| 1. |
- Aksel Jacobsen, Freja, et al.
(author)
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A Role for the Non-Receptor Tyrosine Kinase Abl2/Arg in Experimental Neuroinflammation
- 2018
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In: Journal of Neuroimmune Pharmacology. - New York, NY : Springer-Verlag New York. - 1557-1890 .- 1557-1904. ; 13:2, s. 265-276
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Multiple sclerosis is a neuroinflammatory degenerative disease, caused by activated immune cells infiltrating the CNS. The disease etiology involves both genetic and environmental factors. The mouse genetic locus, Eae27, linked to disease development in the experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) model for multiple sclerosis, was studied in order to identify contributing disease susceptibility factors and potential drug targets for multiple sclerosis. Studies of an Eae27 congenic mouse strain, revealed that genetic variation within Eae27 influences EAE development. The Abl2 gene, encoding the non-receptor tyrosine kinase Arg, is located in the 4,1 megabase pair long Eae27 region. The Arg protein plays an important role in cellular regulation and is, in addition, involved in signaling through the B- and T-cell receptors, important for the autoimmune response. The presence of a single nucleotide polymorphism causing an amino acid change in a near actin-interacting domain of Arg, in addition to altered lymphocyte activation in the congenic mice upon immunization with myelin antigen, makes Abl2/Arg a candidate gene for EAE. Here we demonstrate that the non-synonymous SNP does not change Arg’s binding affinity for F-actin but suggest a role for Abl kinases in CNS inflammation pathogenesis by showing that pharmacological inhibition of Abl kinases ameliorates EAE, but not experimental arthritis. © 2018 The Author(s)
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| 3. |
- Bäckström, Ingela, 1963-, et al.
(author)
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What values are included in Quality Culture? – A theoretical and practical collaboration
- 2016
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In: Building a Culture for Quality, Innovation and Sustainability.
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)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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| 4. |
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| 5. |
- Bäckström, Åsa, 1966-
(author)
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Forty Years of Transformations : Swedish Skateboarding Culture and Organisation
- 2018
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In: Managing Sport in a Changing Europe. ; , s. 285-286
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)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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| 6. |
- Bäckström, Åsa, 1966-, et al.
(author)
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Imagining and Making Material Encounters : Skateboarding, Emplacement, and Spatial Desire
- 2019
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In: Journal of Sport and Social Issues. - : Sage Publications. - 0193-7235 .- 1552-7638. ; 43:2, s. 122-142
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In this article, we draw from and develop existing ideas of spatial desire and emplacement to explore skateboarders? skilful mobility and perceptive competence. By combining findings from Swedish and Danish ethnographic studies, we illustrate how skateboarders imagine and make new material encounters both in urban environments not originally built for skateboarding and in skateparks. These imaginations and makings include memories of previous material encounters and are a part of ongoing social negotiations, but they also have a component of imaginary novelty. Making and imagining are discussed as materialization and formation, which include the idea of active materials and sentient practitioners. Two types of material encounters were imagined and made: transitions and smooth lines. Subsequently, two characteristics of these types of encounters were described: ?kind? and challenging. The processes of imagination and making took a mutual understanding for granted and deeply engaged the body in the ever-changing material environment. We argue that a conceptualization of spatial desire as emplaced and highly imaginable is fruitful for research on skateboarding and other movement cultures where engagements with materials come to the fore.
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| 7. |
- Bäckström, Åsa, 1966-, et al.
(author)
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Knowing As "Känsla" : Accounting For Knowing As An Outcome Of Sensory Emplaced Learning
- 2015
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Within education studies there have been calls for systematic attention to how learning is situated, to the notion of context and to experiential elements of learning. In recent decades theories of situated learning and cognitive learning theories have existed in a critical relationship to each other and by the twenty first century a major debate raged between the two positions (Sfard, 1998; Säljö, 2003, Hodkinson et al 2008). At a more sophisticated level situated learning theory offers an alternative to cognitive learning theories that draw on the root metaphor of acquisition. Instead it understands thinking as embedded in social and material practices and conceptualises learning through the metaphor of participation (Lave & Wenger, 1991).In this context there is an on-going search for new ways to understand the situatedness of learning as well as its experiential qualities. In our recent work we have addressed this need by developing a framework that builds on Lave and Wenger’s ideas of situatedness and Hodkinssons’et. al (2008) call for moving on from the recent debate between cognitive and sociocultural theorists informed by theories of place, perception and the senses. Theories of place, perception and knowledge in human geography and anthropology, offer an ideal route through which to respond to this call. They offer accounts of place that acknowledge the relationship between spatial and temporal process (Massey 2005), and the embodied nature of learning, while advancing the agenda further to suggest that the senses and the environment are central to how we learn (e.g. Ingold 2000, Pink 2009).We call this framework sensory emplaced learning (Fors, Bäckström & Pink, 2013), through which we conceptualize how learning is situated in the dynamics between body– senses – material environments.In this paper we draw from our respective ethnographic research projects on social and cultural informal learning among young people in two very different, albeit Swedish, contexts. Through our field work with people on the one hand publishing and talking about images and texts on a particular website and on the other hand practicing skateboarding, we have come to question the idea of knowledge as acquisition. This mainly cognitive metaphor for learning and knowing applies poorly to the practices of learning and knowing that we have studied. Instead, we argue for a theoretical development around the Swedish term “känsla”, (pronounced shensla). This Swedish word encompasses feeling, sensation, affect, emotion and style and derives from the verb känna – to feel, to sense. Etymologically the word is closely related to one of the Swedish words for knowledge – “kännedom” (Wessén, 1982). Hence, the main objective of this paper is to develop the theoretical thinking that revolve around the Swedish conceptualisation of “känsla” which, we argue, could provide useful for analysing how we know, handle and make meaning of everyday life in and through our sensorial bodies emplaced in material contexts.Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources Used The empirical material analysed in this paper emanates from two different sets of data that was produced in two different research projects with a similar methodological ethnographic approach; sensory ethnography (as developed by Pink 2009/2012). A sensory ethnography approach has the advantage of focusing the experiences of lived space, i.e. the crossroads between people’s bodies, their minds and place. In other words, it may be used to describe and analyse what we have previously labelled sensory emplacement (Fors, Bäckström & Pink, 2013; Pink, 2011). The first research project focused on informal learning processes in women skateboarding contexts mainly including unregulated skateboarding, but also contests, skate camps and a skate tour at indoor and outdoor skateparks. Addressing didactic issues of verbal and non verbal expressions of teaching and learning a sensory ethnography approach made bodily un/knowing apparent. The kinesthetic experience of explosiveness, defined as enforcement and transformation of energy, was remembered and also implicitly imagined as part of movement (Bäckström, 2014). For the purpose of this paper data from the first project predominately consist of written field notes, photographs, as well as interview and video transcripts. During the second project, we spent time with the research participants sharing the same computer screen when they used the Internet to gain an appreciation of how they embed these technologies in the routines and habits of their everyday life (Fors, 2013). We were specifically inspired by the notion of how visual experience is part of the multisensory process of moving through the digital, paying attention to “the ways the body is engaged in imagining and remembering” the localities and persons that Internet content represent and there by “move beyond the notion of ‘looking at’ images on a screen” (Pink, 2012:122). The data produced for the analysis presented in this paper consist of interview transcripts, photographs and entries/comments from the photo diaries, and video-recorded interviews during the sessions when the participants guided us through their use of these digital diaries.Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or Findings Our analysis made clear that it is possible to deepen our understanding of how learning becomes situated in human practice through identifying alternative and multisensory categories of routes to knowing. In this research, the research participants described their learning experiences through qualities deeply embedded in embodied and emplaced practices. Through a sensory ethnographic approach we identified one specific quality that highlights both embodied and emplaced aspects of learning and may be used to move further sensory emplaced implications on theories of situated learning. We call this quality “känsla”. As mentioned above, this Swedish word includes multiple meanings where feeling, sensation, affect, emotion and style are the most important. Moreover, our analysis shows that “känsla” is a concept that is constituted of multiple aspects of knowing. It engages the senses, it unfolds in the interface between body and the material environment, it engages the body through affect, and it is situated within, and thereby characterized by, distinct social and cultural settings. It is also a concept that becomes evident in both material and digital contexts, and both embodied, emplaced and virtual practices.References Ingold, Tim. 2000. The Perception of the Environment: Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill. London: Routledge. Lave, Jean and Wenger, Etienne. 1991. Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Marchand, Trevor. 2007. “Crafting Knowledge: The Role of ‘Parsing and Production of Skill-Based Knowledge among Masons.” In: M. Harris (ed.), Ways of Knowing: New Approaches in the Anthropology of Knowledge and Learning. New York: Berghahn Books. Pink, Sarah. 2009. Doing Sensory Ethnography. London: Sage.Intent of Publication This is an original paper which will be submitted to the Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research.
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| 8. |
- Bäckström, Åsa, 1966-
(author)
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Känsla och kroppsligt kunnade inom idrott / "Känsla" and bodily knowing in sports
- 2015
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In: In the flow.. - Linköping.
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Inom idrott är känsla något en har eller inte. Känsla sätts ofta som förled till idrottsliga attiraljer eller idrottsliga göranden. Bollkänsla innebär en förmåga att hantera bollar på ett skickligt sätt och matchkänsla innebär att ha en helhetssyn på matchen. Till skillnad mot teknik, som kan övas upp, är känsla en förmåga som omtalas termer av kroppslig kompetens som funnits med hela livet. Känsla har också en estetisk dimension. I detta paper diskuteras idrottens känsla i relation till fenomenologisk teori. Genom empiriska exempel från etnografiska studier om idrott, synliggörs hur känslan och dess olika dimensioner kan sägas vara betydelsefulla komponenter i konstruktionen av kunnande.
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| 10. |
- Bäckström, Åsa, 1966-
(author)
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På snowboard genom teoridjungeln : recension av Snowboarding Bodies in Theory and Practice / Holly Thorpe
- 2015
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In: Idrottsforum.org/Nordic sport science forum. - 1652-7224. ; :12 maj
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Review (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Den här boken är skriven med avgångsstudenter i åtanke. Boken ska enligt författaren locka till användande av teorier och till tänkande med hjälp av teorier. Den ska presentera teorier på ett tillgängligt sätt. Teorierna i fråga är sociologiska och angränsande till detta akademiska fält. Varje kapitel i boken tar en eller två teorier som utgångspunkt för att belysa snowboard. Studenter skulle då kunna omsätta dessa exemplifierande kapitel och inspireras till att använda teorierna i sina egna arbeten som inte nödvändigtvis behöver handla om just snowboard. Kapitlen är tematiska och handlar till exempel om genus och kropp, om representationer i medier, och om makt och politik.
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