1.
Björktomta, Siv-Britt, 1962
(författare)
Om patriarkat, motstånd och uppbrott – tjejers rörelse i sociala rum
2012
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
This dissertation focuses on some young girls and their family relations. My aim has been to investigate how some of those girls with foreign background who in media, government documents and project descriptions have come to be categorized as “vulnerable girls in patriarchal families” – what has come to be termed honour-related violence and oppression, HRV – describe their situation themselves. The selection consists of eleven girls between 16 and 20 years old who have expressed that they live with restrictions and control of their social life and their sexuality. This means that it is the girls’ subjective experiences that have defined their vulnerability and delimited the selection. The core of the study comprises (family) relations, with gender and generation as dimensions of power. The study moves within two fields of tension, one of which deals with generation and concerns the relation between parental authority and children’s dependence and vulnerability. The other field deals with gender and concerns conflicts between men’s domination and women’s subordination. The theoretical basis consists of theories of patriarchy together with Bourdieu’s theories of habitus and symbolic violence, which provide an understanding of the context that the interviewees found themselves in. Central for this understanding is how norms and values are transferred from the older to the younger generation. For a deepening of the habitus concept, theories are used from emotion sociology about the coupling between feelings, cognition and action, which become useful in the analysis of the girl’s self-reflections, their relations to their parents, and regarding their space for action. The experience described by the interviewees concerned areas such as gender and sexuality, generation, dominance and power, violence, ethnicity, culture and religion, but in the interviews there was also a bodily and emotional dimension. This dimension emerged during the analytical work as increasingly significant for understanding the whole. The families’ norms and values can be described as traditional values in three areas: (1) a strong sexual morality together with control of women’s sexuality; (2) norms of honour, meaning among other things that great emphasis was placed on the family’s honour, which was symbolized by the daughter’s virginity; (3) gendered practices that were concretized in the interviews through the fact that the man was seen primarily as the family provider while the household and children were the woman’s responsibility. The patriarchal family formations that the interviewees described I will understand as variations of patriarchy formed within transnational social spaces in a late modern society. The idea that a daughter’s virginity is the symbol of the family’s reputation and honour meant that the interviewees, in a special way, had to shoulder the burden of being cultural symbols and boundary markers – with moral implications – between the “Swedish” and the “non-Swedish”. Resistance against the boy-friend ban and the virginity requirement was presented by all the interviewees. They lived a double life. Through various strategies the girls tried increasing their space for action, and when the resistance became visible – when the boundary transgressions were discovered – the father made use of his resources of power. Patriarchy was manifested in different ways within the families, and how the power was exercised had importance for the resistance’s form and expression, but it also emerged that these factors relate to each other in a dynamically changing interaction. The resistance influenced the power in many ways as well. An important distinction between the families concerned violence. In five families, there were accounts of actual physical violence, and in another family there had been threats of physical violence. The interviewees found themselves at the intersection between a patriarchal field and a field characterized by a more free view of sexuality and with strong discourses of equality and children’s rights. It was within these frameworks that their movements and resistance played out. A result that has emerged during the analytical work is the father’s position and significant function as a point of reference in the girls’ narratives – the father’s authority and power were taken for granted in virtually all the families. Another result is that through the diverse expressions of patriarchy the emotional ties between father and daughter existed in the great majority of the families. Parallel with emotional dependence between father and daughter, most of the girls wanted more emotional closeness, a closeness that could also promote a dialogue and better communication. The relation between mother and daughter emerged as complex and contradictory.
2.
