1.
2.
Esholdt, Henriette frees
(författare)
Når humor, leg og lyst er på spil : Social interaktion på en multietnisk arbejdsplads
2015
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
How can we understand the multi-ethnic workplace as a social meeting place? And what happens if we do not 'frame' in advance the social meeting in the widespread anti-racist frame of understanding? These are the questions that are central to this thesis. Starting from a phenomenological methodology, it is the ambition of the thesis to challenge our usual preconceptions and not pre-define how inter-ethnic relations are to be understood, which is why the thesis - expressed in Goffman's terms - asks: ”What is it that’s going on here?” (Goffman 1974), as a way of finding which framework of understanding should be applied. Based on the part of the lifeworld that unfolds in a multi-ethnic workplace, the thesis examines the social interaction in inter-ethnic collegial relationships as it spontaneously arises and develops in the inter-ethnic collegial relationships in everyday working life. The thesis is based on fieldwork (consisting of participant observation and interviews) at the Food Factory ("Madfabrikken"), a multi-ethnic workplace in the hospitality sector in Denmark. With an auto-ethnographic point of departure, the researcher brings herself into play in the relationships under study, and makes herself an object of observation, reflection and study. In addition to the life at the Food Factory, the thesis is also concerned with the research process, and experiments with different methods of grasping and conveying the life lived in the Food Factory in all its complexity and ambiguity. The thesis explores empirical observations of social interactions, where humour, play and pleasure are on the line. As much as the interplay in the collegial relationships at the Food Factory can be pleasurable and fun, it does, however, bring the risk of danger. It is this duality that is illuminated in this thesis. In the first instance, the humour, play and pleasure are continually on line in the collegial interaction and this contributes to a range of humour-based and sexualized forms of social interaction, where "ethnicity" is defused and enjoyed as an aesthetic and sexualised surface. Secondly, it is true in the sense that humour, play and pleasure risk being on the line or jeopardized, if the rules for the interaction are not mastered or respected. What was previously 'framed' as being pleasurable, sexualized play and teasing at work, or what was set in a humorous frame, is suddenly in danger of being replaced or overtaken by a new 'framing' of the situation as sexual harassment or racism. The thesis does not end up with definitive answers as to how social interaction in a multi-ethnic workplace should be understood and how we can understand it as a social meeting place, but contributes with the knowledge that social interaction in inter-ethnic collegial relationships is vulnerable, ambiguous, fragile, undecidable, manipulable and redefinable. With an object-sensitive eye, the thesis contributes to other, more nuanced narratives about the social meeting of the inter-ethnic relationships - namely the narratives about the life lived and its forms.
3.
Petersen, Anders, 1973-
(författare)
Depression : vor tidsalders vrangside
2007
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
What are the social conditions that enable depression to play a significant societal role in contemporary Western societies? This is the leading question of the dissertation. As an alternative to those who claim that contemporary depression is constructed by the exorbitant consumption of antidepressants, it is stated that both depression and the consumption of antidepressants is possible due to contemporary social conditions. Inspired by the analysis of modernity by Wagner, and on the basis of the theoretical concept of third modernity as proposed by Carleheden, it is claimed that an ethical conduct of life that demands authentic self-realization has been institutionalised in our historical epoch. By analysing how authentic self-realization is being realized in the new spirit of capitalism (Boltanski & Chiapello), it is being concluded that the socializing parameters of third modernity are those of being able to be active, flexible, polyvalent, adaptable, versatile etc. selves. Hence, authentic self-realization in imbued with these normative demands. In relation to the phenomenon of depression this is interesting, because contemporary depression can be understood, not as a subjective condition, but as a phenomenon of lack. What is being applauded in the society of today is just what depressive individuals lack, namely the ability to act in accordance with the normative claims of self-realization. Depressed individuals are in that sense failed selves (Ehrenberg) who represent and informs us about the “other side” of contemporary normative self-realization requirements. In other words: Within present-day society the institutionalized demands for authentic self-realization and depression have become each others antithesis. This socially demanded form of self-realization – which is put under the scrutiny of normative critique (Taylor) – is thus exactly what allows for depression to play such a significant role in present-day Western societies.
