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Deutschmann, Mats, 1964-
(författare)
Apologising in British English
2003
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
The thesis explores the form, function and sociolinguistic distribution of explicit apologies in the spoken part of the British National Corpus. The sub-corpus used for the study comprises a spoken text mass of about five million words and represents dialogue produced by more than 1700 speakers, acting in a number of different conversational settings. More than 3000 examples of apologising are included in the analysis.Primarily, the form and function of the apologies are examined in relation to the type of offence leading up to the speech act. Aspects such as the sincerity of the apologies and the use of additional remedial strategies other than explicit apologising are also considered. Variations in the distributions of the different types of apologies found are subsequently investigated for the two independent variables speaker social identity (gender, social class and age) and conversational setting (genre, formality and group size). The effect of the speaker-addressee relationship on the apology rate and the types of apologies produced is also examined.In this study, the prototypical apology, a speech act used to remedy a real or perceived offence, is only one of a number of uses of the apology form in the corpus. Other common functions of the form include discourse-managing devices such as request cues for repetition and markers of hesitation, as well as disarming devices uttered before expressing disagreement and controversial opinions.Among the speaker social variables investigated, age and social class are particularly important in affecting apologetic behaviour. Young and middle-class speakers favour the use of the apology form. No substantial gender differences in apologising are apparent in the corpus. I have also been able to show that large conversational groups result in frequent use of the form. Finally, analysis of the effects of the speaker-addressee relationship on the use of the speech act shows that, contrary to expectations based on Brown & Levinson’s theory of politeness, it is the powerful who tend to apologise to the powerless rather than vice versa.The study implies that formulaic politeness is an important linguistic marker of social class and that its use often involves control of the addressee.
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Bergman, Jonny, 1973-
(författare)
Seeking empowerment : asylum-seeking refugees from Afghanistan in Sweden
2010
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
The purpose of this study is to contribute to the understanding of how asylum-seeking refugees manage their lives in the situation they are in, a situation in which they are dependent and have to wait for decisions on whether or not they will get to stay in the country in which they have made their application for asylum. The elaboration upon these questions and the purpose of the study is approached through a field study of asylum-seeking refugees from Afghanistan in Sweden. The thesis presents a background of international migration, refugee migration, refugee migration from Afghanistan and the reception of asylum seekers and refugees in the EU and Sweden, which tells us both that asylum seekers and refugees are not welcome in the countries of the ‘North’, where policies of containment and repatriation are the most common features of treating the refugee ‘problem’ and that the long period of waiting and uncertainty creates a situation of passivity and ill-health among the asylum seekers. Employing grounded theory methodology in different forms based in data from fieldwork, including participant observations and informal conversations, the study applies a constructionist grounded theory approach in the analyses of the situation and the management thereof. Steered by this constructionist grounded theory approach, strengthened by a situational analysis, the thesis presents a situational frame pointing to the situation for the asylum-seeking refugees as temporal and dependent on Swedish national discourse, racism and paternalism. With this background and frame and generated by data from the field study, the thesis goes on to present the situation as disempowering. The disempowering processes are illustrated through looking at dependence and inhospitality, and are characterised by the asylum-seeking refugees’ oscillation between feelings of hope and despair. It becomes, however, also evident that the asylum-seeking refugees take action and that they are supported by latent empowering processes. The actions taken are categorised as actions of empowering in opposition to the processes presented as disempowering. The actions of empowering are connected to keeping oneself occupied, searching for and maintaining social contacts and in the asylum-seeking refugees’ representations of themselves. From the presentation of the situation as disempowering and the actions taken by the asylum-seeking refugees in response to this situation as actions of empowering, a process characterised as seeking empowerment is presented. In this process empowerment is discussed as the establishment of power to resist. During the discussion of the concept of seeking empowerment it is shown how the asylum-seeking refugees in this study, through their actions of empowering, try to resist the disempowering situation. By seeking to establish power to resist, they are seeking empowerment.
5.
Nordenmark, Mikael
(författare)
Unemployment, Employment Commitment and Well-being : The Psychosocial Meaning of (Un)employment among Women and Men
1999
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
The general aim of this thesis is to study the psychosocial meaning of (un)employment among women and men. This is mainly done by analysing employment commitment, or non-financial employment motivation, and mental well-being among a random sample of 3 500 Swedes that were interviewed in the beginning of 1996, when all were unemployed, and then again in the end of 1997, when the labour market situation varied. In general, the results from this study support the unemployment studies that have emphasised the importance of employment for the possibility to create and maintain a satisfactory life situation.
6.
