication. Their approaches to socio-political concerns seem to be based on an understanding of certain “values” as the fundamental building block of society.
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| 10. |
- Aidukaite, Jolanta
(författare)
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The Emergence of the Post-Socialist Welfare State - The Case of the Baltic States : Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania
- 2004
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation takes a step towards providing a better understanding of post-socialist welfare state development from a theoretical as well as an empirical perspective. The overall analytical goal of this thesis has been to critically assess the development of social policies in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania using them as illustrative examples of post-socialist welfare state development in the light of the theories, approaches and typologies that have been developed to study affluent capitalist democracies. The four studies included in this dissertation aspire to a common aim in a number of specific ways.The first study tries to place the ideal-typical welfare state models of the Baltic States within the well-known welfare state typologies. At the same time, it provides a rich overview of the main social security institutions in the three countries by comparing them with each other and with the previous structures of the Soviet period. It examines the social insurance institutions of the Baltic States (old-age pensions, unemployment insurance, short-term benefits, sickness, maternity and parental insurance and family benefits) with respect to conditions of eligibility, replacement rates, financing and contributions. The findings of this study indicate that the Latvian social security system can generally be labelled as a mix of the basic security and corporatist models. The Estonian social security system can generally also be characterised as a mix of the basic security and corporatist models, even if there are some weak elements of the targeted model in it. It appears that the institutional changes developing in the social security system of Lithuania have led to a combination of the basic security and targeted models of the welfare state. Nevertheless, as the example of the three Baltic States shows, there is diversity in how these countries solve problems within the field of social policy. In studying the social security schemes in detail, some common features were found that could be attributed to all three countries. Therefore, the critical analysis of the main social security institutions of the Baltic States in this study gave strong supporting evidence in favour of identifying the post-socialist regime type that is already gaining acceptance within comparative welfare state research.Study Two compares the system of social maintenance and insurance in the Soviet Union, which was in force in the three Baltic countries before their independence, with the currently existing social security systems. The aim of the essay is to highlight the forces that have influenced the transformation of the social policy from its former highly universal, albeit authoritarian, form, to the less universal, social insurance-based systems of present-day Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. This study demonstrates that the welfare–economy nexus is not the only important factor in the development of social programs. The results of this analysis revealed that people's attitudes towards distributive justice and the developmental level of civil society also play an important part in shaping social policies. The shift to individualism in people’s mentality and the decline of the labour movement, or, to be more precise, the decline in trade union membership and influence, does nothing to promote the development of social rights in the Baltic countries and hinders the expansion of social policies. The legacy of the past has been another important factor in shaping social programs. It can be concluded that social policy should be studied as if embedded not only in the welfare-economy nexus, but also in the societal, historical and cultural nexus of a given society. Study Three discusses the views of the state elites on family policy within a wider theoretical setting covering family policy and social policy in a broader sense and attempts to expand this analytical framework to include other post-socialist countries. The aim of this essay is to explore the various views of the state elites in the Baltics concerning family policy and, in particular, family benefits as one of the possible explanations for the observed policy differences. The qualitative analyses indicate that the Baltic States differ significantly with regard to the motives behind their family policies. Lithuanian decision-makers seek to reduce poverty among families with children and enhance the parents’ responsibility for bringing up their children. Latvian policy-makers act so as to increase the birth rate and create equal opportunities for children from all families. Estonian policy-makers seek to create equal opportunities for all children and the desire to enhance gender equality is more visible in the case of Estonia in comparison with the other two countries. It is strongly arguable that there is a link between the underlying motives and the kinds of family benefits in a given country. This study, thus, indicates how intimately the attitudes of the state bureaucrats, policy-makers, political elite and researchers shape social policy. It confirms that family policy is a product of the prevailing ideology within a country, while the potential influence of globalisation and Europeanisation is detectable too. The final essay takes into account the opinions of welfare users and examines the performances of the institutionalised family benefits by relying on the recipients’ opinions regarding these benefits. The opinions of the populations as a whole regarding government efforts to help families are compared with those of the welfare users. Various family benefits are evaluated according to the recipients' satisfaction with those benefits as well as the contemporaneous levels of subjective satisfaction with the welfare programs related to the absolute level of expenditure on each program. The findings of this paper indicate that, in Latvia, people experience a lower level of success regarding state-run family insurance institutions, as compared to those in Lithuania and Estonia. This is deemed to be because the cash benefits for families and children in Latvia are, on average, seen as marginally influencing the overall financial situation of the families concerned. In Lithuania and Estonia, the overwhelming majority think that the family benefit systems improve the financial situation of families. It appears that recipients evaluated universal family benefits as less positive than targeted benefits. Some universal benefits negatively influenced the level of general satisfaction with the family benefits system provided in the countries being researched. This study puts forward a discussion about whether universalism is always more legitimate than targeting. In transitional economies, in which resources are highly constrained, some forms of universal benefits could turn out to be very expensive in relative terms, without being seen as useful or legitimate forms of help to families. In sum, by closely examining the different aspects of social policy, this dissertation goes beyond the over-generalisation of Eastern European welfare state development and, instead, takes a more detailed look at what is really going on in these countries through the examples of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. In addition, another important contribution made by this study is that it revives ‘western’ theoretical knowledge through ‘eastern’ empirical evidence and provides the opportunity to expand the theoretical framework for post-socialist societies.
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