1.
Sahlin Lilja, Hanna
(författare)
The Emergence, Establishment och Expansion of Fear of Crime Research in Sweden
2021
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
The purpose of this dissertation is to construct an historical account of the emergence, establishment, and expansion of fear of crime research in Sweden. This dissertation aims to answer questions about the function, spread, and high level of institutional engagement of fear of crime research by analyzing the literature and examining the methodological, theoretical, and epistemological origins of fear of crime research itself. What happened when fear of crime was translated as "otrygghet", a word with a previously established meaning in Swedish? The analysis on the emergence of fear of crime in Sweden is based on documents, a survey of Swedish municipalities, and key informant interviews. The question of conceptual change is addressed through comparing how "otrygghet" is used by Socialdemokraterna and Moderaterna in motions and bills from the Swedish Riksdag across five time periods: 1978, 1988, 1998, 2008 and 2018. The dissertation is theoretically inspired by a Foucauldian interest in the intersection of power and knowledge and by an interest in historicizing the sociological and criminological development that this thesis depicts, using the work of Stuart Hall. The analysis of conceptual change is inspired by the conceptual historian Reinhart Koselleck. The results show a rapid and striking expansion of fear of crime measurements during the 2000s. From 2003 to 2007, the number of national surveys containing fear of crime indicators grew from one to six, to include The Survey of Living Conditions that premiered in 1978, the Local Youth Politics Survey in 2003, The National Public Health survey in 2004, The Citizen Survey in 2005, The Swedish Crime Survey in 2006, and The Swedish Contingencies Agency Survey in 2007. For the municipalities, the period with the most dramatic increase in fear of crime measurements happens in the 2010’s, The percentage of municipalities that don’t do fear of crime surveys decreases from 98 percent before 1995, to 94 percent in 1995–1999, 74 percent in 2000–2004, 51 percent in 2005–2009, 30 percent in 2010–2014 and only 16 percent durign the last examined period, 2015–2018. The analysis also shows that the meaning of "otrygghet" has undergone significant changes. From being used as a descriptive term commonly signifying economic and materialist unpredictability, over time "otrygghet" has come to be used almost exclusively in a crime context. The concept is exclusively used to argue for increased measures of police control and judicial expansion during the last examined period of 2018. This dissertation argues that the development and expansion of fear of crime research can be understood by examining the function that fear of crime research fulfils in legitimizing an increased level of state control, which makes it a good fit for the penal politics of late modernity.
2.
Alfonsson, Johan, 1985
(författare)
Alienation och Arbete. Unga behovsanställdas villkor i den flexibla kapitalismen
2020
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
The aim of this dissertation is to investigate how flexible capitalism, drawing from the case of on-call employees, influences the ability to control life and work and affects relationships with other people, both inside and outside work; and to investigate how this can be understood in terms of alienation. A subsidiary aim that emerges from this investigation is to develop existing alienation theories in a way that enables them to be used to understand human existence under flexible capitalism. Alienation is understood as a process in which something that should be connected has lost its connection: it is a relation of relationlessness. This raises three questions: How can we decide what a relation “ought” to be? What relations are being alienated and what is causing these relations to become relationless? In the thesis I use an immanent perspective to identify the “ought” in the studied context: the capitalist mode of production. For value to exist it is required that man is, as Marx puts it in Capital, “the free proprietor of his own labour-capacity, hence of his own person”. Thus, there is a premise of self-determination in capitalism. A premise which, because of man’s need to create value and the fact that her activity must be subordinated to the value logic, cannot be realized. This applies to everyone in our society, capitalists and labourers alike, and alienates man from her activity, herself, others and her product. This is understood as abstract alienation. On a concrete and specific level the control of how to reach this value-goal and to what extent this affects the individual’s life may differ depending on how value production takes place and the individual’s position in production. I call this concrete alienation and it can be understood as the concrete expression of the abstract alienation. In this way, alienation is neither a purely structural nor a purely subjective phenomenon. It can be both. Following changes in the accumulation regime the concrete alienation has transformed during the last decades, which is expressed in the on-call employees’ situation. Based on an analysis of 17 in-depth interviews I conclude that that their subjective motifs of being in the employment differ and their employment is objectively shaped differently. The objective and subjective dimensions are the basis for understanding on-call employees’ alienation at a concrete level. Drawing from Jaeggi’s qualified subjectivism I argue that since a premise of capitalism is self-determination, the individual must have a say in their situation and experience. If an individual feels that she can’t control her life she is thus alienated from the premise of self-determination. If she feels that she can control her life but this feeling is not realised, meaning that there is no objective possibility to control or steer her life, there is no self-determination and thus alienation persists even though it is not perceived. The result tells us that on-call employment can be used both as a way to increase the freedom and self-determination over one’s life and hinder it, it can instrumentalise life and work in a specific way, and it can hinder the control over social relations, both in and outside of work. As a result, even though they all experience abstract alienation, their level of concrete alienation differs.