Wickford, Jenny, 1979
(författare)
Physiotherapists in Afghanistan. Exploring, encouraging and experiencing professional development in the Afghan development context
2010
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
Aim: The aim of the thesis is to analyze the matter of supporting professional development of physiotherapists in Afghanistan, and the issues involved in expatriate physiotherapists working with professional development cross-culturally and in development contexts. The thesis is based on two field studies, aspects of which are reported on in four papers. The first field study aimed at analyzing and describing the physiotherapy component of a disability programme. The aim of the second field study was to explore the process of a development project, in order to gain understanding of how such work can be done in a better way. Participant observation was used for the data production of both studies. The adult learning theories of transformative learning and situated learning were used as a theoretical framework in the thesis. Paper I describes the situation, needs and challenges for developing physiotherapy in Afghanistan. The therapists worked in isolation with little opportunity for further education or professional development. Their approach was mainly medical, where the work was dictated by the patients’ expectations and doctors’ recommendations. They used primarily passive methods of treatment, and their work was affected by cultural, religious and situational factors and they demonstrated a basic capacity of clinical reasoning. Paper II explores factors that impacted learning and professional development of the Afghan physiotherapists in the development project. Examples of these factors were: a pattern approach to treatment, linear thinking, and socially oriented decision-making that affected how new things learned were put into practice; concrete representations and an instrumental view of knowledge characterized learning approaches; language barriers, different interpretations of meaning and cultural codes challenged communication; and a prescriptive, encouraging approach of the expatriate physiotherapy development worker affected teaching and learning. Paper III explores professional ethics for Afghan physiotherapists and identifies two ethical tensions for the professional practice of Afghan physiotherapists: between individualistic and communitarian ethical perspectives, and between normative ethics and local morals. Paper IV is a critical reflection over the expatriate development worker’s development process through, and impact on, the development project. The perspective of the development worker is transformed from an idealistic helper to an enterprising learner as a consequence of active participation in and a self-critical reflection of the process. Conclusion: Working with and researching professional development cross-culturally and in development contexts is complex and requires consideration of many different factors. Cultural competency is essential, where to understand others one needs to first understand oneself, and oneself in relation to others. This requires support when in the field. Physiotherapy theory and practice must be adapted to the local context. Actions taken towards promoting learning and professional development must be firmly rooted in the Afghan context, and investigated, planned and implemented together with Afghan physiotherapists. The professional development of Afghan supervisors and teachers should be a priority. To encourage reflection of both Afghan and expatriate physiotherapists a communicative learning approach could be taken, where ethical challenges and disorienting dilemmas can form the basis of a reflective discourse and lead to increased understanding.
3.
Calvo, Dolores, 1975
(författare)
What Is the Problem of Gender? Mainstreaming Gender in Migration and Development Policies in the European Union
2013
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
This dissertation deals with the analysis of representations and discourses of gender (in)equality contained in policy texts at the EU level. The period under examination is 2005–2010. Following the academic debate, I show that there is certainly agreement on the fact that gender mainstreaming at the EU level has not fulfilled its promise of being a transformative strategy. In this context, my main aim is to contribute to an understanding of why a gender perspective has failed to be introduced into mainstream policy by showing how gender is constructed in policy discourse. I examine how the ‘problem’ of gender (in)equality is represented in policy documents and interviews in the context of the strategy of gender mainstreaming at the EU level in general and within the policy areas of development cooperation and migration in particular. The representation of the ‘problem’ of gender (in)equality as a problem of women’s lack of participation (in the labour market, in political life, and in education) includes two arguments: the usefulness of women as resources for the economy and the right of women to participation. In this representation, the argument of gender equality as an instrument is important, but at the same time, the argument of gender equality as a value or human right is also central. In the same vein, the argument of gender inequality as both a problem for the economy and a moral problem also has an important role to play. Thus, tensions between efficiency or utilitarian arguments and human rights arguments can be identified across all policy texts. By looking at arguments, understandings, and representations of the ‘problem’ of gender inequality, I identify discourses of gender equality at the EU level: efficiency, economic independence–labour market, human rights, and feminist discourses of gender equality. In policy texts at the EU general level as well as at the level of development cooperation and migration policy areas, gender is understood as a fixed category, in terms of the binary male/female. This understanding contributes in part to undermining the conceptualisation and practice of gender mainstreaming itself. To understand gender as an essential characteristic or a fixed trait is unproductive, rather, in terms of any transformation of the gender structure. The process of (re)producing gender hierarchies and understandings entails relations of power and conflict, and its result is never final in that gender as a process is never ending; in policy texts, all of this dynamic is replaced by a dichotomy.
4.
