1.
Eriksson, Maria, 1969-
(author)
I skuggan av Pappa : familjerätten och hanteringen av fäders våld
2003
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic) abstract
The aims of this thesis are to shed light on the handling of fathers’ violence in the context of separation and divorce in Sweden today; and to analytically and empirically relate age, gender and kinship to each other. The aims are fulfilled by three interlinked studies of what constructions and the constructing of age, gender and kinship mean for the handling of fathers’ violence against mothers/co-parents and children: in social policy; by separated mothers; and finally by family law secretaries. Each study builds upon a separate set of qualitative material: public documents from three policy areas; thematically structured interviews with abused, separated mothers and family law secretaries. The empirical results make visible some unintended consequences of current attempts in Sweden to create gender equality, shared parenting, a “new father” and to promote children’s interests. Study one demonstrates that when the politics and policy regarding parenthood, separation and divorce are taken as the point of departure, the contemporary age-, gender-, and kinship-order stands out as patriarchal: as marked by father-power based upon ties of blood to not yet adult children. Furthermore, violent fathers neither exist as a concept nor as a policy problem. The interviewed mothers narrate how they have tried to deal with the co-parent’s/ex-partners’ behaviour as violence but have encountered hindrances; the interviewed family law secretaries’ handling fathers’ violence stands out as more of a non-handling, especially in the case of violence against children. When the everyday constructions and constructing of age, gender and kinship discussed in study two and three are taken together, the contours of the patriarchal order seen through the lens of policy are also made visible: fathers’ space for action is vast; children’ and mothers’ more limited. The analysis shows how political and professional handling of fathers’ violence through a non-handling is made possible by well-established notions of heterosexual relationships, fatherhood, motherhood, age- and kinship-relations, as well as family law secretary-professionalism. However, the two studies based upon interviews demonstrate not just how the everyday constructions and constructing mentioned above can be used to reproduce father-power, but also how this power can be challenged.
2.
Nordfeldt, Marie, 1961-
(author)
Hemlöshet i välfärdsstaden : En studie av relationerna mellan socialtjänst och frivilliga organisationer i Stockholm och Göteborg
1999
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic) abstract
The aim of this thesis is to examine the relations between local government and voluntary organisations in two Swedish cities - Stockholm and Göteborg - with regard to the issue of homelessness, and to analyse how these relations have changed during the 1990's. A further aim is to explore to what extent different localities, due to variations in the economic and political context, vary in their responses to influences and pressures from the outside, e.g. from the central state. These variations, it is assumed, result in different approaches to local welfare production and, as part of that, different views on how to care for the homeless, and also create differences in the relations between local government and voluntary organisations. A qualitative methodology has been used in the two case studies. Most of the data have been gathered through personal interviews with informants from the local governments and the voluntary organisations respectively, supplemented with different kinds of documentary information. The comparative analysis indicates that, although social policy in Sweden is rather strictly regulated at the central state level, there are differences on the local level with respect to relations between the local government and voluntary organisations. In short, there are local modes of welfare production. In Stockholm, the voluntary organisations cooperate with local government agencies, but they have in particular staked out a niche of their own - to care for the most deprived of the homeless. The voluntary organisations in Göteborg, in contrast, have become an integrated part of a restructured local government.
