| 1. |
- Duntava, Aija, 1985-
(författare)
-
A View on the Invisible : A Study of Relationships between Different Aspects of Health in Populations
- 2024
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis studies relationships between different aspects of health. Health is a multi-faceted concept consisting of various aspects: most commonly morbidity, functional limitation, subjective health, and mortality. The relationships between these aspects, however, are not fully understood, so this thesis aims at contributing to our knowledge on the topic. Three studies are included, each with a particular aim within the general objective.The first study is a systematic review of the articles that have attempted to study more than two aspects of health in one model. The review maps out the field of study, presenting and summarising the results of the articles selected to review, thereby also highlighting gaps in the research. One of its conclusions is that studies approaching health as one interconnected system are rare and that the relationships between the different aspects of health do not consistently show significant effects on each other. Additionally, many population groups in terms of age and place of residence are understudied. The findings from the systematic review have largely guided the scientific curiosity of the following two empirical studies.The second study proposes and tests a parsimonious model of health structure consisting of morbidity, functional limitation, and subjective health on the adult respondents of European Social Survey (n=32,679) using structural equation modelling. The findings suggest that, in general, the proposed model holds true but there are age and gender differences in the health structure.The third study explores the variations in the health structure of the adult population in 17 countries in three European regions (North, East, and West). The results show that the model does not apply in all the studied groups across the regions. Clear gender difference in health structure exist in the Western and Northern parts of Europe but not in the East. As to age groups, the analyses show that young adults are similar in their health structure across the regions while there are regional differences between the other two age groups.This thesis shows that it is necessary to study the relationships between different aspects of health as one interconnected system. Furthermore, when health is at centre of scientific inquiry its multiple dimensions as well as age, gender, and regional variations should be acknowledged and taken into account.
|
|
| 2. |
- Lundemark, Mai, 1982-
(författare)
-
Constructing Workers of Migrant Background : A study of class and nation myths in trade union practice
- 2021
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- How do trade unions represent workers of migrant background? How are factors that affect the quality of life of workers of migrant background, made sense of and responded to by trade unions trying to reverse declining trade union membership numbers? This thesis takes a qualitative approach and utilises discursive constructions as a semiotic entry point into the social practices of trade unions and their responses to workers of migrant background. Combining semiotic theory of Roland Barthes and Stuart Hall with critical discourse theory of Norman Fairclough, trade union work is conceptualised as a social practice that comprises both semiotic and non-semiotic elements. The study focuses on the discursive work of two unions in Copenhagen, Denmark that represent the bike mechanic and the cleaning trade, respectively. The selection of unions allows for an exploration of similarities and differences within the national setting. The analysis is based on individual and group interviews with 28 union officials and active members, supported and complemented by notes (387 pages) from 56 participant observations (147 observation hours) that were conducted in the two unions over several years. The analysis shows how workers of migrant background are constructed through discourses of class and nation. Analysing the interrelationship between semiotic and non-semiotic elements of union events and practices, a four-cell typology is developed that characterise union responses as either internalisation, externalisation, ignorance or misrepresentation. The type of response is defined according to whether the unions signify their constructions of migrant differences as relevant or irrelevant to union work, and whether they address these differences with uniform or differentiated union action. It is argued that the ways in which constructions of national, ethnic and racial differences are responded to through signification and action are crucial to whether unions work to reinforce or ameliorate social inequalities. Finally, the typology is suggested as a tool to nuance the discussion about the inclusive and/or exclusive character of trade union responses to workers of migrant background.
