1.
2.
Augustsson, Gunnar
(författare)
Etniska relationer i arbetslivet : teknik, arbetsorganisation och etnisk diskriminering i svensk bilindustri
1996
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
The goal of this study is to understanding ethnic discrimination by employing a complex theoretical approach which allows for an understanding of ethnic relations and ethnic discrimination as a social process. The study includes a case study at Volvo Torslandaverken in Gothenburg, and focuses on ethnic discrimination against the background of both structural conditions and situational factors. The analysis results from studying personnel statistics and interviews with salaried employees, union elected representatives, and workers.The study includes two technical and organizational environments. The first environment, manual systems, demands loyalty of individuals to the technical and organizational system. The other environment, integrated mechanization, has a decentralized group organizational structure. Both environments are studied with consideration taken to recruiting, leadership, and solidarity among workers.The results show that ethnic discrimination appears to be a very complicated phenomena, the expression of which is a consequence of dynamic interplay between structure and action. New forms of work have meant that workers' professional skills are now organized to compliment one another and they work more in groups. This has resulted in an increased need for familiar cultural and social skills within the groups. Such a development risks encouraging varying degrees of negligence, aversion, and exclusion of ethnic views.
3.
4.
Jonsson, Gun
(författare)
Tanter och representanter : en fråga om oligarki eller demokrati?
2006
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
The aim of this thesis emanated from a discussion whether voluntary associations have a choice or not regarding their democratic development. Robert Michels (1911/1983), one of the classic sociological thinkers, says no. The path towards oligarchy is inevitable. Nevertheless, maybe there are certain points, where the organizations face a certain democratic “dilemma” (Merton, 1966), forcing them more or less easily towards the oligarchic path? Seven counterarguments deriving from modern perspectives on participatory democracy (Pateman 1985; 1989) where used to find a way to avoid the oligarchic path and by that develop democracy in organizations. Since democracy also requires equality, the dissertation explored the question of power and influence in democratic organisations by studying the use of (spoken) language. Inspired by sociolinguistic theory (Milles, 2004) the aim was to identify dominance of the conversation: Who are taking part of the conversation? Are there differences between women and men in democratic organisations?The main part of the study consists of group interviews. Members of the boards of six relatively small voluntary associations where chosen as units of analysis. Information around founding an association gathered from 75 homepages on Internet served as background data. The language as each one of the 27 board members where studied both separately and as conversation.The conclusion is that formal structures build in hierarchal levels already when voluntary organisations take form. The dilemmas seem to revolve around the two fundamental criteria of democratic government, namely effectiveness and responsiveness are more or less explicitly stated. Awareness of dilemmas seems to be a possible way to avoid the determinism of oligarchy. The need for reinterpretation of the goals now and then could make it easier to find alternative actions. The associations have to strike a balance between effectiveness in relation to their goals and effectiveness in a democratic sense, a balance not always held. By clarifying the work and development processes of the voluntary organisations it is possible to identify (the lack of) democratic work within the organisations – a useful instrument in practice. The elite that runs the organisations is almost exclusively male and is preventing the members, especially women, from voicing their opinion. Democracy obstructs by structures demanded by society, socialised gender structures and the need of efficiency. The representatives are not always carrying out their task as elected representatives; self-interest puts before the common good.
5.
Schmauch, Ulrika
(författare)
Den osynliga vardagsrasismens realitet
2006
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
The main objective of the thesis is to study how people of African decent experience and deal with everyday discrimination and racism in a context where such racism is to a large degree concealed and/or denied. Everyday racism affecting people with an African background in Sweden is expressed in a number of different, often subtle and obscure, ways. It is experienced in a context of structural inequality between those who are racialized and those who are seen as the norm in society. The mystification that takes place in the public debate highly restricts the opportunities for resistance in an open and articulated manner. This is partly because silence leads to an insecurity about how to understand the racism experienced, for example, should it be defined as “racism” or as a “misunderstanding”? In addition, people who openly resist and protest tend to be discredited as exaggerating or being too sensitive. Consequently, resistance against structural discrimination in Sweden today is difficult. The findings demonstrate that interviewees deal with everyday racism in a variety of ways that can be categorized in to three broad strategies: mystifying the experiences of racism in one’s everyday life, longing for a place or context far away from Swedish racism and finally, keeping racism at a distance, including resisting and protesting within the existing limitations.
