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- Rosengren, Anna
(författare)
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En strid på kniven? : Argument och aktörer i den svenska kejsarsnittsdebatten 1998-2003
- 2005
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Sweden as well as many other Western countries has experienced a three-fold increase in the use of sectio caesaria during the last three decades. This paper investigates how the increase was described and explained in the Swedish press 1990-2003 by analyzing the five largest daily newspapers. The paper further seeks to explain why the rise in sectio was regarded as a problem and why certain perceptions became dominant. In order to do this two different theories were chosen. Firstly, a theoretical framework for ‘birth’ as a biologically as well as socially conditioned phenomenon was adapted. Secondly, discourse analysis was applied in order to distinguish the dominant perceptions expressed in the media. Another important element of this paper is the extensive reference to the historical development of the Swedish delivery care, which is used to shed light over the findings of the empirical analysis. A division into four different phases of the development of the Swedish delivery care 1870-2003 is proposed and has proven useful to explain a number of perceptions of the debate. The empirical research showed that media paid attention to the increase in the sectio rate from 1998 onwards, and that the rise was generally described as a problem. Moreover, it was often seen as related to women requesting sectios, which in turn was usually described as being caused by fear of birth. The remedy most commonly referred to was to offer help to women with fear of birth. The analysis of the articles stands in stark contrast to statistics. Sectios granted to women on their own request—so-called “humanitarian” sectios—represented only a small part of all sectios. Although humanitarian sectios had the highest increase of all different medical indications, their total impact on the number of sectio was limited to 10 % of the total rise and therefore contributed to the overall increase in only a limited way. The initial analysis thus yields a central question: why did the debate focus on the humanitarian sectios on the request of women, when in fact these sectios accounted for only a small part of the total increase? The hypothesis put forward here is that women requesting a sectio transgressed the predominant cultural definition of birth—in short, “vaginal delivery is best”—by introducing an element of consumer demand. The paper has further identified similiarities between two trends two decades apart: the trend towards a more natural delivery in the 1980’s, and women asking for a sectio twenty years later. Although these trends are normally regarded as contrary, one of the important similarities is the aim at increased influence of women on their delivery. During the time of research of the paper, the woman’s influence on the choice of vaginal delivery or sectio was limited and constrained by several conditions according to the media. Finally, the paper suggests a possible explanation why fear of birth was such a widely spread phenomenon in Sweden.
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- Rosengren, Anna
(författare)
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Samiska kvinnnor och osynlig historia : En komparativ studie av svenskar och samer vid 1600-talstinget
- 2006
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The purpose of the paper is to gain new knowledge about Saami women in the 17th century using court protocols in the Luleå and Torneå Lappmarks, supplemented by secondary sources. Saami women did not write their own history, nor did Saami men. Information available about Saami is written by male representatives of the Swedish crown and church. The scholarly challenge therefore lies in reconstructing history about a group of people from meagre sources written by an altogether different group. To this end, the postcolonial research field was chosen as a theoretical framework as it provides us with important issues suitable for this paper. Among these issues we find the view that history of colonised people written by the coloniser is biased and incomplete, that we should be prepared to discover not one but several different histories as well as signs of resistance. As for research on women, I use the concept of dynamic hierarchies by which should be understood that the combination of variables such as age, sex, socio-economic standing and cultural background determine the degree of influence that a person will have. Together with the theoretical framework, the substantial empirical material and methodological considerations are of great importance for this paper. Close to 300 court cases from the Lappmarks have been analysed. In addition, a quantitative and qualitative study was made including a comparison with two regions in Sweden in order to tell whether the activity of Saami women in court differed from that of other women. The results are of three kinds. First, it identifies and explains differences in the situation of Saami and Swedish women. Second, it indicates that Saami history of the 17th century is less homogeneous than has hitherto been assumed and furthermore contained several elements of resistance. As a third feature, it suggests that today’s knowledge of Saami in the 17th century is based on parts of Saami society, rather than the society as a whole, due to methodological deficiencies in the historical material. Among differences between Saami and Swedish women, we find the tremendous importance of personal property in the Lappmarks, as opposed to ownership of land in Sweden. Also, the stigma that often followed on premarital sexual intercourse for women in Sweden did not necessarily occur to Saami women. This difference has previously been identified by other scholars, and the hypothesis brought forward here is a strategy to avoid inbreeding in combination with considerably stronger Saami dynasties. Somewhat surprisingly, the yearly number of sexual crime per capita was not necessarily higher in the Lappmarks than in the Swedish investigations, indicating that the repression of Saami was not more severe than in Sweden. I furthermore find evidence of a strong socio-economic stratification among the Saami, supporting the view of dynamic hierarchies. The situation and development in the two Lappmarks were not homogeneous. In Luleå Lappmark, the level of social crime, noticeably sexual crime, was considerably higher and the level of economic transactions considerably lower, than in Torneå Lappmark. On an overall level, the general trend towards higher levels of economic transactions took place on only a very modest scale in the Lappmarks compared to Sweden and Europe at large during the 17th century. As for resistance, we find evidence of what I call a "walk-the-walk strategy", i.e. Saami using to their advantage regulations imposed on them by Swedes, along with other kinds of strategies. Lastly, I show that the methodology used by 17th century source writers is often flawed because Swedish informants and encounters with wealthy reindeer breeding Saami men have to a large extent provided the information for the texts, rather than representatives from the whole Saami population. This is something that to date has been overlooked by many scholars. A challenge for future research is therefore to reconstruct the history of other, less visible, Saami groups as well.
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