Olofsson, Anna
(författare)
Waves of controversy : gene technology in Dagens nyheter 1973-96
2002
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
This thesis investigates the public debate on gene technology, between 1973 and 1996, in one of the agenda-setting media in Sweden, Dagens Nyheter. Gene technology is one of the latest controversial technologies which characterise our present Western society. The main concern of the study is the dynamic of this mediated debate on gene technology, which represents variation in the intensity and content of the debate over time. Potential controversies in this debate have also been a major focus. The study is mainly based on a quantitative content analysis of all articles published by Dagens Nyheter with gene technology as the main theme, but also on a qualitative text analysis of a smaller amount of articles covering controversies within the same population of articles.The results show that the debate has ebbed and flowed in a more or less regular way, as four waves, and that the number of articles increases over time. Different themes have been in focus at different periods of time, each corresponding to a wave: Risk and safety in the late 1970s, ethics in the early 1980s, regulation in the end of the 1980s and finally applications of gene technology in the 1990s. Therefore, the 'RERA hypothesis' was formulated, suggesting that the overall themes of the public debate on a new technology will follow this specific sequence. It is also shown that the coverage is divided between two separate types of debates, or media packages, one reporting latest news and discoveries, and one discussing the technology more critically. This latter debate covers the explicit expressions of the underlying controversy between the scientific and the humanistic view of technology in society.The author's main conclusion is that the public debate on gene technology follows a wave-like pattern corresponding to cycles of attention given to the issue, and that the characteristics are context initiated. Real world events trigger the underlying controversy between the scientific and humanistic point of view, which, if it fits media logic, is exposed in the media. The media package characterised by controversy brings with it the coverage of general news, and as the controversy ends, interest cools off and so does media attention. Waves of controversy arise.
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Eliassi, Barzoo, 1978-
(författare)
A stranger in my homeland : The politics of belonging among young people with Kurdish backgrounds in Sweden
2010
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
This dissertation examines how young people with Kurdish backgrounds form their identity in Sweden with regards to processes of inclusion and exclusion. It also sheds light on the ways these young people deal with ethnic discrimination and racism. Further, the study outlines the importance of these social processes for the discipline of social work and the ways social workers can work with disadvantaged and marginalized groups and endorse their struggle for social justice and full equal citizenship beyond racist and discriminatory practices. The empirical analysis is built on interviews with 28 young men and women with Kurdish backgrounds in Sweden. Postcolonial theory, belonging and identity formation constitute the central conceptual framework of this study. The young people referred to different sites in which they experienced ethnic discrimination and stigmatization. These experiences involved the labor market, mass media, housing segregation, legal system and school system. The interviewees also referred to the roles of ‘ordinary’ Swedes in obstructing their participation in the Swedish society through exclusionary discourses relating to Swedish identity. The interviewees’ life situation in Sweden, sense of ethnic discrimination as well as disputes over identity making with other young people with Middle-Eastern background are among the most important reasons for fostering strong Kurdish nationalist sentiments, issues that are related to the ways they can exercise their citizenship rights in Sweden and how they deal with exclusionary practices in their everyday life. The study shows that the interviewees respond to and resist ethnic discrimination in a variety of ways including interpersonal debates and discussions, changing their names to Swedish names, strengthening differences between the self and the other, violence, silence and deliberately ignoring racism. They also challenged and spoke out against the gendered racism that they were subjected to in their daily lives due to the paternalist discourse of ”honor-killing”. The research participants had been denied an equal place within the boundary of Swedishness partly due to a racist postcolonial discourse that valued whiteness highly. Paradoxically, some interviewees reproduced the same discourse through choosing to use it against black people, Africans, newly-arrived Kurdish immigrants (”imports”), ”Gypsies” and Islam in order to claim a modern Kurdish identity as near to whiteness as possible. This indicates the multiple dimensions of racism. Those who are subjected to racism and ethnic discrimination can be discriminatory and reproduce the racist discourse. Despite unequal power relations, both dominant and minoritized subjects are all marked by the postcolonial condition in structuring subjectivities, belonging and identification.