4.
Schierup, Carl-Ulrik, 1948-
(författare)
Danser de for traditionens skyld? : invandrere, kultur og samfund
1987
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
This doctoral dissertation is a contribution to the current Scandinavian debate on "the integration of immigrants". It is based on a case study of a group of labour migrants from Yugoslavia, the romanian speaking Wallachians who in the late 1960's and early 1970's settled on each side of the Öresund, the narrow strait dividing Denmark and Sweden. Here they have developed two different social patterns and form of integration in Danish and Swedish local communities.Departing from a concrete social situation - the celebration of the Yugoslav national day in a Danish provincial town - the study uses anthropological fieldwork, personal biographies of migrants and a sociological survey to analyze different strategies of integration among "Danish" and "Swedish" Wallachians. The analysis elucidates developments within two fields of social life: work and public community life. Conflicts and developments in these two fields are analyzed in conjunction with conflicts in the Wallachian family.It is argued that an autonomous cultural development and organization among immigrants is crucial for their positive integration into society. In the concluding part of the book this is discussed in conjunction with the development of the welfare state and in relation to different political ideologies in Scandinavia and Western Europe.
5.
Schreiber, Trine, 1957-
(författare)
Forhåbninger og skuffelser i kvindeerhvervene : kvinders møde med ny teknologi og organisatorisk forandring
1994
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
In the meeting between women from office- and library work and the computer technology and organizational changes, different actions were found. The purpose of the thesis is to analyse this meeting to consider the situation of the employed when computer technology and new organization are implemented, to discuss the importance of prior social and working life with regard to the understanding of the meeting and to address the working conditions in the 1980s with special attention to women.The starting point for the analysis of the meeting is an empirical study. The study uses qualitative data from interviews with 30 women. 24 women expresses criticism, 6 expresses consent, with the renewals.The analysis has three levels. At the first level the contents of the interviews are described. At the second level, from a theory of action, criticism and consent are considered for both foundations and forms of action. At the third level these forms of action are discussed in relation to a list of historical conditions for the social and working life of women generally.The thesis shows, firstly, that in the criticism and the consent there are three forms of action. These are the department-based form of action, the solidarity form and the individual form. Secondly, that in light of the socio-historical structures it becomes possible to see the three forms of action as three types of interest for development of work and organization. Thus behind both criticism and consent there is an interest in development and change. In the context of the socio-historical perspectives this interest is emphasized.The thesis shows, thirdly, that both the hopes and the disappointments of womens prior working life are reproduced in the 1980s. Lastly, that the forms of action and the types of interest reflect the limited possibilities for women in the female-occupations to change their position in the working life.
6.
Ebsen, Frank
(författare)
Udsat til børneforsorg : om etablering af familiepleje, børenanstalter og indsats i hjemmet for udsatte børn i Danmark
2012
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
This dissertation looks into the treatment of exposed children and young people. The background is a puzzlement as to how the discourse on treatment, during the latest twenty years, has concentrated on the same institutions and themes (Ebsen, 2007). The aim of the dissertation is to shed light on how the institutions of child saving, (family care, placement in residential care, intervention in the home) the specific social technologies and the understanding of children and adolescents, within the child saving system, were established. The first step in this research was to look back in time through the legislation and realize that the first stand-alone act on exposed children and adolescents was launched in 1905 (The Act of neglected and Criminal Children and Adolescents). The Act states that the institutions of child saving include family care, small and large institutions, special intervention in the homes of the neglected children, and an agency which was to make decisions on removing a child and, if necessary, on where the child should be placed. It appears as if the institutions had already been established at the time, and were just gathered in one act. The act gathered the many organizations into a public unity of child saving with the crucial point of securing a public financing by the state. There are good reasons for regarding the 1905 Act as a kind of constitution of the Danish child saving (Like e.g. Egelund, 1997; Bryderup, 2008). This led to research into the background of the 1905 Act More specifically, it led to the study of how the various institutions mentioned in the Act had come into being, and it was examined whether there existed some kind of special institutional “lock-up” which meant that one century later the same institutions were still crucial.