3.
Helmersson, Sara
(författare)
Mellan systerskap och behandling : Omförhandlingar inom ett förändrat stödfält för våldsutsatta kvinnor
2017. - Lund Dissertations in Social Work
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
In Sweden, support for abused women has historically been a task for female volunteers in women’s shelters. However, due to amendments in the Social Services Act, some local municipalities have in recent years initiated services for people with experience of violence in intimate relationships, often women and men, abused as well as abusers. These specialised public sector units have an approach to the question of violence that differs from “traditional” feminist ideas associated with the women’s shelter movement. The main purpose of this research was to examine local support practices in this particular “support field” and to further the knowledge about underlying tensions and the linkages to different understandings of violence against women. The research questions focused on (1) dominating understandings of the problem and how these were expressed and challenged within the support field, (2) local support practices in regard to legal and organisational conditions, (3) hierarchies, boundaries, sense of community and exclusions (4) overarching changes in the support field and consequences for support seekers and support providers. Inspired by an ethnographic approach, a range of qualitative methods were used: individual and group interviews, participatory observations and retrieval of policy documents. 24 interviews, with 32 people from five shelters and three specialised units, were completed. The participatory observations were performed in two sites. Finally, a web based survey was distributed to 320 recipients: women’s shelters, local crime victim support organisations and public sector specialised units. After removing incomplete surveys, 207 filled out surveys remained. The overall response rate was 65 %. A theoretical framework based on concepts such as field, doxa, capital and boundary work was used. The results of the study showed that the question of violence against women has been institutionalised in Swedish policies and that two dominating understandings were present: a gender power perspective and a relational perspective. The results pointed out that local women’s shelters worked in close partnership with the public sector and were doing “social services-tasks”. The shelter staff had a heavy administrative workload and spent little time on influencing public opinion. Hence, core ideals such as independence, anonymity for women and sisterhood were challenged. Among professionals in the specialised units counselling was favoured over practical tasks. The professionals framed counselling as professional, whereas women’s shelter work was often understood as practical and unskilled. The gender mixed approach of the specialised units was favoured over interventions for women only. Services for abused women in the support field were informed by two, sometimes conflicting, support ideals: (1) aimed at emancipating women, (2) ai med at changing women. Furthermore, processes of “us and them” were identified in the support field and certain groups of women were potentially excluded from help as well as excluded from becoming shelter workers. The overall analysis of the thesis pointed to a shift from gender power analysis to a relational perspective and that the support field has been consumed by the social services.
4.
Westberg, Niklas
(författare)
Meddelanden från enskildheten : En sociologisk studie av ensamhet och avskildhet
2012
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
This study explorea and analyse how loneliness and solitude are constructed as problems and how they are explained by ”society” in different forms of texts and by people who themselves define their situations as characterized by loneliness or solitude. The latter forms a special focus and my ambition is to understand how they answer to a social situation that in different ways problematize them as persons and construct their life situation as an anomaly. Even if the situation is characterized by loneliness or a search for social distance the task of explaining the situation is not taking place in a social or cultural vacuum; as the situation is viewed as an anomaly society creates it’s own interpretations and discourses which influences individuals and groups understanding. Therefore two different kinds of empirical material have been used. First, texts from research and science concerning loneliness and solitude as well as representations from other textual genres. Second, texts written by self defined lonely people and persons who expressly seek solitude and these are collected from two ”places” on Internet. From a dating service specialised in lonely people and a community of people who strives towards solitude as a way of life. The main unit of analysis consits of the language in these texts and are interpretated by an textual analysis influenced by discource analysis. A major problem regarding loneliness and solitude is ”the social”. Even if solitude are about social inattention, discourses are often occupied by social life in different manifestations; mostly in form of a social dissatisfaction that motivates freedom from society and community. In loneliness discourses lack of social connection, naturally, represents a central theme. Because solitude is understood as motivated by the individual and loneliness as caused by forces that the individual usually doesn’t control, the individual in discourses of solitude appears as one of pride and agency while the individual in loneliness discourses appears as a shameful victim. Solitude and loneliness are deviances which are managed with help of explanatory ”accounts”: 1) Excuses in form of ”scapegoats” where other peoples deficiencies is singled out as cause or motive to both loneliness and solitude. 2) Excuses with reference to illness and psychological problems, which to a large extent explains loneliness. 3) Justifications of solitude with reference to freedom to self-realization and communion. Based on my analysis a composed situation appears wherein lonely people and people seeking a private space seems to have a lot in common: social dissatisfaction and alienation, designation of scapegoats, a longing for authenticity etc. It is even possible that they, to a degree, share a life-situation characterized by alienation and despair but ”choses” different vocabularies or discourses for rendering the situation as intelligible, which makes a shared situation into different ones.