Stretmo, Live, 1977
(författare)
Governing the Unaccompanied Child - Media, Policy and Practice
2014
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
Through three different case studies, this thesis analyzes how unaccompanied minors are constructed and governed as a specific group of refugees in Norway and Sweden. The first study investigates the Norwegian and Swedish media debate from 2000-2008 by examining how incidences of so-called “missing unaccompanied children” were highlighted on the media agenda. Part of this has also been to analyze the specific official actions taken by Norwegian and Swedish authorities. The second study analyzes how unaccompanied minors were framed in a more broad selection of Norwegian and Swedish official policy between 2000-2010 by looking at how unaccompanied children and youngsters were singled out as subjects of knowledge, and the actions and practices that legitimized these constructions. These two case studies demonstrate that unaccompanied minors have been similarly problematized in Norway and Sweden, hence making similar changes in mode of conduct legitimate. They were sometimes singled out as vulnerable children or child victims, but concurrently also as possible strategic migrants (adults trying to pass as children, problematic youngsters, etc.). This poses different types of threats to the asylum system, thus justifying care-oriented amid control-oriented strategies in their regard. The third case study analyzes how a selection of caregivers (i.e., officials and support staff) talk about their work with unaccompanied youngsters and children, and describes how 10 youngsters give meaning to their experiences of being categorized as unaccompanied. The caregivers held a repertoire of various constructions that clearly connect to many of the official or public narrations. Sometimes unaccompanied minors are framed as respectable exceptions to other problem categories, and at other times as problematic youngsters in need of compensatory pedagogics in order to overcome specific shortcomings. These caregivers, plus the media and national policy, further frame unaccompanied minors as specific rights holders due to their position-ing as “any other child”, therefore legitimizing softer and more care-oriented strategies. The interviews with the 10 youngsters illustrate how they try to re-position themselves as positive exceptions to the official images of strategic or problematic youngsters highlighted in the media, policy and practice. This study identifies a discourse where a lot of consensus and agreement on problematizations coexist in Norwegian and Swedish policy, public narratives, and in how people in the micro context talk and make sense of unaccompanied minors.
5.
Backman, Christel, 1979
(författare)
Criminal Records in Sweden. Regulation of access to criminal records and the use of criminal background checks by employers.
2012
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
This thesis examines the regulation of access to criminal records in Sweden and the actual and potential use of criminal background checks by employers in hiring processes. In recent years, more and more Swedish employers have been required by law to check their job applicants’ criminal records. In a parallel process, also the number of enforced subject access requests has increased considerably in that same period. The aim of this thesis is to analyse and explain these two trends and consider their implications for future use of criminal records in Sweden and elsewhere. The analysis draws upon government documents, newspaper articles, interviews with employers using enforced subject access, and interviews with union and employer organization representatives, with the aim of capturing the vocabularies of motive that were evoked and put to use in attempts to justify and legitimize either access restrictions or the extended use of criminal records data in hiring decisions. In Paper I, I examine how subject access, indirect employer access, and the notion of privacy have been understood and defined throughout the history of the Swedish Criminal Records Registry, and how practices and policies in the area have evolved over time. In Paper II, I investigate how employers who use individuals’ right to subject access as a means for obtaining copies of their criminal record account for their practice, and how unions and employer associations have responded to the adoption of it. In Paper III, I challenge the ‘governmentality’ tradition in criminology and the way the use of criminal record checks is interpreted within it. As an alternative way of formulating and understanding the issue, I propose that it be looked at from a symbolic perspective. In Paper IV, my analysis utilizes the perspective of the sociology of scandals to help develop a better understanding of function creep in the area of data protection. This I do through an examination of the process leading, first, to the introduction of mandatory vetting of childcare workers and teachers in Sweden in 2001, and, then, to the inclusion later on of also other employer categories in the scope of the relevant legislation. Based on these analyses, I argue that the changes in the access to individuals’ criminal records reflect the state’s way of governing the interpretation of the criminal records database. Whether actors are denied or allowed access to information contained in the criminal history record database depends on the prevailing cultural representations regarding notions such as ‘privacy’, ‘data protection’, ‘databases’, ‘sensitive information’, and ‘power’. Moreover, I argue that the function creep in the use of criminal history data in Sweden can be initially explained by the occurrence and publicity of scandals that highlight the vulnerability of a group of dependents, making it defensible to resort to privacy-intrusive methods such as criminal record checks, with the continuing function creep then being made possible by a changing moral landscape that, following the initial amendment, renders the method morally more defensible among the policy makers and the public at large.
6.
