1.
Eriksson, Karl
(författare)
Elusive Relations : A Phenomenology of Interpersonal Understanding in Social Work
2023
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
This thesis aims to explore how phenomenological philosophy may contribute to the conception of interpersonal understanding in the context of social work practice. The thesis consists of an extended introduction and four original papers, investigating modalities of interpersonal understanding in relation to three different subjects, namely empathy, stigmatization, and peer-support. The thesis sets out from the position that the phenomenology of interpersonal understanding sets up an ambiguity problematizing the notion that interpersonal understanding can be approached objectively, and as a tool or goal for the professional social worker. According to phenomenological thought, interpersonal understanding is disclosed as already being there in our relationships to other people when we turn to reflect on and describe these relationships. Whereas this insight presents a challenge to the course of applying phenomenology in social work research, there is also evidence in the phenomenological literature for the view that the phenomenological insight about the pre-reflective character of social life is implied in everyday experiences; thus, it is an insight not reserved for philosophy alone. One of the central findings of the thesis is that the phenomenological distinction between act and object clarifies how interpersonal understanding is enacted in interpersonal relationships in the context of social work practice. Such an enactment affords a critical vantage point for revealing objectivist approaches to interpersonal understanding in social work research. With a wider outlook towards human care work, I make the suggestion that the phenomenology of interpersonal understanding may articulate and value a dimension of uncertainty inherent in professional judgment in face-to-face encounters, as well as elucidate some of the impacts of technicalization of human care work.
2.
Lindberg, Emy, 1985-
(författare)
Dream Machine : an Ethnography of Football Migration between Ghana and Sweden
2023
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
This thesis examines football migration between Ghana and Sweden. Based on multi-sited, transnational, part-time ethnographic fieldwork that spanned 22 months between 2017 and 2019, it focuses on the everyday realities of Ghanaian football migrants throughout their labor migration trajectory. At the same time, the thesis contextualizes these experiences within the larger historical processes of neoliberalism, colonialism, and the transatlantic slave trade. The theoretical framework draws on literature concerning dreams and aspirations, time and migration, family structures, race, and the enduring impact of colonialism. The thesis sheds light on the historical connection between Ghanaian and Swedish football as a colonial project, a national project, and a global postcolonial phenomenon, emphasizing the political economy of football migration. By zooming in on dreams and the footballing body, it then examines footballers as neoliberal entrepreneurs of themselves as well as objects of the industry’s racialized dreams. Next, the thesis draws attention to the temporal aspects of football migration, including institutional borders, capitalist timelines, and the time of the footballing body. The thesis goes on to explore family structures, particularly fatherhood, in the migratory and footballing context, showing how these structures are interconnected with the business interests of the global football industry. It further demonstrates how race and racialization are present in the Swedish footballing context and finally looks at return migration, investigating how migrant footballers seek to repay economic and social debts. As performers on a commercialized global stage, the footballers embody the dreams of people all over the world. They are commodified and seen as investments for the future, both by people at home and by those working in the industry. Their success generates profit and shows that the dream of migration and the dream of football can come true. This thesis uses the metaphor of the dream machine to understand how dreams operate both globally and locally. It examines the linkages between maintenance of the footballing body, transactions of care, practices of social inclusion and racialized exclusion, and the functioning of the global capitalist football industry. Doing so, it emphasizes the meaningfulness of the migration trajectory for individual footballers and their networks, placing these relationships at the very heart of the beautiful game.
3.
