1.
Blomberg, Helena
(författare)
Mobbning, intriger, offerskap : att tala om sig själv som mobbad i arbetslivet
2010
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
This thesis is a study of bullying narratives, mainly co-produced in a process of ongoing interaction. The focus is on how narrators rhetorically organize their storytelling and identity work by using discursive resources. The empirical material consists of 12 interviews with, and 12 written stories by people who have been exposed to workplace bullying plus information from three websites about bullying, and previous research. The overarching aim of the study is to identify how a bullying discourse is produced, reproduced, challenged and negotiated in bullied persons’ narratives. Specific aims are to determine how bullying is portrayed publicly, how narrators with experience of being bullied build their stories, how the narratives stand in relation to victimization, what makes it possible to talk about vulnerability and what are its limits, and finally to develop a narrative approach.Theoretically and methodologically, the study has its basis in narrative analysis, discursive psychology, conversation analysis, and metaphor analysis. The study shows how the narrators categorize themselves as active, competent, and consensus seeking. They resist being victimized, but by their use of the interpretative repertoire and a standard story of bullying, they nevertheless become indirectly victimized. What’s at stake, in the narratives, is the question of guilt, which they rhetorically evade by the use of different metaphors. These metaphors depict bullying as a mystery, a lifelong source of suffering, a transformation, a learning experience, a battle, a contagious virus, and a trap. The narrators are constrained by the narrative conditions, the interpretative repertoire, standard story, and narrative form and content – a story of good and evil when creating their own story. The narrative conditions at the same time set the limit for expressing oneself in the identity work. This also means we are part of the production and reproduction of the bullying discourse when I, as a researcher, and the narrators use the repertoire and the standard story in mutual understanding.
2.
Boström, Magnus, 1972-
(författare)
Miljörörelsens mångfald
2001
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
In the thesis, the conditions, possibilities, and limitations for Swedish environmental organisations to influence other actors — state agencies, political organisations, enterprises and the Swedish public — are analysed. The focus is on their practice in the nineties, implying a context in which different actors, to a greater extent, have accepted the significance of environmental issues, demand knowledge of and solutions to environmental problems, and with new conflicts continously arising. Against this background, four main interrelated themes are developed. Firstly, focus is set on the diversity and internal relations of the movement itself. Heterogeneity, variation and internal relations are analysed through the use of concepts such as social movement, collective identity, and niche. The diversity of the movement is regarded as a source of strength even though it also produces limitations. Secondly, how environmental organisations act politically and in what political scenes they appear, are analysed through the use of concepts such as political opportunity structure, subpolitics, lifepolitics, risk definition struggle, and intermediary link. The use of combined strategies, as well as the relation between diversity and political action, are highlighted. Thirdly, the cognitive practice of environmental organisations is analysed. This entails analysing how they try to persuade other actors with the help of frames. The extensive use of frame bridgings as well as tendencies towards the use of more cooperative strategies — captured by the concept ecological modernization — provide opportunities but also imply threats against autonomy and critical distance. However, the study shows that the organisations have the capacity to preserve their cognitive autonomy. Fourthly, the importance of organisation for cognitive practice, autonomy, and resource mobilization is stressed, and variations in form are analysed. Certain organisational tendencies such as growth, routinization, and professionalization are highlighted. The study is based on intensive comparative case studies of five Swedish environmental organisations: Swedish Society for Nature Conservation, World Wide Fund for Nature, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and the Natural Step. Different kinds of data are used: interviews with keypersons in the organisations, analyses of different kinds of documents produced by the organisations, and different kinds of secondary litterature.
3.
4.
Gustafsson, Karin M, 1983-
(författare)
The importance of trust. : a study of knowledge production of biodiversity.