Bergström Casinowsky, Gunilla, 1965
(författare)
Tjänsteresor i människors vardag - om rörlighet, närvaro och frånvaro
2010
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
Title: Business travel in everyday life: Mobility, presence and absence. Written in Swedish and English. 248 pages. Author: Gunilla Bergström Casinowsky Doctoral Dissertation at the Department of Sociology, University of Gothenburg, Box 720, SE 40530 Göteborg, Sweden ISBN: 978-91-975405-8-2 ISSN: 1650-4313 Göteborg 2010 In this thesis, current debates on mobile lifestyles and the work-life interface are woven together and studied from the perspective of frequent business travellers. The overreaching aim is to investigate the significance of travel at work in people’s everyday lives. More specifically, the main objective is to shed some light upon emotional and practical consequences of travel-related absence from home for friendship and family relations. The thesis consists of four papers based on two different empirical studies: one qualitative study comprised by two sets of observations and 15 interviews, and one quantitative study based on survey data. The analysis of the qualitative data resulted in two papers written in Swedish (papers I and II). The results from the quantitative study are presented in two papers written in English (papers III and IV). Paper I is an exploratory study with the purpose of discovering focal dimensions of the work-life interface from a business traveller’s perspective. The second paper further explores gendered experiences of overnight work travel revealed in the first paper. Whereas the women’s experiences are characterized by feelings of loneliness, guilt and a sense of vulnerability, the men’s experiences are less negative and they also call attention to some positive sides of being cut off from everyday life at home. The gendered experiences have practical implications for how the respondents organize their mobile life. In prioritizing being at home, the female strategy aims at reducing the amount of nights away and, consequently, leads to comparatively many hours on the road. In contrast, the male strategy is more focused on minimizing the hours on the road with the purpose of actively “being there” for the family while at home and taking advantage of the “free” time while away. Questions about implications of overnight work travel in terms of the traveller’s ability to keep in touch with locally based as well as long-distance friends, and the opportunities that the travel might offer as a source of geographically extended social networks, are elaborated through analysis of the survey data (paper III). The benefits of mobility in terms of extended social networks represent the main social consequences of work travel as established in the analyses. Staying away from home due to work travel is also seen as potentially facilitating the coordination with friends living elsewhere. Some downsides are reported as well. The most frequent travellers feel negatively affected by mobility, reporting problems hampering coordination with friends close to home. Following up one thread noticed in the qualitative study, one issue explored by the quantitative data is the significance of work-related travel for the gendered division of domestic responsibility (paper IV). The results reveal a clear pattern in two key respects. When the work traveller is a woman, the allocation of home-based responsibility seems to remain unaffected. By contrast, the effect of the business trips when the travellers are men is a reduction in their relative share of responsibility for the home and the family.
7.
Daoud, Adel, 1981
(författare)
Scarcity, Abundance and Sufficiency: Contributions to Social and Economic Theory
2011
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
Economic sociology has established itself as a strong and vibrant field in the social sciences. A number of significant studies have been conducted on the relation between the economy and society: on firms, markets, networks, money, and general action theory. But little has been done on the issues of scarcity, abundance, and sufficiency (SAS). Both economical and sociological approaches seem to assume scarcity as an important premise. But none seems to question the deeper nature of it. The SAS theme seems to be analytically underdeveloped in both disciplines. This thesis aims to explore an alternative ground for critical economic sociology or more generally for social and economic theory. Instead of focusing on the problems of rational choice, which a number of sociological studies have done, the thesis starts even earlier in the set of assumptions that condition human agency, it focuses on the premise of scarcity. The central question posed is: ’What is the nature of SAS in social and economic theory?’ Five studies have been carried out in order to answer this question. These studies focus on quite divergent empirical fields – famine, voluntary simplicity, and educational choice – in order to explore the varying importance of the sociocultural mechanisms underlying SAS. Paper I deals with absolute SAS and the assumption of universal scarcity in neoclassical economics. A critical examination of this assumption is conducted by studying the empirical phenomenon of global hunger in relation to a theoretical elaboration of SAS. It also proposes a framework for explaining and understanding absolute SAS. Paper II further tests the framework developed in Paper I. The food entitlement decline and the food availability decline are commonly seen as conflicting approaches to explaining famine. The paper analyses the relation between these two approaches and argues that these approaches can in fact be reconciled under one framework by outlining their causal sources. This analysis also shows that there is a third causal source that needs to be incorporated with the other two approaches. The whole analysis is exemplified by the Bengal Famine of 1943. Paper III focuses on relative SAS. It studies how voluntary material simplicity countervails the causal effect of relative scarcity generated by the environment of a consumer society. Analyses of both interviews and texts were carried out. It is shown that voluntary material simplifiers manage, though with difficulty, to neutralize the causal effect of the consumer society. This is achieved by mediating the cultural properties of the economic ethic of material simplicity, which promotes the deflation of human wants. They actualize what has been called the modus vivendi of material simplicity, a practical state of relative abundance. The aim of Paper IV is to study the formation of wants based on interviews with upper secondary school pupils. The paper shows that an organic view of decision-making is in better accordance with observations than is a hierarchical view and thus supports previous research claiming that pragmatic rationality (based on habitus and reflexivity) plays a more important role in students’ decision-making processes than does instrumental rationally. Paper V compares two classical economists and their views on scarcity, namely Thomas Malthus (1766-1834) and Lionel Robbins (1898-1984). However, both scholars’ views tend to naturalize and universalize scarcity, and thus to overlook abundance and sufficiency, which are important states in the social provisioning process. It is argued that this is due to neglect of the sociocultural causal underpinnings of SAS. Hence, the thesis offers three main contributions to social and economic theory in general: (1) a tentative typology of SAS; (2) a holistic (multi-casual) explanatory approach to SAS; and (3) an alternative foundation for social and economic theory, based on what has been called the SAS theme. It is shown that this theme contains various socioeconomic phenomena that are intimately linked to SAS (famine, want, property, market, justice, poverty, action, conflict, etc.), which then set the stage for new kinds of socioeconomic inquiries as well as new relationships between existing ones. Hopefully, this will enable an even deeper understanding of how SAS conditions social and economic life.