7.
Egelund, Tine
(författare)
Beskyttelse af barndommen : Socialforvaltningers risikovurdering og indgreb
1997
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
The objectives of this dissertation are 1) to describe what child protection services actually do when assessing risk and deciding on interventions, and 2) to analyze this practice in the light of institutional expectations, organizational demands and professional technology. The field work was carried out in two Danish municipal social service agencies. Data consist of records on families subjected to serious interventions. Participant observation of case conferences and social workers' and supervisors' work days was undertaken, including their conversations with clients. In-depth interviews were conducted with mothers whose children had been placed outside home. Protection of children is analyzed in a historical and a child abuse and neglect research context. Results indicate that children's risks are not, as a rule, assessed on the basis of an understanding of the child's well-being, day to day experiences, or symptoms. Child protection services, normally, do not know the children concerned well enough for this. Neither are children's unfavourable socioeconomic conditions considered. Risk is assessed according to parents' conformity with or deviation from dominating cultural and moral conceptions of acceptable adult and parental performance. The services construct "normal cases" in order to adapt family complexity to administrative criteria and the available repertoire of solutions. A central construc tion is "the deviant family", focusing on all deviant traits and relations. Another construction is that of the "undeserving client", stressing parents' demanding and unruly ways. Yet another is "the psychological individual" transforming social needs into psychological problems which can be met by social policy measures. Institutional and legal expectations from child protection are so many and contradictory that the service objective, i.e. protecting children, is at variance with competing interests and expecta tions. The child protection organization maintains its legitimacy and proves its efforts by conforming to a variety of procedural requirements, which favour intra-organizational administrative processes and keep families at a distance. Institutional and organizational contradictions and an uncertain technology account for a child protection professionalism which is based on common sense concepts and moral evaluations and, seldom, includes the use of knowledge verified by research.
8.
Klitgaard, Vibeke
(författare)
Social (u)orden i distriktspsykiatrien : En systemteoretisk analyse af psykiatriske patienters kommunikation og adfærd samt stigmatisering fra omverdenen
2021
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
This dissertation looks into everyday life at two day-care centres of community psychiatry in the municipality of Copenhagen. More specifically, it is about the patients' communication and behaviour, and about the stigmatization fromthe outer world they experience. The empirical material is based on three years of participant observation. The two daycare centres and their districts were situated in opposite ends of the socioeconomic scale within the municipality, one of them in the district of the highest socioeconomic status in the municipality, the other one in a district of very low socioeconomic status. The socioeconomic distance caused marked differences in the patients' communication and behaviour patterns, which had to do with the patients' orientation. In the day-care centre placed in the low socioeconomic status district the patients focused mainly on the patient community, whereas the patients at the day-care centre in the district of high socioeconomic status were oriented towards normality. I analyze patients’ communication and behaviourin line with the communication part of Luhmann’s systems theory approach. The patients expressed varying degrees of communication disturbances: some major, when they could not express themselves in a comprehensible way and therefore could not interact with other patients; some minor, which enabled them to interact with other patients even if they expressed for instance singular delusions. I focus on the day-care centres' double status as places of refuge and as stigmamarkers. They were places of refuge where the patients could talk freely about their symptoms and the effects of psychopharmaceuticals. However, the day-care centres were also stigma-markers because the patients were subjected to stigmatisation and moral judgment as a consequence of their mere contact with the psychiatric treatment system. The literature on stigmatisation describes how the discrimination against psychiatric patients influence their chances in more or less all life areas: Income, education, job and employment, psychological well-being, housing status, medical treatment, health and satisfactory relations. On top of the above-mentioned, psychiatric patients are at severe risk of excess mortality, as recently documented in a forensic autopsy study.
9.
