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- Bäckström, Ingela, 1963-, et al.
(författare)
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What values are included in Quality Culture? – A theoretical and practical collaboration
- 2016
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Ingår i: Building a Culture for Quality, Innovation and Sustainability.
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to describe a collaboration between academia and practitioners where the aim was reach agreement on the Quality Culture content.Methodology/approach – A project with the aim to measure and develop Quality Culture started in 2015. The overall aim of the project was to create new knowledge and insights about 1) what quality culture is, 2) what quality culture consists of, 3) how quality culture can be measured and 4) how it can be developed. In this paper the work to meet the first and second aim and the results of that work are presented.Findings – A framework for quality culture consisting of supportive and obstructive behaviours developed in collaboration between academia and practitioners. The paper includes a description of how practitioners and researchers can work together to develop a shared set of values.
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| 2. |
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| 3. |
- Bäckström, Åsa, 1966-
(författare)
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Aesthetic learning processes – feelings and sensations of skate- and snowboarding
- 2008
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Ingår i: Designs for learning. ; , s. 1-
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Skateboarding and snowboarding are practices loaded with symbolic expressions. They are also activities profoundly understood as physical. This paper will investigate the narrated impressions of these activities – in other words the expressions of impressions. Skateboarding and snowboarding are discussed as aesthetic learning processes, which to a large extent are both bodily and informal. The paper builds on ethnographic fieldwork and cultural analysis. Kirsten Drotner’s theory of aesthetic practices is used as a starting point. Aesthetic practices/production works on three levels: the individual, the social and the cultural. The individual level is characterised in terms of emotional intensity and corporality. The sensation is described as so encompassing that it becomes ones life, ones identity. The body is acutely present in these descriptions. It is the body that experiences, and it is there that the sensation of riding comes alive.
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| 4. |
- Bäckström, Åsa, 1966-
(författare)
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Balancing the senses : Experiences of learning in indoor skateboarding
- 2010
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Ingår i: Designs for learning.
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Indoor skate parks are purpose built environments for physical activity and bodies in motion. These settings are designed places of learning in both social and material respects. Skate parks in Sweden are usually large halls in buildings previously used for industries, now filled with wooden and sometimes concrete constructions. The solid and rough material consolidates the environment as hard and durable. Ceilings are most often high which influence the acoustics. The sound level is elevated from the noise of board riding on the wooden constructions, besides music from loud speakers adds to the aural experience. In spite of, or thanks to, the strident soundscape it is common by skateboarders to use a personal music device such as an mp3-player or the equivalent when skateboarding. The purpose of this paper is to discuss sensory and affective learning processes in relation to indoor skateboarding. In focus is the crossroads between senses, affect, place and learning. Empirical results are drawn from an ongoing ethnographic study on predominantly female skateboarding, embodied knowledge and board sport culture. The empirical material consists of field notes (in written, auditory and visual form), interviews and examples from media such as videos, magazines and internet pages. The aural sense and its capacity to include and exclude other sensory experiences, mainly balance, is examined and associated with affective incitement. Sharing and non-sharing spaces and experiences are discussed. The paper draws theoretically in large from the anthropological research on the senses in culture, and the psychology of affect. In addition the paper pays particular interest to the idea of “the risk of experience that is learning” (Ellsworth 2005).
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| 5. |
- Bäckström, Åsa, 1966-, et al.
(författare)
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Dealing with Douglas' perspective on doping : Sharp lines and borderlands
- 2022
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Ingår i: Book of abstracts: 2022 EASS & ISSAWORLD CONGRESS OF SOCIOLOGY OF SPORT. ; , s. 204-
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- This presentation critically explores elite athletes’ accounts on the anti-doping system and how ideas of purity and danger shape their experiences and practices within it. Theoretically, we draw from Mary Douglas’ influential ideas on purity and danger. These ideas encompass the idea that separating dirtiness from cleanliness provides a way to systematically create and maintain symbolic, societal and cultural order. Data from 13 qualitative interviews with elite athletes in three different sports dispersed over five geographical continents was analysed using a reflexive thematic analysis. The analysis shows a strict conviction of the importance to distinguish the pure from the impure, in our study played out as practices and experiences of assurance, intimidation and shaming. The danger of breaching the sharp line between purity and danger had to be handled by the individual athletes through taking precise measures to avoid pollution. The elite athletes’ bodies become the places where boundaries can be built, and sharp limits arise. A conclusion is that the athletes have much to gain from becoming ‘guardians of purity’. We caution, however, that such positioning implicates symbolic values on cleanliness that may simultaneously infer others’ dirtiness.
