1.
Liedgren Dobronravoff, Pernilla
(författare)
Att bli, att vara och att ha varit : Om ingångar i och utgångar ur Jehovas vittnen
2007
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
This dissertation seeks to describe and investigate the entering and leaving of a highly structured and hierarchical religious community, exemplified in this case by the Jehovah's Witnesses. The respondents in this study were chosen from both active members of the Jehovah's Witnesses in Sweden and those who have left the organisation for personal reasons. Repeated interviews with ten active members of the organisation have been conducted in the course of the study and compared to equal numbers of former members. The interviews have been semi-structured to deal with questions of how a person has come into contact with the organisation; how they retrospectively experienced the process of entry; the reasons for becoming a member. Questions have also been asked about life in the organisation. The group of "exiters" have also been asked about the experience of leaving, why they wanted to leave, and how this process was started and carried out. In addition to this I have analysed a four-year diary describing the time inside and the process of leaving the organisation. This has given me an extra psychological insight into the inner experience of someone who has gone through the whole process. The analysis has been done by categorising the content of the transcribed interviews. The analysis of the diary has involved thorough reading, resulting in a division of it into four different parts, where each part has been given a certain key-word, signifying the author's emotional state when writing it. A person converting as an adult has to pass six phases before being considered a Jehovah's Witness by the organisation. These are: Contact with the Jehovah's Witnesses, studying the bible with members of the organisation, questioning, accepting, being active as publisher (spreading the belief), being baptised. For a person brought up in the organisation, the process to full membership is much shorter: Upbringing in the organisation, taking a stand on the belief, being baptised. The exit process contains of seven phases: Different levels of doubts, testing of doubts, turning points, different kinds of decisions, different steps in executing the decisions, floating, a period of emotional and cognitive consideration of membership and its experiences, relative neutrality.
2.
Sjölander-Lindqvist, Annelie
(författare)
Local Environment at Stake : The Hallandsås Railway Tunnel in a Social and Cultural Context
2004
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
A major trend in facility siting research focuses on economic and psychological aspects of land-use regarding the location of potentially hazardous technological facilities including storage for high-level radioactive waste, landfills, chemical plants, large-scale dams, or waste incinerators. Such facilities frequently have profound environmental impact and are often understood by local citizens as intrusions on their environment that threaten landscape, place, and community. This investigation of local responses to facility siting is grounded in social anthropological theories of landscape and place. The study addresses the social and cultural impacts of the building of a railway tunnel through the Hallandsås ridge in an agricultural area in the southwest of Sweden. This tunnel project has met with technological difficulties and environmental problems such as a lowered groundwater table and toxic contamination of groundwater, soil, and surface water. A principal concern in this dissertation is how homeowners’ perceptions and views of the landscape, place, and locality—that is, their local environment—has been affected by the building of a tunnel beneath their farms and homesteads. The four articles on which the thesis build are derived from anthropological fieldwork carried out among local residents affected by the Hallandsås tunnel project. Data were collected through in-depth interviews, collaborative photography, nature walks, and participant observation at public meetings, between the years 1999 and 2003. The main findings of the study suggest that the construction of the tunnel and the subsequent environmental consequences have given rise to an increased sense among affected residents of the fragility and uncertainty of life systems and people’s livelihoods. Feelings of uncertainty regarding the future of the community and the landscape have stimulated a discourse about local history and collective memories bearing on the local environment. Shared responsibility for nature and the local environment is another theme. The building of the Hallandsås railway tunnel has both reinforced local identity within the rural community of affected residents and incited conflict as to how the natural resources of the area should be understood and interpreted. Groundwater issues play a central role in land-use disputes generated by the tunnel project. Groundwater serves as a ‘boundary object’ bordering the domains of the concerned parties: the local community and the Swedish National Rail Administration.
3.
Bengtsen, Peter
(författare)
The Street Art World
2014
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
In recent years, street art has become embedded in popular culture and received growing attention from the art market and art institutions. Work by street artists has entered galleries, auction houses and museums, and some artists have been given the opportunity to create large-scale sanctioned public art projects. Simultaneously, widespread photographic documentation of street artworks and the circulation of images online have provided artists with a potentially global audience. The Street Art World investigates street art as a relatively newly established field within contemporary art. With the American sociologist Howard S. Becker’s notion of “art worlds” as a central point of departure, the book seeks to characterise street art by studying and participating in the everyday interaction among the artists, gallerists, collectors, critics, curators, bloggers and street art enthusiasts that make up the social environment (the street art world) in which the term street art is continuously given its meaning. Major themes addressed in the book include: (1) The social construction of the meaning of the term street art and the resulting difficulties in formally defining what street art is. (2) The often contradictory attitudes within the street art world towards art history and the institutions of art. (3) The relationship between street art, the art market and the institutional art world. (4) The relationship between street art and public art. (5) Street art’s potential to affect the viewer’s perception of public space, and the possible challenges the increasing digital mediation of street art may pose to bringing this potential to fruition. While the book presents central characteristics of the street art movement, it also acknowledges that it is not feasible to pin down the nature of street art once and for all, since street art is a product of complex social processes.