Wroldsen, Kim Jarle, 1990-
(författare)
Hand-in-Hand in the Peach Flower Land : Analysis of Huí Cadre Agency in the Literature Propaganda Magazine Kāidū River in the North-West Borderland of China
2023
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
This thesis studies how mínzú (ethnic) agency is effectuated through propaganda literature among Muslim minority cadres in the Yānqí Huí Autonomous County of the Xīnjiāng Uyghur Autonomous Region of North-West China in the 2010s. The aim is to understand to what extent and in what ways mínzú identification can have a socio-politically significant impact on the activities of mínzú cadres in a restrictive environment and in a medium where mínzú agency is controversial and difficult to implement. The thesis is motivated on the one hand by studies that presume the “monolithic” nature of cadres that speak the language of the Party-State, and on the other hand by studies that too readily presume that the invocation of Party-State orthodoxy is mere lip-service paid to authorities.The questions are approached by studying the implications that the cadre writers’ literary activities have on Huí mínzú identity in the context of the discourses that they invoke. In the process, national concerns are contrasted to mínzú concerns in order to evaluate and ascertain the intentional nature behind the invocation of mínzú concerns.The implications of the writers’ literary activities are identified by studying the role that they play in the discursive context of the literary Kāidū River magazine. The study finds that the discursive context can best be described as hybrid in nature, involving the three “sub” discourses of Neo-Confucian cosmology, Republican race theory, and Maoist thought transformation. The first revolves around a notion of cosmic truth, the second around the significance of mínzú or nations, and the third around the threats of and safeguards against ideological pollution. By employing this hybrid discourse of truth, the writers legitimized their texts as state orthodoxy.Having identified the implications relevant for the formulation of Huí identity, the thesis describes the ways in which the Muslim minority cadres attempted to address mínzú concerns. Although national concerns permeated the texts of the Kāidū River, the writers demonstrated awareness of and the ability to work around the restrictions of Party-State discourse during the early 2010s—at least to some extent. Through selective interpretation, they legitimized off-center views while remaining within the discourse of "truth.”The thesis demonstrates how the intention of mínzú authors can be identified by studying the implications of their texts in the discursive context within which they are embedded, even when these implications are multivalent. Significantly, the thesis is able to do so by studying how relevant implications consistently are invoked and examining the degree of tolerance for contradictory meaning.
4.
Lacbawan, Macario
(författare)
The Burden of Responsibility : Predicaments of Environmental Life in the Caraballo Mountains, Northern Philippines
2022
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
Indigenous people are not obviously, or naturally, stewards of the environment. But when the idea that they are such custodians gains legal traction, and when indigenous land-use practices are codified to reflect environmental principles, they become a burden of responsibility that has significant consequences for the lives and the livelihoods of indigenous communities.This thesis is about Ikalahan people of the Caraballo Mountains in Northern Philippines and the vicissitudes of their obligation to the environment. Based on twelve months’ ethnographic fieldwork, the thesis explores what happens when the legal recognition of Ikalahan people as an indigenous group demands that they re-fashion their ancestral land from a place where they practice swidden agriculture into a space where they are supposed to ensure environmental conservation. It explores how the Philippine state utilizes scientific knowledge such as cartography and forestry to facilitate the expulsion and estrangement of Ikalahan people from their land even as it relies on those people to maintain their ancestral land as an exclusive ecological sanctuary.How do Ikalahan communities enact this environmental responsibility, and how do they contest it? The different chapters explore how villagers deploy the cultural power of shame to impose ecological obligations, how they also create tactics to evade and subvert such obligations, and how they use the rhetoric that the land should not be monetized to, precisely, monetize it. The chapters also discuss how traditional moral principles provide a means for Ikalahan people to both understand and facilitate the economic inequalities that have emerged since their land was transformed into an ecological zone. By addressing how Ikalahan communities negotiate the consequences of their legal recognition as indigenous people, the thesis contributes to the expanding literature that shows how indigeneity is not a neutral label, but is, rather, a potentially burdensome positionality whose attachment to the environment is anything but straightforward.
5.
Pitkäjärvi, Tiina, 1980-
(författare)
Mer än bara vara rosa : Bröstcancertematiserande kampanjer i Sverige (2015–2016) som social praktik
2022
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
The thesis presents a study of how social engagement in breast cancer campaigns is realized in a media context in Sweden. The data collected in this qualitative study are from the years 2015–2016. The study has been led by the following research questions: How is the purpose of the analyzed practices constructed, interpreted and negotiated? How are the campaign practices legitimized? How is participation in them offered? The concept social practice, as formulated by van Leeuwen (2008) forms the basis for the study's theoretical and methodological framework. Aside from this social practice approach, the questions have been analyzed using van Leeuwen's (2008) legitimation strategies, which have been expanded with a performative perspective and by applying the concept affective practices (Wetherell 2012).The results of an initial analysis displayed heterogeneity in the purposes constructed and led the study further to three main themes, identified as Commodification of social participation and consumption, The individual's health and risk management and Norm criticism and image acts as emancipatory actions. The study shows that social engagement is often realized through the consumption of pink products, i.e., commodified. The fact that the researched practice is situated in a neoliberal market economy also provides an explanatory model for how the articulations of engagement in social issues regarding health are realized in the researched material. However, the possibility of being socially engaged is also enabled by the performative potential that participation evokes with the help of affective aspects. Representations of emotions are also a central component in how participation in the social practice is solicited. This suggests that the boundaries of representations of engagement and acts of engagement can often not be separated. The analyses of two private initiatives and at the same time medialized images show how actions with performative claims, aimed at de-dramatization and contributing to attempts to change norms, can be done visually.One overall result is that intertextuality appears to be central to how participation is facilitated in the campaign practices, e.g., by exploiting the connoted potential of certain social actors (companies) and their products. The analyses also show that there are material conditions for the socially engaging campaign practices and how they are made accessible.