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| 6. |
- Bäckström, Åsa, 1966-
(författare)
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Dialogues of Dominance and Division : Skaters and Skater Girls Juxtaposing Gender
- 2010
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Ingår i: Centers and Peripheries in Sport.
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Skateboarding is known as a predominately male activity; however, there are female skateboarders and they are growing in number internationally. The purpose of this paper is to analyse how female gender and feminist issues appear and are negotiated by female skateboarders in ethnographically documented dialogues in a local setting. The dialogues are historically, socially and culturally contextualised invoking mediated discourses on female skateboarding. My assumption is that mediated discourses interact with local practice in an intricate way. This paper will hopefully shed some light on this interaction as well as works on femininity (and masculinity) in skateboarding and other board sports. In addition how female attendance is promoted. Theoretically, the paper draws on post structurally influenced cultural studies and theories of gender. The paper discusses practices of gender division and images of girls and women in board sports and their media from a feminist perspective. In this context, inviting pain as a girl has been interpreted as a way of challenging unappreciated forms of femininity. Accidents and falls are portrayed in niche media, both in print and television programmes, as evidence of courage and authenticity. However, there are alternatives to the aggressive femininity in recent media forms, such as blogs and personal web pages. But replacing one alternative of femininity with another raises new questions. The ambiguities of discourses put girls and women in a position where they are empowered subjects using their own micro-media, and, at the same time, tend to preserve ‘the separate-and-different-cultures model’ when it comes to gender.
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| 7. |
- Bäckström, Åsa, 1966-
(författare)
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Forty Years of Transformations : Swedish Skateboarding Culture and Organisation
- 2018
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Ingår i: Managing Sport in a Changing Europe. ; , s. 285-286
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Forty Years of Transformations - Swedish Skateboarding Culture and OrganisationAimThe aim of this presentation is to sum up findings from ethnographic and historic datacollected for a period of twenty years in order to outline the transformations of skateboardingculture and organisation in Sweden from the 1970’s to present day.Theoretical Background and Literature ReviewSkateboarding has a celebrated subversive past claiming heritage from Californian surferssneaking into emptied backyard swimming pools during summer draught. The (hi)story hasbeen commemorated through the classic movie Dogtown and the Z-boys. Ever since, socialresistance has been part and parcel of skateboarding’s cultural image (Borden, 2001).Although stemming from subcultural and underground practices, skateboarding has nowreached worldwide audiences through X-games. In June this year, the sport’s firstinternational conference titled Pushing boarders was held in London. It gathered academicscholars, skateboarders and engaged people from the industry. Moreover, in 2020,skateboarding will be launched as a new sport in the Olympic Games. Skateboarders onceopposing the sport industry and nine-five-jobs have transformed from core practitioners toconsumers (Dinces, 2011; Dupont, 2014; Lombard, 2010). This depicts a transformation fromsubculture to a professionalised sport, at least for some and in some places. In Sweden,parallel to these trends, skateboarding contrastingly formed a national federation under theNational Sports Confederation (RF) for the first time 2013.Research Design and Data AnalysisThrough four ethnographic projects extending over two decades, and related historicalmaterial, this presentation draws from participant observation and multiple empiricalmaterials. Ethnography has the potential to capture “inside” views of everyday life (Atkinson,2014). The research participants are diverse in terms of age, gender and positions in the fieldetc. The data includes interviews, photographs and various media in both printed and digitalfrom. It contains both commercial and non-commercial content and spans from the late1970’s until present day. The semi-structured interviews follow thematically structured guidesand were conducted face-to-face with snowball samples. For this presentation Stamm andLamprecht’s (1998) model for describing the life cycle of trend sports is used as a startingpoint for a thematic content analysis over time. The model indicates the interrelation oftechnological innovation, marketing and socio-cultural factors.Findings and DiscussionEvery stage in Stamm and Lamprecht’s (1998) model is characterized by different degrees ofcommercialisation, as well as diverse types of organisation and various degrees ofrecognition. The trend sports are also pursued by different groups; in the early stages pioneersand further on by young people in subcultures, followed by athletes in the fourth stage toanybody in the final stage. Confrontation against the established sport organisations andglorification of a presumed authentic past is part of the third stage. This is followed byfashion in mainstream culture as part of the fourth stage.298It is argued that skateboarding in Sweden to some extent has followed this model. Numerousexamples point to the fourth stage characterized by maturation and diffusion. For instance it ispossible for practitioners to make a living from skateboarding in various ways; skateboardingis popular in mass media; goods are mass produces and skateboarding has been integrated incertain school forms. In