| 1. |
- Baianstovu, Rúna Í, 1961-, et al.
(författare)
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Complexities facing social work : Honor-based violence as lived reality and stereotype
- 2024
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Ingår i: Journal of Social Work. - : Sage Publications. - 1468-0173 .- 1741-296X.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Summary: It is widely accepted that honor-based violence is a lived reality and a serious problem. However, honor-based violence is also a contested academic and political field, characterized by a polarized debate about whether or not the violence comprises stereotyping images of immigrants. This article asks how honor-based violence can be understood in light of this polarization, and what consequences it may have for clients and social workers. It is based on interview data with 235 adults with either professional (n = 199) or personal experiences (n = 36) of honor-based violence in Sweden. The data has been thematically coded and analyzed using the concepts of culturalization and intersectionality.Findings: Honor-based violence is simultaneously a lived reality and teeming with stereotypes that are constructed by culturalizing images of nation, gender, age, religion, and sexuality. These stereotypes constitute forms of violence themselves and decrease clients’ trust in society and its institutions. Hence, the stereotypes become obstacles to social workers’ capacity to support those exposed to violence. At a general level, the stereotypes contribute to retaining the exposed in violence. In contrast, intersectional approaches to understanding honor-based violence have the potential to capture clients’ self-perceived and complex formulations of the causes of, and the character of, their situation, and thus increase the possibilities for adequate support.Applications: The article's findings can support social workers’ understanding of the complexity of honor-based violence and strengthen their possibilities and capacities to develop antiracist and nonviolent communicative practices and, thus, acknowledge clients’ varying experiences and individual needs.
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| 2. |
- Baianstovu, Rúna Í, 1961-
(författare)
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Democracy at work : Power and communication in social work
- 2016
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- How can social work in social services become an active democratic agent in times of rapid social change? The point of departure in this contribution is that the need of democratic communication is tremendous in modern society and that the possibility to act according to this insight, is more difficult than it ever has been in modern times, because of the challenges of globalisation and migration; the demand for communication is strangled by neoliberalism’s presence in social services through New Public Managment. The question to be answered is how democracy and communication can be realized in this bureaucratic setting, after all. Democracy is not understood as a stable and static state of affairs, but rather as a frail, but vigorous, condition that only exists to the degree that people act democratically. The greater the role that communication, deliberation and reflection play in official activities, the more democratic the society is. In hindsight it becomes obvious that the more diverse and complex society has become, due to globalisation, migration, the crisis of the nation state and the decline of the welfare state, the more conformal and hierarchical the control of the public institutions have become. As one of the public institutions that institutionalize the moral conceptions of how life should be lived, social services have the potential of being a democratic forum that contributes to the strengthening of social equality. Social equality is the prerequisite for gender equality in society and in families, but through the past twenty years the Swedish society has raised increasingly stronger demands for gender equality in cultural minority group families, at the same time as the general welfare system’s capacity to create the necessary tools for developing equality, have been in decline. In this turmoil social problems are to an ever increasing degree percieved of in terms of lack of individuality and reflexivity in minority contexts, leading to compulsory interventions in families under the Care of Young Persons (Special Provisions Act). Research shows that investigations of foreign-born children or children with foreign-born parents lead to compulsory care and 24-hour care outside the home more often than investigations of Swedish-born children with Swedish-born parents. The interaction between the social worker and the client should, ideally spoken, according to the law, be characterized by voluntary consensus. This requires that the participants in the interaction situation find a mutual understanding of the event that has created the interaction situation. They need to find intersubjectivity, but the possibility of achieving intersubjectivity varies, due to the closeness or distance between the lifeworlds and, hence, the moral values of all the participants. In purpose of finding ways to understand how moral complexity can be an active tool in the democratic enterprise of reaching necessary mutual understanding in the social work context described initially, the concept of i) intersubjectivity must be combined with ii) intersectionality for the possibility to recognize the complex power relations involved, and iii) discourse ethics for the possibility to analyzing the communication itself.