6.
Söderman, Alexandra, 1983
(författare)
Digital studentkultur. Om slutna grupper på Facebook som icke-formell arena i högre utbildning : Digital Student Culture. Closed Facebook Groups as Non-Formal Arenas in Higher Education
2022
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
Sedan Facebook lanserades i Sverige 2006 har plattformen vuxit dramatiskt och utgör numer det dominerande sociala mediet även för svenska studenter. I tidigare forskning har fokus i hög grad riktats mot möjliga pedagogiska vinster med Facebook, eller Facebook som en alternativ lärandearena i högre utbildning. Denna avhandling tar istället avstamp i mediekritiska perspektiv och kultur- och utbildningssociologisk teori, inom vilken sociologen Pierre Bourdieus arbeten är centrala. Detta för att analysera den icke-formella studentkultur som tar form i studentorganiserade slutna Facebook-grupper. Det övergripande syftet är att bidra med fördjupad kunskap om varför digital studentkultur formeras som den gör i tre slutna Facebook-grupper kopplade till tre olika högre utbildningskontexter. I arbetet adresseras därför följande frågeställningar: Hur präglar studenternas dispositioner formeringen av de olika utbildningskontexternas digitala studentkulturer på Facebook? Vilka distinktionsmekanismer och andra dominansförhållanden kommer till uttryck i Facebook-grupperna och kring vilka värden och ställningstaganden formeras dessa? På vilka sätt formas Facebook som digital kulturell miljö av de tre olika högre utbildningskontexterna? De Facebook-grupper som ingår i studien studeras med etnografiska metoder och består av ett förskollärarprogram, ett statsvetarprogram samt en grupp för studenter på konst- och designutbildningar. Resultaten visar hur Facebook kommit att fungera som en första anhalt för nyblivna studenter, men också hur den studentkultur som tar form i dessa grupper är tydligt präglad av studentgruppernas sociala bakgrund. Därigenom framträder bland annat något som kan förstås och diskuteras som Facebooks inlåsningseffekt, eftersom studenternas dispositioner inte utmanas i de egenorganiserade slutna grupperna.
7.
Pasquini, Mirko, 1991
(författare)
The Negotiation of Urgency: Economies of Attention in an Italian Emergency Room
2021
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
Urgency in a hospital Emergency Room (ER) is not a self-evident state. Urgency is made, by establishing priorities, distributing attention and material resources, and deciding who and what needs to be attended to first – and, simultaneously, who and what has to wait. The process of determining urgency is known as “triage” (from the French verb, trier, “to choose”). This thesis is about the vicissitudes of triage in an Italian ER. Based on one year of ethnographic fieldwork, the thesis explores what happens when urgency is at stake; when it is contested and caught up between different, and frequently conflicting, perspectives. It explores how urgency is determined in practice, and shows how triage always is a vulnerable process of negotiation guided by economies of attention. How is urgency actually shaped in interactions between patients, their families and friends, and the ER staff? The different chapters explore how time in the ER is created through shifting registers of attention, and how attention in the ER is affected by widespread economic and social precarity, and neoliberal national policies of governance. It discusses how triage increasingly is structured by attitudes of mistrust; and also by potential or real outbreaks of violence. Addressing the particular positioning of the ER as a thick space of conjunction between neoliberal state politics and people's increasing need for care and recognition, the thesis aims to contribute to medical anthropology literature by analyzing triage not as a neutral medical way of sorting, but as a practice that actively creates difference. It explores both the limits of triage, and how those limits can spark improvisation and creative reinvention.
8.