Munk, Martin D
(författare)
Livsbaner gennem et felt : En analyse af eliteidraetsudøveres sociale mobilitet og rekonversioner af kapital i det sociale rum
1999
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
The thesis deals with a theoretical outline of the theory of reconversions in the light of the social space, with an analysis of top level athletes' mobility and strategies of reconversions in their trajectories through the relative autonomous field of sports. Some disciplines in this field have much autonomy, others less, and are positioned according to a state of distribution of the specific capital, accumulated in the consequence of previous struggles. Trajectories and classes are not reproduced in a mechanical way, there are specific effects in those. By the concept of strategies of reconversions it is possible to determine central societal processes according to transformations and reproductions of the social world. They are defined as practices by which social groups endeavour to keep 'on the road' or even change position. In that sense social life is about struggles and converting capital. The thesis builds upon investigations of sports. In an enquete, 1990, I examined whether cycling could be characterized as a field, and included 220 schemes. In 1993, I studied athletes' trajectories through sports, and how these athletes left sports, including 538 athletes distributed on 25 disciplines in the main analysis. Some of those were interviewed, and material about achievements in international championships and the Danish population were applied. I compared central tables with French sociologists in 1994-1996. I have used correspondence analysis according to a French interpretation. The important thing with this type of analysis is that modalities with small frequencies do not get lost, and there is a possibility of using supplementary modalities and individuals. The main thing is to analyse objective relational oppositions. Correspondence analysis is used together with sociological analysis, which is more sensitive towards empirical material and thereby closer to actually social processes. Two aspects in the transitions between the field of sports and the social space are important: the relative short period of time in sports and the objective possibilities after the time in sports. It is clear that the small conversion-rate of capital into a permanent job in sports (after the active period) is closely related to the fact that Denmark is a society with private organized institutions of sports and clubs grounded upon voluntary work, and no state institutions. This is contrary to the United States and France. Fifteen per cent obtain a job in the field, and it primarily concerns athletes from 'upper' and 'middle' classes (academics, teachers and directors) and agents with large volume of sports capital. What seems to be important is the structural homology between the social space and the way in which athletes find their pathways from the field to other places in the social space; capital can be converted on certain conditions. The great amount of movements regarding sons and daughters of self-employed to working class conditions and to positions like teachers reflect a general tendency in society. The correspondence analysis shows two main positions over time, dealing with agents who pass through and spend some time of the trajectory in the field of sports. On one side there is a vocational pole with origin among dominated classes, and on the other side an academic pole primarily with origin among dominating classes. Furthermore the analysis point at a dichotomy between objective opportunities for a professional career in badminton, golf, tennis etc. and no possibilities in curling, orienteering, shooting etc. There is an effect of gravitation/struggle from the field of sports, with the possibility of converting sports capital, but the strategies of reconversions and mobility depend also on the structural homology between the field and the social space mediated by trajectories, and the structure of society.
10.
Raunkiær, Mette
(författare)
At være døende hjemme? : Hverdagsliv og idealer
2007
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
The dissertation deals with two part-studies. The main focus is a field study the purpose of which is to understand incurable disease and death as hands-on experiences at the player's level. With the aid of observations and interviews, nine dying people, relatives and community nurses are followed in the families? homes over time. The second part-study is a discourse analysis of Danish health-policy reports on the palliative field from 1985 to 2006. The object is to elucidate social ideals about ?the good death?. The epistemological approach has been inspired by social constructionism. The field study has been analysed on the back of everyday-life theory, and the discourse analysis with inspiration from genealogical discourse analyses, discourse theory and perspectives on the construction of social problems. The field study shows how everyday routines, ruptures, time and space are essential to the family's everyday life, as well as how the bodily experience of the dying can have a bearing on action strategies. Insight is provided into the way relationships and interactions are challenged, as well as the potential difficulty of handling issues about dying people's whereabouts, intimate situations and "talking about death". In terms of the nurses, for example, it emerges that dispensing medication and other clinical tasks can have various functions, as well as contact with the families proving a potential challenge to professionals.