short, processes of commercialisation and professionalization arepresent.The straight forward processes proposed in the model are however complicated byskateboarding in Sweden since 2013 being formally organized though the National SportsConfederation. Through this organisation some skateboarders are now part and parcel ofmainstream sports, however their subcultural ideas persist, not least when it comes toleadership and coaching. This is paradoxically partly challenging the National SportsConfederation in that funding systems are urged to be re-negotiated. Simultaneously, theSwedish skateboarding association opens up activities for inclusion and equality urged by theNational Sports Confederation.Conclusion and ImplicationsThe presentation contributes with new empirical findings on the socio-cultural developmentof skateboarding in Sweden and beyond, which confirms but also complicates the straightforward model of the life cycle of trend sports. Skateboarding has gone from innovativephysical activity recognised by few, to highly commercialised and familiar, but it is also anational association with no commercial profit promoting democratic values.ReferencesAtkinson, P. (2014). For Ethnography. London: Sage.Borden, I. (2001). Skateboarding, Space and the City: Architecture and the Body. New York: Berg.Dinces, S. (2011). ‘Flexible Opposition’: Skateboarding Subcultures under the Rubric of LateCapitalism. The International Journal of the History of Sport, 28(11), 1512-1535.Dupont, T. (2014). From Core to Consumer: The Informal Hierarchy of the Skateboard Scene. Journalof Contemporary Ethnography, 43(5), 556-581.Lombard, K. (2010). Skate and create/skate and destroy: The commercial and governmentalincorporation of skateboarding. Continuum: Journal Of Media & Cultural Studies, 24(4),475-488.Stamm, H-P. & Lamprecht, B. (1998) The life cycle of trend sports. In: C. Jaccoud & Y. Pedrazzini(Eds) Glisser dans la ville: les politiques sportives a` l’e’preuve des sports de rue[Gliding in the street: sporting politics related to street sports], Acts from the Neuchâtel.Colloquium of the 18th and 19th Septembre 1997 (Neuchâtel, Editions CIES).
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| 8. |
- Bäckström, Åsa, 1966-
(författare)
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Good ethnography smells bad : On aesthetic experience in qualitative research
- 2008
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Ingår i: Sveriges antropologförbunds årliga konferens (SANT).
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Aesthetic learning processes are being notified in current Swedish pedagogical research. The philosophical term aesthetics is used in multiple modes, some of them borrowing an agenda from the studies of fine art, some more with inspiration from cultural studies and popular culture. In this emerging field both ethnography and every-day-aesthetics are in focus. Despite new ways of doing ethnography the results still tend to look (!) like traditional ethnography. Field-notes saturated with sensuous and stinking data; e.g. moist socks, sweaty t-shirts and car fumes, still tend to depend upon written texts and photography as scientific proof. Moreover ethnography is still judged against a positivistic framework drawing from natural science. Is a change required? And in that case, can the future of visual anthropology challenge this hegemonic scientific paradigm?
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| 9. |
- Bäckström, Åsa, 1966-
(författare)
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Kinaesthetic detours in ethnographic representation
- 2011
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- In 1989 the American anthropologist Paul Stoller argued in favour of taking detours in his now classic The taste of ethnographic things, subtitled the senses in anthropology. Detours, he argued, may be theoretical, or artistic. One way is to strive for what he calls “radical empiricism”. This demands a different kind of text (or film), where the senses are given greater prominence. He writes: “This kind of respect directs writers and filmmakers onto a radically empirical detour along which we can achieve the most simple yet most allusive goal of ethnography: to give our readers or viewers a sense of what it is like to live in other worlds, a taste of ethnographic things” (1989: 156). Recently, a “sensory revolution” (Howes, 2005) has fuelled and interest in perception and the senses. This paper draws on research with a sensory ethnography (Pink, 2009) approach. It focuses the un/knowing body and deals with epistemological issues related to collecting and representing sensory ethnographic material. It is argued that scientific texts (in a wide sense) need richer sensory “data” in order to more fully understand learning and knowing in a contemporary world. Moreover, the paper problematizes the prevalent logocentrism in society.
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| 10. |
- Bäckström, Åsa, 1966-
(författare)
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Knowing and teaching explosiveness in skateboarding : Remembrance and expressions of kinaesthetic experience
- 2011
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- In social sciences and humanities 'the body' is accentuated to the extent that we may even talk about a ‘corporeal turn’. Through ethnographic research on skateboarding I explore the particular corporeal practice of energy transformation and the verbal, visual and bodily expression of what can be labeled explosiveness.Explicitly, I use the digital audio-visual empirical material to investigate how kinaesthetic knowing is expressed and taught. The paper adds theoretically and empirically to recent arguments of a shift from embodiment to emplacement. By way of conclusion, a more elaborate focus on the sensory experiences is suggested to better understand the intersections of mind, body, place and learning.
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