Curtis, Reed T., 1984-
(författare)
Without mast, without sails, without compass : Non-traditional trajectories into higher education and the duality of the folk-market
2020
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
In 1809, the trajectory of Swedish history and the identities associated with the country changed after Finland was lost to Russia. Swedish General von Döbeln explained that the loss left the nation "without mast, without sails, without compass." The research within this dissertation is not of war but of a similar sense of loss. The loss of the folk-home.Through an abductive case-study of present-day students entering higher education, the author explores the sociocultural history of Sweden, the Swedish education system, student self-efficacy beliefs, and the educational trajectories students experience on their way into higher education. This research uses a mixed methods design where a quantitative survey and qualitative narrative interviews complement each other. First, students within an introduction to university learning summer course at a large research university in Sweden completed a psychosocial survey measuring their self-efficacy beliefs about their academic skills and career decision making abilities. A statistically significant correlation was found between the two measures. Second, 11 students from the same course participated in narrative interviews where they detailed their educational trajectories between upper-secondary education and higher education. The author constructed, analyzed, mapped, and discussed each narrative using careership and social cognitive theory. Students within this study suggest that their transition between compulsory education and upper-secondary education was particularly impactful and shaped their self-efficacy beliefs and educational trajectories into higher education. Students describe a lonely process of upper-secondary education decision making at the age of 15 when they were sent to market without preparation, without support, and without the necessary tools. The majority eventually changed academic programs and schools during upper-secondary education. This led to lengthy ruptures outside of formal education that significantly delayed their progress towards graduation. Students only later decided to pursue a non-traditional trajectory into higher education after the negative self-efficacy beliefs they developed during these ruptures were challenged externally.Lastly, previous research, theory, and the empirical findings were systematically combined through an interactive process of abduction. First, the author developed the concept of the folk-market, which better represents the current neoliberal welfare model present in late modern Sweden. The folk-market must be understood as a duality. The folk-market is both a market for folk and a market of folk. Citizens are both the consumers and the consumed. Second, the author presents folk-market theory, which suggests that neoliberal reforms that embed markets within welfare systems alter transition regimes, redirect state responsibility, and distance the connections citizens have with the state. Therefore, the findings suggest that notions of statist individualism misrepresent late modern Sweden. The relationships individuals and families have with the state are now indirect and filtered through the folk-market. This study also indicates that though Swedish, neoliberal, and adolescent narratives of "autonomous youth" are unrealistic, they directly shape educational policy in Sweden. As such, many students in Sweden are left navigating a competitive folk-market without mast, without sails, without compass.
9.
Bajqinca, Nuhi
(författare)
Mother Tongue Education - The Interest of a Nation. A policy study in Sweden 1957-2017.
2019
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
This doctoral thesis is a policy study about mother tongue education policies as they have developed historically in Sweden.The overall aim of this thesis is to investigate the policies of mother tongue education from 1957 to 2017, focusing on how Swedish nation-state politics and societal change characterized the status and positioning of mother tongue education in the Swedish school system.
10.
Acosta García, Nicolas, 1986
(författare)
Chocó challenges : communities negotiating matters of concern and care on Colombia’s margin
2018
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
Chocó is a remote and biodiverse region located on Colombia’s Northern Pacific Coast. The region is home to indigenous Embera and Afro-descendant communities. Both communities share and contest a legacy of colonisation, violence, dispossession and discrimination. This thesis explores the ways in which the local communities of Chocó challenge and transform the matters that concern them. It focuses on their concerns over the effects of biodiversity conservation, development, and drug trade on their communities. It first investigates the challenges associated with doing research concerning both global and local concerns. Then, based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Chocó, it develops a methodology to address environmental value conflicts over the use of Utría National Park, located in the region. Third, the thesis studies the social protest of both local communities for the construction of a small hydroelectric power plant inside the park, finding that this protest for electricity reflects a complex post-colonial politics complementary to the discourse concerning political resistance as expressed by local and indigenous communities protesting against development. Fourth, drift-cocaine has been arriving recently to the coastal region of Chocó as a side effect of the country’s war on drugs. In Chocó, this phenomenon is referred to as the White Fish and is investigated here by situating its associated practices and transformations within the local context. Fifth, Utría National Park is explored visually as a place of rhythms and temporalities. Lastly, it argues that the mechanisms, grounded in concepts of solidarity and co-existence, which are employed by the local communities in negotiating the matters that concern them, provide alternative narratives to the ones often used to described them as in “poverty” and in need of “development”.