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Jönsson, Jessica H., 1981-
(författare)
Localised Globalities and Social Work : Contemporary Challenges
2014
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
Recent global and structural transformations, a West-centric development agenda and the triumph of neoliberal politics have led to destructive consequences for many local communities and individual life chances. The global dominance of the West-centric development agenda, with its roots in the colonial past, has created uneven developments and an unjust world in which Western countries continue to gain advantages and increase their prosperity. Although a minority elite in many non-Western countries share the same interests as Western countries and their global organs, the majority of people in these countries are suffering from increasing socioeconomic inequalities. As a result of the dogmatic belief in a singular and West-centric modernity and its practices, many problems are considered to be the result of non-Western countries’ inabilities to complete the project of modernity in accordance with Western blueprints. This has also influenced social work as a global and modern profession. Social problems are often individualised and the reasons behind many inequalities are increasingly related to non-Western people’s individual shortcomings and traditional cultural backgrounds. In Western and non-Western countries equally are the neoliberal structural and institutional transformations ignored and social problems of individuals and families defined as a matter of wrong and deviant actions and choices.The main objective of the dissertation, which is constituted of four articles and an overall introduction and summary, is to examine the consequences of recent neoliberal globalisation based on the belief in a single and West-centric modernity and development agenda and their consequences for social work facing increasing global inequalities. The following research questions have guided the work: ‘How can social work play an effective role in combating social problems and otherisation, marginalisation and increasing inequalities in a globalised world?’, ‘How does the global development agenda function within the local arenas of social work?’, ‘Are development projects improving people’s life chances in local communities in non-Western countries?’, ‘How informed and responsive are social workers towards the global context of local problems?’The work is based on a qualitative design using qualitative content analysis for analysing data collected through interviews, participant observations and official documents. The results show that irrespective of where and in which context social problems are appearing, since local problems often have global roots, a global perspective to local problems should be included in every practices of social work in order to develop new methods of practices in an increasingly globalised field of work. Destruction of local communities, forced migration from non-Western countries, and marginalisation of people with immigrant background in Western countries should not be considered only as local problems, but also as problems with their roots in global structural inequalities which reproduces global social problems with local consequences.It is argued that social work should consider the dilemmas and problems connected to the taken for granted West-centric theories, understandings and practices of social work in order to develop new methods of practices for combating social problems, marginalisation and increasing inequalities in a globalised world. Such a position includes practicing multilevel social work, social work in global alliances beyond the division of East and West, and mobilisation against neoliberalism and the retreat of the welfare state. This requires critical standpoints against the relationship between the global context of the neoliberal ideology and practices in a Western-dominated and postcolonial world and the daily practices of social work.
10.
Livholts, Mona
(författare)
"Women", welfare, textual politics and critique : different categories of "women", the making of welfare states and emancipation in a Nordic welfare state context
2001
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
The overall purpose of this thesis is to analyse and interpret the relationship between the social construction of different categories of 'women' and the making of welfare states in specific moments of textual politics in a Nordic welfare state context. Furthermore, the aim is to develop a methodology for critical self-reflection in the process Of producing academic knowledge. The intention is to invite the reader to engage in critical reconsideration on these issues.This thesis is based on Four Articles and consists of Four Parts. The First Part (I) introduces the reader to the process of producing academic knowledge from the perspective of an 'outsider within' and describes the backgrounds from which this research interest has developed. Methodological approaches and methods in the form of social constructionism, discourse analysis and memory work are presented and the research process as well as the conditions under which academic writing takes place are discussed.The Second Part (II) consists of the Four Articles in the thesis. Article One (I) is an invitation to critically reflect upon the construction of and the relationship between academic social work and marginalisation/the marginalised. It is argued that academic social work, to a large extent, builds on the construction of Othering and that this must be analysed in a critical way. Article Two (II) analyses and interprets how solo mothers are constructed as a social category in a selection of textual political documents (research documents and government surveys) in a Swedish welfare state context during the 1980s and the 1990s. As a result of these interpretations, welfare takes its particular form through two images - the welfare dilemma and risk motherhood. The effects of using solo mothers as a subcategory of women are conceptualised in accordance with two principles - the principle of problem orientation and the principle of division. Article Three (III) analyses the category of 'women' in academic writings on the Nordic "women-friendly" welfare states. By using discourse analysis in the form of interpretative repertoires, this study reconstruct 'women' into different 'clusters' and also makes some references to 'men'. The article discusses overlaps, contradictions and conflicts related to women and emancipatory social change. Article Four (IV) examine and interpret the foundations of Nordic "women-friendlyness" by a feminist genealogical discursive analysis designed as a set of interrelated and overlapping stories, with two possible suggested endings: Nordic "women-friendlyness" as invention and as vision.The Third Part (III) focus on the production of academic knowledge and academic writing as a process by using memory work as a form for critical self-reflection and relates this back to specific sub-themes in each article. Examples of sub-themes are fears, social problems and female strangers.In Part Four (IV) the concept of untimeliness is used as a way of discussing the relationship between human relationships and the process of social change. By focusing on form and the construction of Othering as a way of creating Self, three possible endings are presented: enter the theatre, negotiating the problem of Othering and an untimely letter.