4.
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.
5.
Al Khalidi, Marwa
(författare)
Influential Moments in City Planning Meetings : A Study of Decision-Making Situations in a Jordanian Municipality
2018
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
The shaping of a city and its future relates to official decisions made in city planning meetings, where daily planning matters and decision-making processes adapt to changing societal circumstances. The interest of this research lies in how planning is officially established, managed and practiced in the setting of a Jordanian city, and its local districts. This interest leads the research to observational studies of the mechanisms of municipal council meetings and of the institutional setting of official city planning. One important backdrop for this research are the conditions of the study context tied to rapid changes that have been made to planning objectives due to changing geo-political circumstances and large numbers of migrants. More directly, the research has the basic purpose of improving the understanding of the manifold aspects that surround and make up a decision process, by including actors or relations of various kinds that can have an influence on the procedures.Through participant observations and drawing on actor-network theory (ANT), this research looks closely into how decision-making agency can be both formally and informally delegated to human actions, to material objects, to technologies, and to the rules and modes of institutional ordering. These heterogeneous aspects are studied in relation to, but also derivedfrom, empirical investigations of the planning culture that, as I see it here, encompasses the norms, values, and historical significance that may influence and define how planning is practiced. I investigate the conditions on which the meeting – as the most common decision-making body – depends to proceed in normal and destabilised situations. The observations are presented as narratives that convey situations of destabilization that were observed and selected through applying a ‘lens of controversy’ as a methodological tool. The analytical discussions that follow these narratives bring new insights by reflecting on the observed meetings, actions, and institutional environments with the help of architecture- and design-oriented actor-network-theory and relational planning theory, as well as organisation theory, decision-making studies and meeting studies. The detailed and situated studies in this thesis focus on the important role of the material and spatial components of the planning setting. They also highlight the importance of the setting as a flexible network that supports decision-making processes with various types of delegation from inside and outside the meeting room. This has for instance led to views on the temporal territorial productions that are created in interaction with the setting of the planning institution. The results also highlight the heterogeneity of actors with influence, and how time-related features such as timeliness and durabilization in meetings can influence the decision-making process. The research concludes in elevating several networked mechanisms and principles of influence. Principles like ‘redundancy delegation’, ‘transistor tactics’ and ‘recovering destabilizations’, and concepts such as ‘temporal institutional territorialisation’, and ‘state of predisposition’ represent such significant figures of thought that are found to be of interest, and that could be given further attention in the theoretical as well as practical analysis of planning and planning settings. This research hopes also to contribute to discussions regarding how to cope with emergent situations using long- and short-term planning in the development of policies and means for future modes of planning.
6.
Alsmark, Gunnar
(författare)
Herdar på Korsika
1979
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)
7.
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.
8.
Widholm, Christian
(författare)
Iscensättandet av Solskensolympiaden. Dagspressens konstruktion av föreställda gemenskaper vid Stockholmsolympiaden 1912
2008
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
This thesis analyses the renegotiation of Swedish national identity in newspapers’ coverage of the Olympics of 1912. The “sun-shine Olympics”, as Swedes have come to term the event, idealises early twentieth-century Sweden and early sports events. Researchers have shown that this era was far from idyllic in Sweden: it was characterised by various battles concerning the proper national community. Not much has, however, been said about the impact of “apolitical” events and the role played by newspapers in defining this community. Using constructionist theories of identity and linguistic theories on media texts I analyze how three journalistic genres co-created national collectives. The first analysis deals with how the press represented two inaugurations. The genre was a semi-sacral idiom, utilized by newspapers reporting on both right- and left-wing public events around the last turn-of-the century. This genre included a number of apolitical elements, which functioned to legitimise that which was described: for instance romantic references to nature and descriptions of lovely women. This genre, I conclude, demands that its readers conform to certain norms; it tends to silence alternative perspectives. The reports on the inaugurations constructed a patriarchal order’s self-image. They constructed a male collective through a theatrical display which involved, while implicitly “othering”, foreigners, women and children. The second analysis deals with a physical genre, sports journalism. The bodies represented in this genre loaded the imagined community with substance, and gave the texts an “authentic” aura. Those outside the readers’ imagined community were given another sort of body – a body appropriate to ethnic others. Sports journalism also included articles describing the audience. These confirmed the readers’ middle-class identity through clichéd stories about working-class public and an over-aestheticized elite. I conclude that the authentic aura around sports journalism became a way of defending the genre against the accusation that the imagined community that it generated was a mere cultural construction. The visual language is the last genre examined. Pictures representing the male athletes were different from those which usually represented public men. A new masculinity, I conclude, was launched. Action pictures supposedly represented reality. The bodies represented were no longer simply “our boys”, but our heroes. The middle-class male heroes gained a new body, replacing more traditional heroic bodies. Women athletes were also pictured, and the new masculinity was in implicit contrast to the femininities portrayed. The pictures of women, however, present no easily-decipherable pattern, but a series of ambiguities. The pictures also established the national male collective as “white”. Visualisations of foreigners, presented an ”appetizing otherness”, implicitly fixed that which was particularly Swedish.