8.
Ericson, Mathias, 1976
(författare)
Nära inpå: Maskulinitet, intimitet och gemenskap i brandmäns arbetslag
2011
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
This study explores the profession of firefighter, in which the progression of gender equality has been particularly slow compared to many other professions in Sweden. The aim of the study is to explore constructions of masculinity in the firefighter profession and how they are related to specific forms of community among men in this profession. The starting point of the thesis is that one of the central mechanisms of gender segregation is male homosociality, which is men’s search for community with other men. Based on field notes and recorded interviews the study explores how affectionate and intimate relations between men are supported and upheld in this occupation. The analysis is presented in three parts that explore different aspects of firefighters’ life in the work teams. The first section explores that firefighters’ put value on spatial and temporal settings that demanded that they lived family life at work. They thought that if women were included in the work teams it would become more difficult to share that kind of intimacy. The second section focuses on the joking manner and jargon among firefighters. Being able to respond to brutal jokes and raw jargon confirmed their sense of being close, which was not thought to be able to uphold if women were included in the work teams. The third section focuses on how firefighters relate to the fact that their work is associated with notions of masculinity. It is argued that their ability to both support and criticise their profession’s association with masculine stereotypes enforced these men’s commitment to each other in the teams. The main contribution of the thesis to a deeper understanding of how men’s hegemony is maintained within this profession is exploring how the notion of homosociality and intimacy between men relates to the concept of masculinity. The thesis concludes that the concept of homosociality makes it possible to highlight other forms of inclusion and exclusion mechanisms than does the concept of hegemonic masculinity. The concept of masculinity emphasises the conflicts and hierarchies between men. The concept of homosociality however emphasises belonging and loyalty among men. It can be used to explore how gender is constructed, through the expectation that homosocial relationships would make possible an exclusive intimacy. That homosociality is valued as a guarantee for exclusive intimacy seems especially important in this profession, where this exclusive intimacy provides men with a sense of belonging and confirmation of having what it takes to be a real firefighter.
9.