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| 3. |
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| 4. |
- Baianstovu, Rúna Í, 1961-
(författare)
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Diversity as the Challenge of Democracy : A study of how the social welfare services, as a welfare bureaucracy and moral institution in society, understands and handles cultural diversity
- 2012
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Annan publikation (refereegranskat)abstract
- Abstract Dissertation This dissertation deals with the how Swedish society is confronting the democratic challenge of fining ways to integrate individuals and groups with a diversity of cultural and religious beliefs and social practices. The ide that democracy must include all members of society is central in contemporary welfare states. In Sweden, this idea is closely related to a concept of social justice and equality. This means that this study deals with aspects of integration processes. Social service is one of the societal institutions that institutionalises the moral conceptions of how life should be lived. Therefore, its function in the integrations processes mirrors the ethos of society as a whole. The chief characteristics of a democratic state is that it represents every member of society and that it is transparent, communicative, and reflexive. But this is not easily performed. The state may exercise oppression in the form of forced assimilation through the culturally detached design of law and policy, and with the politics of diversity, minority groups may exert internal oppression of vulnerable elements within the group. In this thesis, this tension expresses The Paradox of Democracy. Social workers deal with the paradox while handling society’s moral panic regarding “other’s” traditions that are perceived as difficult to comprehend. Therefore, there investigative work is of great importance in a society that aspires to treat all citizens as equals. But the framework for such investigations is narrow and tightly controlled. A qualitative change in the scope of social workers’ ability to work in the service of communicative action within the complex areas discussed in this study could be a step towards broadening and deepening democratic practices. When the public institutions take their clients’ wishes and needs seriously and treat them as indicators of the actual needs seriously, the public institutions can build a foundation for reciprocal and communicatively anchored integration work.
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| 5. |
- Baianstovu, Rúna Í, 1961-
(författare)
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Diversity as the Condition of Democracy : Reflective versus conformal action in National Social Services in Sweden
- 2015
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Ingår i: Re-visioning social work with individuals, collectives and communities: social work research. - Ljubljana : Fakulteta za socialno delo. - 9789616569538 ; , s. 252-252
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- The debate about societal integration and equality in connection with migration has been vivacious in a Swedish context for several decades now. An interesting research question in this context is how the Swedish society confronts the democratic challenge of finding ways to societal integration in times of rapid globalization and social change. In a case study of National Social Services in Sweden, I have studied how social workers within national social services understand and handle cultural diversity in their investigation and decision making involving children, young adults and their families. It becomes evident that the search for possibilities to societal integration has been abandoned for a system of societal monitoring and control, here expressed as conformal action. A deep conflict occurs between the social worker's communicative skills and an ever increasing, conformal bureaucracy. This conflict is understood as a conflict between the lifeworld and the system. Two important components in the argument are that integration demands communicative and reflective action in society and that The National Social Servicesi nstitutionalizes the representations of society as a whole. When treating the factors of the integration process it becomes clear that the social workers are handling an awkward paradox, seemingly impossible to dissolve. The paradox is activated in the intersection between the individual rights versus cultural and religious rights and it permeates every text guiding social work, from the Constitution over The Social Services Act to other governmental recommendations. Although the paradox cannot be dissolved it is evident that it could be mitigated through communication and reflective action. Nevertheless there is a rapid change in social services, away from communicative and reflective and action, towards conformal action. The theoretical concepts that are used as analytical tools in the study are derived from the thinking of Durkheim and Habermas.
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| 6. |
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| 7. |
- Baianstovu, Rúna Í, 1961-, et al.
(författare)
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Heder och samhälle : Det hedersrelaterade våldets och förtryckets uttryck och samhällets utmaningar
- 2019
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Rapport (refereegranskat)abstract
- Denna bok är resultatet av den hittills mest omfattande studien av det hedersrelaterade våldets uttryck, former och mekanismer som genomförts i Sverige. Studien bygger på kvalitativa och kvantitativa delstudier och har gjorts på uppdrag av Stockholms, Göteborgs och Malmö stad 2017–2018. Bredden gör studien unik inom detta område. Den kvalitativa datainsamlingen: 235 nyckelpersoner med djupgående kunskap om hedersrelaterat våld och förtryck har intervjuats i 95 öppna intervjuer. Några av intervjupersonerna har kunskap utifrån sitt arbete eller från sitt engagemang i föreningar. Andra har kunskap på grund av egen erfarenhet av livet i en hederskontext och av utsatthet för våld och förtryck. Några har båda dessa positioner. Den kvantitativa datainsamlingen: 6 002 ungdomar i årskurs nio har besvarat en enkät om relationer, begränsningar och olika former av utsatthet i hemmet, skolan och på fritiden. Det sammantagna resultatet visar att människor med olika etniska tillhörigheter, trosuppfattningar, funktionsnedsättningar, sexuell läggning, ålder och socioekonomiska förhållanden lever med våldsutsatthet och normer som förtrycker dem. Vidare visas att hedersrelaterat våld och förtryck är uttryck för olika svårigheter som kan sammanfattas med begreppen inneslutning och mobilitet på individ-, grupp- och samhällsnivå och i samspelet mellan dessa. Inneslutning och mobilitet betecknar att våldsutövning ökar i introverta eller inneslutna grupper där samspelet med andra grupper är låg; dvs. att mobiliteten är låg. Hedersrelaterat våld och förtryck närs bland annat av minoritetsskap, särskilt i kombination med kollektiv statslöshet, krig, migration och segregation. Social, ekonomisk och politisk rörlighet urholkar däremot våldsnormerna och minskar våldsanvändandet. Sammantaget visar resultatet att hedersrelaterat våld och förtryck drabbar individer på ett flertal sätt och att samhället genom socialpolitiken bör ta ett förnyat ansvar på flera nivåer, både akut, kortsiktigt och långsiktigt.