5.
Bengtsson, Åsa, 1967-
(författare)
Nyktra kvinnor : Folkbildare, företagare och politiska aktörer. Vita Bandet 1900-1930
2011
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
In this thesis the female Christian temperance union the White Ribbon is in focus. The White Ribbon was founded in Stockholm in 1900 and it was part of the international organization World’s Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WWCTU). The organization’s ambition was to create a temperate and moral society, running a variety of philanthropic institutions and adult education, as well as non-alcohol serving restaurants.The aim of the thesis is to study the White Ribbon’s social and political commitment and its ideological approach during the first three decades of the 20th century. The White Ribboners’ ideological approach and culture are problematized in relation to the prevailing and predominant view on women. The organization’s monthly journal has been closely studied and the ideas and practical social and political commitment have been analyzed in a theoretical perspective of social movement theory, according to the Swedish sociologist Håkan Thörn’s methodological framework. This theoretical approach is an instrument to analyze what the White Ribbon identified to be social problems; what was considered to be the reasons for these problems; and what strategy the organization regarded to be the best way to deal with them in order to reach the prognosticated change.The analysis shows that the White Ribbon identified the predominant gender system and the bourgeois view on women as a primary social problem. The organization’s strategy was to eliminate the patriarchal order of the gender system and to change the attitude of people through adult education, information and persuasion. The White Ribbon participated in public debate pursuing temperance and women’s suffrage, and was a lobbyist proposing motions and demanding legislative reforms. The White Ribbon’s ideological approach, as well as their philanthropic activities emanated from a bourgeois ideal of conscientiousness and cultivation, and from an interest in social politics. This was in contrast to the bourgeois view of what the ideal woman should do. From the White Ribboners’ point of view, society could only prosper when women had the same rights as men, and could participate the public sphere and become involved in politics.The study shows that the organization worked hard for equality and democracy, pursuing a feminist and liberal ideology. The White Ribboners regarded themselves, and also acted, as political agents. They introduced and increased women’s possibilities for adult education. They initiated and provided social protection for alcohol addicted women, and for poor and fallen women and girls. These activities must be seen as forms of enterprises and the White Ribboners as entrepreneurs, since these institutions were, in fact, innovations and models for solving problems in order to build a welfare system and to create a temperate and prosperous society. The thesis put forward arguments that the White Ribbon’s social and political work are political innovations and important elements in the process of democratization and, therefore, played an important part in this process.
6.
Hilding, Lars-Olof, 1963-
(författare)
"Är det så här vi är" : Om utbildning som normalitet och om produktionen av studenter
2011
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
Avhandlingen, baserad på intervjuer med 58 studenter vid tre olika program vid Högskolan i Halmstad, behandlar de skäl olika studentgrupper beskriver för att börja studera, deras upplevelser av mötet med högskolemiljön, och vilken betydelse de en lokal högskola kan ha. Trots olika åtgärder var den sociala snedrekryteringen till högre utbildning i stort sett oförändrad mellan 1960 och 1990. Under 1990-talet skedde en utjämning, men 1999 kom fortfarande bara 24% av studenterna vid svenska universitet från arbetarklasshem, trots att de utgjorde 35% av hela befolkningen. Studenter med högutbildade föräldrar uppger att de egentligen inte träffar ett aktivt val att börja högre studier, det uppfattas snarare som en naturlig del av vuxenblivandet. Barn från hem utan utbildningstraditioner ger en annan beskrivning. De beskriver valet att utbilda sig som ett val bland flera andra, och att de fått stöd från föräldrarna oavsett vad de valt. För barn till lågutbildade var det ofta fråga om en särskild händelse som gjorde att utbildning blev ett aktuellt alternativ. I studien har det varit möjligt att jämföra hur både klassresenärer och arvtagare beskriver mötet med och vistelsen på högskolan. Båda grupperna beskriver hur de upplever miljön som förvirrande och otrygg. Arvtagarna utvecklar emellertid strategier för att hantera situationen, eftersom den är svårare att ifrågasätta för dessa - utbildningen är ju en naturlig del av vuxenblivandet. Klassresenärerna är däremot mer benägna att ifrågasätta studierna. Klassresenärerna beskriver hur de upplever att de förändras ifråga om språk och förhållningssätt under studierna, männen i mer positiva ordalag, kvinnor med en viss tvehågsenhet.
7.