Eriksson, Bo G., 1944
(författare)
Studying ageing: experiences, description, variation, prediction and explanation
2010
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
The study follows a line of experiences, description, variation, prediction and explanation concerning ageing, health promotion and longevity. The experiences of aging were acquired during my studies of conversations, participation in longitudinal population studies in Gothenburg, and working with the Centre for Development of Home help services. A main interest of mine has been to understand how health and longevity can be promoted during aging. The first paper reports the start of the intervention studies. During these studies I have met an increasing variation between individuals in age cohorts. The other striking phenomenon is the high degree of trainability in higher ages by putting load on human functions. This training by functional load is of increasing importance with increasing age as the reserve capacity of functions generally decline during aging. Thus I am interested in variation in factors related to health, survival and death. I studied the variation of registered death causes during one year in the United States. I expected an increased variation by increasing age as a result of decreasing functional reserve capacity and thus an increased vulnerability. Contrary to my expectation the variation by age had a bimodal distribution like a camel’s back. I interpreted this finding as one example of institutional ageism. In the third report I studied variation in aspects of social participation measured in the longitudinal population studies. In agreement with my expectation the variation increased by increasing age. This is contrasted to the common attitude that the aged are lonely. In that respect I interpret that attitude as one example of ageism. The forth paper reports predictions of 7-year survival studied by a common method, binary logistic regression, compared to a less used method: Artificial neural networks (ANN). Both methods could predict survival. The ANN gave a better prediction when the predictors were medical and health variables but not when social variables were entered as predictors. Conclusions were that ANN could be used 1) as predicting models for outcomes with a multi factor genesis which is not well understood by other methods and 2) that ANN can be used to evaluate results provided by other methods of analyses. The two last papers reports developments of sociological theories in order to explain how social interaction can promote health and longevity. Durkheim’s theories of social facts, nomie and anomie are developed in the fifth paper. I argue that the production of social facts, nomie and anomie promotes health by promoting activities. The social fact production also supports identity and feelings of cohesion. The production of nomie and anomie produce self esteem. The last paper reports health promoting functions of ordinary conversations, especially with confidants: Definition of situation, reducing ordinary anxiety, decision making, training of attention and memory, identity construction, formulation of dreams and maintenance of social networks. By these efforts I hope that I have achieved to report experiences, descriptions, variation, predictions and explanations in studying aging.
10.
Gunnarsson, Andreas, 1978
(författare)
Unleashing Science Popularisation: Studies on Science as Popular Culture
2012
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
This thesis aims to broaden the concept of science popularisation. It argues that the conventional view of popularisation as the public communication of appropriately simplified versions of established facts to lay audiences fails to capture the multifaceted nature of popularisation practices through which science and popular culture are recombined. Drawing on perspectives from Science and Technology Studies and from Cultural Studies a number of case studies are presented in order to explore anew what can be analytically treated as science popularisation and where popularisation begins and ends. The thesis commences by critically interrogating the conventional view of popularisation as a way to enhance public understanding and appreciation of science in society. This thesis argues that science popularisation needs to be thought of as a meaning making process that is far more diverse and complex than the conventional view acknowledges. It is a field where much more than the understanding or misunderstanding of established scientific fact is at stake. To extend the conventional view of popularisation, both science and popular culture are discussed in relation to constructivist theories and perspectives. For science, this means an emphasis on contingency in knowledge production where scientific practices are deprived of their ‘specialness’ and are considered more similar than different to other forms of ordinary human action. Thus, the strength and durability of particular scientific facts becomes worthy of empirical investigation dedicated to mapping the specific, local causes of credibility. Similarly, popular culture has been highlighted in Cultural Studies in opposition to conservative views offering cultural status to only a small selection of works deemed more valuable than others. Instead Cultural Studies scholars have argued for an anthropological concept of culture emphasising meaning making processes and the very distinction between fine arts and ordinary culture as objects of study. From these two traditions the thesis borrows a set of theoretical and methodological tools to examine the meaning of science in popular culture. Four studies have been carried out promoting an expanded concept of science popularisation. In ”The First Swede in Space” the character and orientation of the conventional view of popularisation is explored in relation to the attention given to Sweden’s first astronaut launched into space in 2006. The article is especially concerned with discussing how the astronaut achieves his elevated position as an ideal populariser and spokesperson for science. In “Food Fight!” the strict division between knowledge production and dissemination implicit in the conventional view of science popularisation is problematised. It is argued that while this division is designed to buttress the authority of science in society, it also leaves popularisation to ‘capture’ by skilled communicators. To illustrate this point the relative success of the proponents of a low-carb diet revolution in Sweden at bringing into question the authority of national recommendations on nutrition is analysed. In “The Advanced Liberal Logic of Nicotine Replacement”, the idea that science popularisation is just as likely to come before as after the establishment of scientific fact is explored further with reference to changing understandings of, and approaches to dealing with, the health consequences of smoking. The study details how a number of Swedish and British researchers launched nicotine replacement as a popular and credible way to ‘treat’ smoking authoritatively reimagined and reconstructed as a problem of nicotine addiction. “Genetik i fiktion”, finally, was written as a licentiate thesis and published in Swedish in 2006. It explores how genetics and gene technology are used as a narrative tool in a number of fictitious narratives. In relation to pedagogical worries about the corrupting influence of fiction on scientific understandings, genetics as a narrative theme is explored as a theme worthy of reflection in its own right. Genetics emerge from the analysis as something of a narrative utility tool suitable for discussing science as well as enhancing the credibility of the fantastical.