6.
7.
Fahlgren, Siv
(författare)
Det sociala livets drama och dess manus : diskursanalys, kön och sociala avvikelser
1999
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
We are the eyes of our discourses. This is the point of departure. The disourses make us see, think, talk, act. be and move in certain ways. They contribute to forming our bodies, our souls, our genders. Therefore, to consider how such discourses are ordered becomes an important project. How is the manuscript of the social drama written? How is meaning constructed in our lives? What effects may the construction of meaning have? The ensuing research assignment will be to design a discourse analysis which is justifiable from the perspectives of gender theory and ethics and which can function as a research strategy, and to apply that discourse analysis to three areas or texts: a traditional social science text, texts from the contemporary discussion about gender theory, and a story of my own from social work with children.First, a frame centered around the philosophy of language and the theory of knowledge is constructed to encircle the discourse analysis as a research strategy, and then the analysis is described out of an example. The first application—to a classic, sociological text—clearly illustrates how a disourse analysis can be made, and it also demonstrates how gendered meanings can be constituted and discursively reproduced in social science texts as well as what potential effects the constitution of meaning can have. This application makes up an illustration of how gender differences are constructed and naturalised in a concurrence of discourse and practice.The second application is a discursive reading of the contemporary discussion about gender theory and its various gendered meanings and varying effects. Here I posit my own view of gender/sex in relation to that discussion. Both in scholarly work and in everyday life there are discursive controversies about which gendered meaning to naturalise, about which drama to enact, about which manuscript to use. The discourse analysis can visualise such controversies.In the third application of the discourse analysis, the relation between discourse and practice is focused. It concerns social work with children and departs from my own story about a child who is taken into custody. In the analysis, social work is described as paradoxical and contradictory, a discipline whose governing purpose is the maintenance and administration of central social values and orders like class, gender, and ethnicity (here focused on gender).The discourse analysis in the three applications opens up opportunities for a discussion and an ethical reflection about how discursive constitutions are made and what effects they have. Contrarily, the analysis also demonstrates what discursive constitutions aggravate or silence in reference to other approaches or modes of expression, and consequential forms of social practices, relations, life styles, and ways of life.
8.
Karlsson-G, Sofie
(författare)
Tillsammans men var för sig : Om särboenderelationer mellan äldre kvinnor och män i Sverige
2006
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
Contemporary family life and intimate relationships today are characterised by increasing heterogeneity. In the growing body of research on this differentiation, the role of the elderly people has largely been ignored. But to an increasing extent the "young old" (65-74 years of age), in particular, are active participants in the process of the differentiation of intimate relationships. One of the least researched contributions of the elderly to the restructuring of contemporary intimate relationships is the establishment of lastint intimate relationships that do not include a mutual home, i.e. an alternative to marriage or other forms of cohabition. This type of relationship is referred to as Living Apart Together (henceforth LAT-relationships. In Swedish: särboende). The aim of this thesis is to examine LAT-relationships among elderly heterosexual individuals in Sweden, focusing in particular on the influence of this type of relationship on commitments, intimacy and autonomy. A major dilemma is the question of who should provide the care and service that ageing often demands. A pluralistic methodological approach has been adopted in the four differnt papers in this thesis, whick includes the use of a qualitative pilot study, a broad quantitative questionnaire study, a qualitative interview study and finally a qualitative study with a lifestory perspective.
9.
