1.
Ewertzon, Mats, 1956-
(författare)
Familjemedlem till person med psykossjukdom : bemötande och utanförskap i psykiatrisk vård
2012
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
This thesis focused on the situation of family members of persons with psychotic illness, particular on their experience of the approach of the healthcare professionals and of their feelings of alienation regarding the professional care of their family member. A further aim was to explore how siblings who have participated in a support group for siblings experienced their situation.A questionnaire was developed that enabled the aims of this thesis to be investigated (I). Seventy family members from various parts of Sweden participated, and data were collected via the questionnaire developed in study I (II-III). Thirteen siblings who previously had participated in a support group participated in follow-up focus groups interviews (IV).The questionnaire developed was shown to be reliable and valid in these studies (I). In many cases, the participants had experienced an approach from professionals that indicated that they did not experience openness, confirmation and cooperation, and that they felt powerless and socially isolated in relation to the care. There was also found to be a certain degree of association between how the participants experienced the approach and whether they felt alienation (II). The majority of the participants considered openness, confirmation, and cooperation to be important aspects of professional’s approach. The result also identified a low level of agreement between the participants’ experience and what they considered to be significant in the professional’s approach (III). The findings revealed the complexity of being a sibling of an individual with psychotic illness. Participating in a support group for siblings can be of importance in gaining knowledge and minimizing feelings of being alone (IV).Although the psychiatric care services in Sweden have been aware of the importance of cooperating with family members, the results indicated that there is a need for further research in this area.
2.
Kania-Lundholm, Magdalena, 1980-
(författare)
Re-Branding A Nation Online : Discourses on Polish Nationalism and Patriotism
2012
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
The aim of this dissertation is two-fold. First, the discussion seeks to understand the concepts of nationalism and patriotism and how they relate to one another. In respect to the more critical literature concerning nationalism, it asks whether these two concepts are as different as is sometimes assumed. Furthermore, by problematizing nation-branding as an “updated” form of nationalism, it seeks to understand whether we are facing the possible emergence of a new type of nationalism. Second, the study endeavors to discursively analyze the ”bottom-up” processes of national reproduction and re-definition in an online, post-socialist context through an empirical examination of the online debate and polemic about the new Polish patriotism.The dissertation argues that approaching nationalism as a broad phenomenon and ideology which operates discursively is helpful for understanding patriotism as an element of the nationalist rhetoric that can be employed to study national unity, sameness, and difference. Emphasizing patriotism within the Central European context as neither an alternative to nor as a type of nationalism may make it possible to explain the popularity and continuous endurance of nationalism and of practices of national identification in different and changing contexts. Instead of facing a new type of nationalism, we can then speak of new forms of engagement which take place in cyberspace that contribute to the process of reproduction of nationalism. The growing field of nation-branding, with both its practical and political implications, is presented as one of the ways in which nationalism is reproduced and maintained as a form of “soft” rather than “hard” power within the global context. The concept of nation re-branding is introduced in order to account for the role that citizens play in the process of nation branding, which has often been neglected in the literature. This concept is utilized to critically examine, understand, and explain the dynamics of nation brand construction and re-definition, with a particular focus on the discursive practices of citizens in cyberspace. It is argued that citizens in the post-socialist countries, including Poland, can engage in the process of nation re-branding online. It is also argued that this process of online nation re-branding may legitimately be regarded as a type of civic practice through which citizens connect with each other and reproduce a form of cultural national intimacy.The results of the analysis of the online empirical material illustrate that nation re-branding is a complex, dynamic, and ambivalent phenomenon. It involves a process of discursive negotiation of nation and of national identity, but also challenges, dismantles, and transforms the national image as it is communicated both internally and externally. This reveals nation re-branding as an element in the post-socialist transformation from a ”nation” to a ”Western,” ”modern,” and ”normal” country in which dealing with an ”old” nation brand is as equally important as the introduction of the new brand. Nationalism does not disappear in the digital age, but rather becomes part of the new way of doing politics online, whereby citizens are potentially granted a form of agency in the democratic process.
3.
Mjöberg, Jessica, 1977-
(författare)
Innerlighetens tid : En sociologisk undersökning av intimitet och senmodernitet
2011
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
Due to a recent increase in usage of the concept of intimacy within social scientific research, the overarching aim of this work is to investigate its meaning and significance in contemporary social life. The first part of the thesis reviews research on intimacy. Intimacy is perceived as being vaguely defined as a concept, leading to insufficient discussions concerning the significance of intimacy both as a social concept and as a social phenomenon in contemporary western society. In order to become more clearly defined as a social concept to use in future research, intimacy needs to be investigated as a social phenomenon. The second part explores and analyses intimacy as a social phenomenon by way of three partly phenomenological and partly theoretical analyses: the phenomenology of intimacy, the arithmetic of intimacy and the dark sides of intimacy. The three analyses result in a definition of intimacy understood as a kind of sociality, or mode of social being, characterized by an oceanic experience, mutual and complete directedness between the ones being in relation, an experience of mental as well as physical closeness, and an experience of time as “durée”. The third part discusses the proposed definition of intimacy as sociality in relation to contemporary social theory. In relation to an understanding of contemporary western society as late modern or radicalized modern, intimacy as sociality is discussed as a radicalization of a rational sociality, characteristic for modern society. The discussion takes the form of a dialectic critique of modern dualistic theories, proposing a triadic (dialectic) alternative for understanding basic forms of sociality and social relations. The vague notion of intimacy as a concept suited to characterize social life in contemporary western society is supported by this proposition.