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| 8. |
- Baianstovu, Rúna Í, 1961-
(författare)
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Kommunikation och makt i kulturellt komplexa relationer inom socialtjänsten
- 2018. - 1
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Ingår i: Relationer i socialt arbete. - Stockholm : Liber. - 9789147113118 ; , s. 76-91
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Andelen tvångsinsatser inom socialtjänsten gentemot barn och unga med utomeuropeisk bakgrund är större jämfört med barn och unga med svensk bakgrund. Vår tids etniska, kulturella och religiösa mångfald ställer krav på att det sociala arbetet inom socialtjänsten utvecklas så att det fungerar på ett jämlikt och rättvist sätt, men ojämlikhetens mönster tyder på att såväl samhället i sin helhet som socialtjänsten har svårt att hantera mångfald. Ordet mångfald relaterar här till skillnader avseende människors resurser, normer och behov. Tvång får bara tillgripas när varje möjlighet för lösningar i frivillighet och samförstånd har uttömts, men det kräver djupgående kommunikation mellan socialarbetare och klienter på ett sätt som styrningen av socialtjänsten inte tillåter. I samma takt som samhällets mångfald har ökat har den tid socialarbetare använder på direkt kommunikation med klienter minskat. I artikeln presenteras ett utkast till en teori om intersektionellt medveten diskursetik. Teorin skisserar vilka kriterier som uppfylls när kommunikation fungerar och belyser vikten av medvetenhet om aktörernas identiteter och kategoriseringar.
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| 9. |
- Baianstovu, Rúna Í, 1961-, et al.
(författare)
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Migration, Honour, Violence and Inequality : Developing Isolation and Mobility as Mechanisms of Honour Related Violence
- 2021
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- The aim of the paper is to contribute to the expanding knowledge-base for reducing honour related violence (HRV), that has becomeincreasingly complicated, not to say corrupt, by ongoing neoliberalism and right-wing agendas.HRV is a serious problem with complex roots, causes and sometimes deadly consequences. It is a contested academic and political fieldconstructed through various borders, boundaries, and intersections such as nation, ethnicity, gender, age, sexuality, religion, and migration.The paper examines some of these borders, boundaries, and intersections by analysing the expressions, prevalence, and patterns of HRV in Sweden, a historically social democratic and femocratic welfare state, challenged by increasing social, economic, and political inequalities,and a mainstream discourse describing HRV as a distinctively dangerous form of violence linked to culture, religion, and migrants’ failure to‘assimilate’ to Nordic ideals of gender equality. As such, positionings on HRV have played and continue to play straight into the hands ofnationalist politics, racist agendas, and right-wing assimilationism.In contrast, the paper draws on feminist and intersectional sociological theory, at the interface of honour, integration, migration, to develop theconcepts of isolation and mobility. It is based on a substantial qualitative and quantitative empirical material: focus groups and individual in-depth interviews with people with direct, personal experiences and indirect, professional experiences of HRV (n=259) and three surveysanswered by fifteen-year-olds in Swedish metropolitan areas (n=6002).The paper shows first, how isolation and mobility reinforce or weakenhonour norms and violence, respectively
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| 10. |
- Baianstovu, Rúna Í, 1961-
(författare)
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Migration och kvinnors utsatthet för våld i nära relationer
- 2021
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Ingår i: Intersektionella perspektiv på våld i nära relationer. - Stockholm : Liber förlag. - 9789147138302 ; , s. 202-215
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Migration och kvinnors utsatthet för våld i nära relationer belyser kvinnors generella sårbarhet för våld i nära relationer i anknytningsrelaterade migrationssituationer ur ett intersektionellt perspektiv.Genom fyra kvinnors berättelser ser vi vilken betydelse faktorerna inneslutning och mobilitet har för våldsutsatthet i migrationens gränsland och hur kön, ålder, etniskt/och eller nationellt ursprung, språk, religion, sexualitet och migrationsstatus samspelar med samhällets lagstiftning och dess kapacitet att genom sina välfärdsinstitutioner erbjuda adekvat stöd och hjälp som de utsatta också har möjlighet att ta del av.
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