2013
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
The loss of biological diversity is one of today’s greatest environmental problems. Scientific knowledge is typically presented as the premise to solve this problem. However, science alone is not sufficient to produce knowledge of biodiversity. Other actors are also involved in knowledge production. The aim of this thesis is to analyse how different actors create knowledge of the environmental problem of biodiversity loss and to further investigate the importance of trust in the relationships between these knowledge producers.This thesis uses a discourse analytical perspective and conducts interviews and document studies to explore how actors use different narratives to legitimate their knowledge production. Through four papers addressing different aspects of knowledge production, this thesis discusses conditions for knowledge production, particularly the importance of trust.The results show that actors other than scientific experts also have the ability to act in knowledgeable ways and to be involved in knowledge production of biodiversity. Knowledge is produced by making use of many different dimensions and aspects, such as global, regional, local, and science, politics, and everyday life. The result also shows how trust, distrust, and as-if trust are key activities in knowledge production of environmental problems, such as the loss of biodiversity.This thesis argues that the actors involved need to realise and acknowledge that knowledge production is a mutual process in which actors must engage in trust and distrust activities. In so doing, it will be possible to understand the complexity of the loss of biodiversity and thus to better manage this problem.
5.
Larsson, Susanna, 1983-
(författare)
We bang our heads, therefore I am : subculture as laboratory of identity – the case of heavy metal
2012
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
Subculture is a structure against which identities are both created and guarded. These identities are often socially and practically negotiated against an idea of individual authenticity. The thought of nurturing ones uniqueness while striving to fit in is a common duality and a clear cause of friction within subcultures. The fourty year old heavy metal subculture is no exception. It has proven an arena for boundary drawing, exclusivity and alienation, but also for fierce loyalty and a sense of self-fulfilment.This thesis studies how young adults construct their identities in relation to subcultures in general and in relation to the heavy metal subculture in particular. This is brought to the for in four articles concerned with the construction and reproduction of subjective and intersubjective authenticity, the stigma and self-determination surrounding alienation, the practices of different levels of rituals and the construction of female gender identity in a male-dominated subculture.The thesis finds that heavy metal fans construct their identity in relation to the subculture through a life story. This life story is spun around a number of arguments on self and identity, which all aim to position the individual as a long-term, authentic, knowledgeable, self-determined and practically involved heavy metal fan. Furthermore, identity is constructed through a number of practices of which the narration of the subculture and the use of instruments exemplify both abstract and concrete rituals. Alienation is an important aspect of identity creation, especially where heavy metal fans, following an initial feeling of alienation, position themselves and their culture in what is considered a self-chosen manner against an outside society. Alienation can especially accompany the experiences of the female heavy metal fan, both within and outside the subculture. However, endurance and knowledge helps sustain a sense of a self-made identity, which can earn her respect from other heavy metal fans.
6.
Soneryd, Linda
(författare)
Environmental conflicts and deliberative solutions? : A case study of public participation in EIA in Sweden
2002
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
The aim of this thesis is to analyse a case of public involvement in environmental decision-making. The thesis asks what mechanisms can include or exclude the public, in the sense of giving or denying opportunities to express views and to influence the process. The empirical case is an airport development and one specific form of public involvement, EIA (Environmental Impact Assessment). The case is theorised and contextualised in relation to deliberative democracy, sociology of knowledge, social anthropology, cultural geography, risk and planning research. The case study is presented in four papers. In relation to the EIA process for the planned extension of Örebro-Bofors Airport in Sweden, the following questions are asked: how can the EIA be understood (1) as an open arena for evaluating the three dimensions of sustainable development, (2) as a quasi-legal process; (3) how do local people perceive noise and how did they react to the handling of airport noise in the EIA; and (4) how did local people act within and outside the EIA to influence the process. The research approach used is case study analysis. The case study is based on public records as well as interviews with residents in the vicinity of the airport and active members of the local protest group. The focus of the study is on local people's objectives, responses and actions. The study concludes that the case in question was characterised by exclusion rather than inclusion of the public. The general exclusion mechanisms identified are the ways of thinking and talking about the environment in dominating discourses of sustainable development and risk, as well as institutional constraints because of the dominant role of the developer and administrators. Furthermore, it was shown that local people had more complex views of airport noise than was captured by the standardised used in the EIA. When local people found that the EIA process was not an arena in which they could make their claims heard, they found other, creative ways of acting and of influencing the process. It is argued that a traditional perspective on planning and participation is too narrow to understand public participation in EIA. Environmental conflicts, in this case and others, indicate that citizens wish to participate in discussions of what makes political decisions legitimate and good for all. From the perspective of deliberative democracy, public participation can be understood as a matter of forcing social problems, based in experiences from individual lifeworlds, to be attended to by the political and administrative systems that can deal with them. This is an ongoing process and it is important to recognise public involvement in processes such as EIA's as well as actions outside them.