Sjölund, Maria, 1978-
(författare)
Levd erfarenhet av ålder : Föreställningar om och erfarenheter av att vara och bli äldre
2012
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
Starting from the perspective that the ageing human body always is a situation and in a situation, the present thesis explores situations in which the meaning of age and ageing is negotiated. The analytical focus is on situations, and more specifically on experiences of age and ageing. The aim of the thesis is to describe and analyse the lived experience of age and ageing. A hermeneutic understanding of experience and lived experience is fundamental to the thesis. Three studies are included.The first study is based on descriptions of situations in which older people felt “especially young” and "especially old". The analysis revealed that the same kinds of situations gave rise to experiences both of feeling “especially young” and of feeling “especially old”, but they differed in focus regarding social inclusion/exclusion.The second study is based on interviews with amateur dancers regarding their experiences of a dance project in which the artistic focus is on the aged body. Two themes emerged in the analysis: the dance project as a situation in which the meaning of age and ageing was both given new meanings and restated in stereotypical terms; and the aged and ageing person him-/herself as a situation for negotiating the meaning of age and ageing. The meaning of age was negotiated, as there were tensions between referring to age and ageing as resources and referring to them as a problem associated with restrictions. The situated experiences involved changes in the body, pointed out by other people or felt oneself. The dissociation from being old appeared as an internalized social norm, and one strategy for avoiding old age was to keep active, but not too active.The third study is based on a vignette dialogue with amateur dancers. Text excerpts from Simone de Beauvoir's book The Coming of Age (1970/1972) were used as vignettes to grasp notions about the aged in society as they appeared to the informants. Among the informants, notions of being and becoming old in a society are filled with fears of being dependent, becoming a social burden on society and being reduced to an aged person with standardized needs who is unable to live a worthy life. In sum, the lived experience of ageing is always situated as a complex interplay between the body, social norms, the available language and our notions about these phenomena. The present thesis shows that age and ageing can be filled with various inconsistent meanings that embrace social inclusion as well as social exclusion.
10.
Andersson, Ewa, 1980-
(författare)
Oberoendets praktik
2013
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
The Independent PracticeDuring the last hundred years, the music industry has evolved with the record labels playing a central role. However, many argue that this situation is about to change as record sales have decreased during the last ten years. This imminent change in the music industry will not only affect the multinational record labels, but also the independent record labels. As record sales have decreased during the last ten years, the number of members in the Swedish Independent Music Producers Association (SOM) has increased and the association now includes 300 independent record labels which are responsible for around 30 percent of the music being produced in Sweden. However, they can be considered a dominated group within the music industry, since they only have around 10 percent of the total market shares when it comes to selling figures. Considering the changes in record sales, the domination of the major record labels and the somewhat fascinating growth of independent actors during turbulent times, this thesis will study how the Swedish independent actors relate to the practices and ideals relevant in the daily work of running an independent record label. The practices studied in this thesis are the practice of work, the practice of recognition and the practice of content production.The purpose of this thesis is to analyse how independence is constructed among the members of SOM. The thesis is based on material collected in a web survey as well as seven interviews with representatives of indie labels. The web survey was distributed to all members of SOM, and the interviewed informants were selected by snowball sampling, using a locator to find informants. The survey material was analysed with cluster and variance analysis, while the interview material was analysed using content analysis – searching for themes connected to the practices. All material is understood through the theoretical frame of the field theory.The main results of the study are that there are different ways of relating to practices among the Swedish independent actors, and that these ways of relating are closely connected to their position within the field. There are common ways of relating to practices such as always promoting DIY, the importance of music and the need to resist the dominance of the major labels. However, the independent actors are not consistent in how these commonalities work in practice. For example, DIY is not applied if it is not economically necessary, and the need to resist the major labels is only apparent when the independent actor has a weaker position within the field. The more established an independent actor is within the field, the lesser resistant he is against the dominating structures of the music industry. As a result of a weakening resistance against the major labels, the independent actors turn to struggle each other.
