1.
Bengtsson, Åsa, 1967-
(författare)
Nyktra kvinnor : Folkbildare, företagare och politiska aktörer. Vita Bandet 1900-1930
2011
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
In this thesis the female Christian temperance union the White Ribbon is in focus. The White Ribbon was founded in Stockholm in 1900 and it was part of the international organization World’s Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WWCTU). The organization’s ambition was to create a temperate and moral society, running a variety of philanthropic institutions and adult education, as well as non-alcohol serving restaurants.The aim of the thesis is to study the White Ribbon’s social and political commitment and its ideological approach during the first three decades of the 20th century. The White Ribboners’ ideological approach and culture are problematized in relation to the prevailing and predominant view on women. The organization’s monthly journal has been closely studied and the ideas and practical social and political commitment have been analyzed in a theoretical perspective of social movement theory, according to the Swedish sociologist Håkan Thörn’s methodological framework. This theoretical approach is an instrument to analyze what the White Ribbon identified to be social problems; what was considered to be the reasons for these problems; and what strategy the organization regarded to be the best way to deal with them in order to reach the prognosticated change.The analysis shows that the White Ribbon identified the predominant gender system and the bourgeois view on women as a primary social problem. The organization’s strategy was to eliminate the patriarchal order of the gender system and to change the attitude of people through adult education, information and persuasion. The White Ribbon participated in public debate pursuing temperance and women’s suffrage, and was a lobbyist proposing motions and demanding legislative reforms. The White Ribbon’s ideological approach, as well as their philanthropic activities emanated from a bourgeois ideal of conscientiousness and cultivation, and from an interest in social politics. This was in contrast to the bourgeois view of what the ideal woman should do. From the White Ribboners’ point of view, society could only prosper when women had the same rights as men, and could participate the public sphere and become involved in politics.The study shows that the organization worked hard for equality and democracy, pursuing a feminist and liberal ideology. The White Ribboners regarded themselves, and also acted, as political agents. They introduced and increased women’s possibilities for adult education. They initiated and provided social protection for alcohol addicted women, and for poor and fallen women and girls. These activities must be seen as forms of enterprises and the White Ribboners as entrepreneurs, since these institutions were, in fact, innovations and models for solving problems in order to build a welfare system and to create a temperate and prosperous society. The thesis put forward arguments that the White Ribbon’s social and political work are political innovations and important elements in the process of democratization and, therefore, played an important part in this process.
2.
Lundgren, Silje, 1978-
(författare)
Heterosexual Havana : Ideals and hierarchies of gender and sexuality in contemporary Cuba
2011
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
Drawing on two periods of ethnographic fieldwork in Vedado, Havana, in 2004–2007, this dissertation analyses the interconnections between gender, sexuality, and heterosexuality. With theoretical inspiration from the works of Stevi Jackson and Beverley Skeggs, it discusses how the logics underlying heterosexual relations also regulate hierarchical gendered ideals. It examines how gendered conceptions of sexuality confirm a position of heterosexual desirability, and traces a specifically heterosexual gender construction of men and women as oppositional forces, glued together in a relationship of eroticized complementarity.Moreover, the dissertation shows that the everyday negotiation of ideals around gender and sexuality is characterized by constant hierarchization. It explores how the emic concept of ‘cultural level’ is used in a process of othering to mark moral distance and create a position of superiority. It also suggests that in post-crisis Cuba, the body has become a new site on which to inscribe distinction and mark privilege, as a way of navigating in a context of new and unfamiliar differentiations.The dissertation demonstrates how female eroticism, male eroticized performances in street interaction, and the female body ideal are central sites for establishing an image of national particularity. In this historic moment, these have also become sites for marking difference and creating hierarchies. The dissertation argues that inclusive and unifying conceptions of ‘Cubanness’ are both delineated and reinforced through exclusion and the demarcation of difference within this collectivity.This notion of the nation carries gendered and sexualized inscriptions. It has been constructed through the historical exclusion of non-heterosexuality, which has been closely connected to the consolidation of a specific ideal of masculinity. The dissertation analyses the destabilizing potential of a shift in Cuban sexual politics during the last two decades and explores how this might imply a new configuration of the relationship between gender and sexuality.
3.
Zink, Eren, 1974-
(författare)
Flexible Science : An Anthropology of Scientists, Society and Nature in Vietnam
2011
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
Eren Zink explores the conditions of doing science in Vietnam. The scientists included in this study were engaged in local and international efforts to conserve nature, establish the fact of climate change, and carry out scientific research in Vietnam. In most instances they had received some of their higher education outside of Vietnam, and later returned to positions within Vietnamese government ministries, universities, research institutes or (to a lesser extent) nongovernmental organizations. Paying close attention to cultural and historical influences, the thesis reveals a politics of science whereby actors deftly navigate intricate webs of social and political networks. Partnerships amongst local and foreign actors become possible as a result of the ‘slippery spaces’ where misunderstandings are carefully cultivated and maintained. And, in combination with increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases and international development aid, these actor-networks support the arrival of climate change in Vietnam. Nevertheless, Vietnamese scientists are much more than intermediaries between local and foreign interests. Where the Red River meets the sea, scientists compete with national plans for aquaculture expansion in an effort to conserve an idea of nature that has roots in the rural villages of their remembered past. Meanwhile, in their own research institutions there are struggles over both the purpose of doing science, and the authority to practice it. With different degrees of success, the Vietnamese scientists studied here use the resources at hand to realize personal and professional ambitions, as well as to contribute to the (re)production of Vietnamese society. The study is based upon eleven months of anthropological fieldwork that took place in Vietnam during 2007 – 2009. Study sites included Vietnamese research institutions, universities, ministries, embassies, and non-governmental organizations, as well as shrimp ponds and national parks in the coastal zone.