7.
Uggla, Ylva, 1960-
(författare)
Environmental politics and the enchantment of modernity : mercury and radioactive waste disposal in Sweden
2002
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
Current Swedish environmental policy embraces the notion of sustainable development and the discourse of ecological modernisation, both of which stress the role of modern institutions in environmental protection work. In pursuing ecological sustainability, the Swedish Government assigns importance to the issue of domestic, safe, final disposal of mercury and radioactive waste; responsibility for mercury and radioactive waste management must not be passed to future generations. This political message is not particularly controversial. Yet, siting conflicts tend to arise when the policy is going to be put into practice. The aim of this thesis is to relate the emergence and course of siting conflicts concerning mercury and radioactive waste disposal to discursive aspects of its context. The societal context in which the siting process takes place contains contemporaneous, sometimes incompatible and competing discourses. The questions raised in the thesis are: What does the political message of safe, final waste disposal and sustainable development entail? What are the implications of this particular framing of the issue? The policy proposing final disposal of mercury and radioactive waste in repositories deep in the bedrock requires local implementation. In the local implementation process the parties involved in the siting conflict struggle over definition of the suggested project, with the core of the conflict being the issue of risk versus safety. In this sense, the local conflict echoes contemporaneous and partly incompatible discourses within modernity, as well as the tension between demands for safety and uncertainties in calculations and management connected to proposals for the final disposal of mercury and radioactive waste. The overall handling of environmental threats within the discourse of ecological modernisation can be characterised as a presentation of problems with ultimate, possible win-win solutions and an economic, technological and scientific framing of the problems. This results in a reduction of the complexity of the issue at stake, concealing its political dimensions. In the process of policy implementation, however, there emerge deferred political issues and value questions, as well as unresolved societal issues, all of which tends to result in local siting conflicts.
8.
Singleton, Benedict E., 1983-
(författare)
From the sea to the land beyond : exploring plural perspectives on whaling
2016
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
A perennial challenge in efforts to deal with environmental issues is the question of how to simplify. As such, where and when one simplifies is often a source of conflict, but perversely also paramount to finding a solution. This thesis focuses on one long-standing environmental issue, the whaling debate. Specifically, it performs a strategically sited microethnography of Faroese whaling, grindadráp, exploring linkages between actions on local and international scales. This thesis aims to contribute to environmental sociological efforts to analyse and resolve complex socio-environmental problems.The five papers that together constitute this thesis collectively provide a description of grindadráp from the local scale of the bays where pilot whales are killed to the international forums where whaling as a whole remains an issue at the heart of an on-going, deadlocked conflict. Primarily based on three months’ fieldwork in the Faroe Islands, this thesis combines observation, interviews, media and other literature. The theoretical lenses employed are that of the ‘ontological turn’ and the ‘theory of sociocultural viability’ (cultural theory). The former utilised as a tool for ethnographic practice with the latter used to analyse how different perspectives on reality manifest throughout the whaling conflict.This thesis demonstrates that grindadráp has changed through time as a result of the interactions between actors with different views on the matter at hand. However, in contrast to the global whaling debate, this interaction has been mostly constructive, with appropriate changes in practice ensuring grindadráp’s continued popularity within the Faroe Islands. Furthermore, its continuation will likely depend on grindadráp’s continued ability to balance different perspectives. This thesis thus echoes environmental sociological calls for improved dialogue in the framing and resolution of environmental disputes, suggesting that cultural theory provides a tool that balances relativism and pragmatism in dealing with complex environmental problems.