Eriksson, Helena
(författare)
Befolkning, samhälle och förändring : Dynamik i Halmstad under fyra decennier
2010
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
Changes in society are often discussed on an aggregated level and it is argued that society is changing from a modern industrial society to a post-industrial society. Through studying changes on a local level it is possible to study the complexity and variations of the general and aggregated theories of societal changes, and place changes in a context of time and place. The main object of this study is to analyse change in a locality. The study is a case study which studies Halmstad, a municipality on the west coast of Sweden, between the years of 1968 and 2006. The empirical material consists of analysis of demographic statistics and labour market statistics, using official statistical databases. The empirical material also consists of an analysis of official and historical documents as well as interviews with persons active in Halmstad. Three time periods are identified in the analyses which are characterised by different patterns in the population. The periods are also characterised by changes in the labour market and the employment of the population. These changes are analysed through the interplay between actors in the locality and actors and influences from outside the locality. Through the analysis of reflexivity it is shown how change and stability are interrelated through the interplay between the new and existing or innovation and tradition.
8.
Isaksson, Anna
(författare)
Att utmana förändringens gränser : En studie om förändringsarbete, partnerskap och kön med Equal-programmet som exempel
2010
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
In this thesis the overall aim is to analyse conceptions of change with the point of departure being texts developed within the framework of three development partnerships financed by the European Social Fund's Equal Programme 2001-2007. The development partnerships, consisting of collaborating parties from both the public and private sector, aimed at developing new methods and ideas in order to counteract discrimination and all kinds of inequality in working life. The thesis poses the following research questions: How are the problems that the development partnerships intended to counteract described? What appears as important to change in order for discrimination in working life to decrease? In what ways are changes aimed at combating discrimination and contributing to increased gender equality and diversity in working life deemed possible? What motives emerge behind the visions of creating a working life without discrimination? How are gender and other social categories constructed and how do these constructions impact on the conceptions of change that emerge? The ideas, perspectives and interests that characterise the understanding of changes in working life in the studied texts, are illustrated with the aid of theories on how society's forms of rule have changed from government to governance and theories on how gender is done. Furthermore, why certain perspectives and ideas emerge and the consequences of them is analysed based on institutional ethnography and concepts such as social relations and ruling relations. The thesis' analysis points to how the consensus-based organisational form of partnership and the politics and principles that are reflected in the Equal Programme together with notions on growth, leadership and gender create limits for the conceptions of change. Limits that in certain respects entail that society's relations of power and inequality, instead of being challenged, are reproduced. Based on the results of the study, the importance is emphasised of continuously taking one's point of departure in identifying and challenging the limits to how one can speak of change, since the dominant conceptions of change may be an expression of the ruling relations.
9.
Ranagården, Lisbeth, 1947-
(författare)
Lärares lärande om elever - en sociologisk studie om yrkespraktik
2009
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
This is a study of how professional teachers’ learning about students takes place in relation to changed requirements and new organisational preconditions. Based on an approach from the theory of professions with inspiration by Lipsky’s concept of street level bureaucrats, it examines which strategies or methods teachers develop in order to cope with the changes. Important points of departure for the study are theories of organisation, professions and knowledge. The three phases that are considered to distinguish professional work – diagnosis, inference, treatment – organise the disposition of the work. The study is empirically based on interviews with primary school teachers, recorded development conversations, and teachers’ written documentation for the latter. The teachers’ own accounts of their learning process, as well as how they interpret what is experienced, form an interpretive and analytical foundation together with analysis of the development conversations. Teachers’ meetings with students usually occur with the entire class as a collective, which makes the teaching profession special. Other professionals normally meet their clients individually. At the same time, teachers are expected to individualise the instruction. The study shows how the organisation creates obstacles by intensifying the teachers’ work. This diminishes the leeway for teachers to work professionally. A recurrent problem for the teachers’ teaching is therefore lack of time. They have to find standardised forms such as the categorising of students. The analyses demonstrate that there is great uncertainty about the measures’ effects, and that teachers do not have enough knowledge. One develops new knowledge by trial and error, and the study points to a need for the teachers’ teaching in and through its practice to be given room to develop. In this context the study discusses teachers’ professional language as a hindrance to professional development. As the study also shows, leeway for conversations is a prerequisite for learning about students. This in turn influences the possibilities of creating good relations. The study discusses teachers’ interest in relation-building from a power perspective and as an important tool for successful instruction. But teachers lack tools for handling certain students who challenge the teaching role, and the analysis reveals deficiencies in both the organisation in the profession. According to the study’s results, teachers do not have support for coping with the changes that were made in the schools. Especially the profession’s social dimensions prove to be a weakness for newly educated teachers, who need continued learning in professional practice, but more experienced teachers also lack tools for being able to individualise the instruction. While the causes are numerous, the bottom line is a scarcity of resources – in terms of time, institutional measures for solving problems, and knowledge about how the problems should be solved.
10.
Berg, Martin, 1977-
(författare)
Självets garderobiär : självreflexiva genuslekar och queer socialpsykologi
2008
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.