|
|
| 3. |
- Ågård, Pernilla, 1982-
(författare)
-
Negotiating who the ’Other’ is : Care providers talk about caring for dying patients with migrant backgrounds
- 2020
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Most research at the intersection of ethno-cultural minority patients and end-of-life care has been preoccupied with two types of problems: the underrepresentation of patients with an ethno-cultural minority background in end-of-life care and the challenges that these patients are believed to pose to the deliverance of high-quality and user-friendly care. When scholars have focused on these issues, they have tended to assume that it is ethno-cultural diversity as such that poses these problems. Taking a different stance, this study stresses the importance of designing research in a way that does not assume at the outset that the difficulties depicted in the literature are caused by patients’ ethno-cultural diversity. Drawing upon the social constructionist tradition, this study examines care providers’ understandings of caring for patients with ethno-cultural minority backgrounds, and how they negotiate their understandings in talk. As such, this study differs from previous studies that have focused on professional care providers’ experiences of patients categorized as ethno-cultural minorities, in order to explore what precedes these experiences (i.e. their understandings of ethno-cultural diversity, and the expectations they themselves bring to the table when caring for these patients).Based on an analysis of focus groups interviews with end-of-life care professionals (n=60) in Sweden – a context where people with migrant backgrounds are often assumed to have an ethno-cultural minority background – this study aims to explore professional characterizations of patients with migrant backgrounds.Through its focus on talk – and the way in which understandings are negotiated when the professionals talk with one another about what ethno-cultural diversity means, and what caring for patients with migrant backgrounds is like – this study contributes to research about the implications of ethno-cultural diversity in end-of-life care. Thus, by shedding light on the argumentative side of meaning-making this study’s findings suggest that understandings play a greater role in how ethno-cultural diversity is addressed in end-of-life care. In particular, this study shows that the process through which understandings are negotiated plays a vital part in determining which understandings become legitimate descriptions of these patients, their families and interactions with them. The study highlights that the providers seemed to take for granted that patients categorized as ethno-cultural minorities, their families and the interactions they have with them differ from what they consider to be ‘normal’, i.e. patients categorized as Swedes, their families and the interactions with them. Therefore, this study concludes that the understandings brought to fore are underpinned by the notion of ‘Otherness’, and the assumption that ethno-cultural diversity poses challenges to the deliverance of high-quality and user-friendly end-of-life care even if one’s experience of providing care to patients with migrant backgrounds is limited and/or suggests otherwise.
|
|
| 4. |
- Hamed, Sarah
(författare)
-
Healthcare Staff's Racialised talk : Examining Accounts of Racialisation in Healthcare
- 2022
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis contributes to the literature on racism in healthcare and the scholarship on racism and racialisation by moving the current focus of healthcare literature from demonstrating the existence of racism to examining accounts of racialisation through analysing healthcare staff’s racialised talk. Drawing from critical ‘race’ and postcolonial theories, the thesis departs from the premise that racism is a structural phenomenon embedded in nation states and institutions, including healthcare across the globe. Through a scoping review ofstudies on racism in healthcare, this thesis maintains that the current literature does not conceptualise racism as structural, and does not attempt to uncover accounts of racialisation. The review argues that the trends uncovered are part of why racism continues to reproduce itself in healthcare, despite equality regulations and policy makers’ efforts to eradicate racism. The thesis posits racialisationas a process situated within the sociohistorical playing out of colonial domination, where in groups of people are stratified somatically and culturally within groups of subordination and supraordination. Societies, institutions, and interactions are viewed as racialised such that an analysis ofracialised talk captures the seemingly subtle racialisation intrinsic tohealthcare. Analytically, the excavation of racialised talk regards talk as reflective and constitutive of the dominant structures within which talk is situated. Drawing on qualitative interviews with 58 healthcare staff in Sweden, the thesis examines how healthcare staff’s racialised talk is used to devalue minority healthcare users and obfuscate racism. The findings of this thesis contradict previous characterisations of racism in today’s society as covert. Racialised talk against minority healthcare users is found to be overt and used to categorise minority users as ‘bad’ users and their health complaints as ‘unworthy’ by labeling symptoms as ‘ethnic’, ‘cultural’ or ‘functional’. The devaluingof minority healthcare users through talk further justifies differential and suboptimal care. Besides demonstrating that racialised talk in healthcare is overt, this thesis proposes that by emphasising healthcare neutrality and equality regulations, blaming minorities for racism, viewing racism as an individual aberration, locating racism outside both national and institutional contexts, healthcare staff manage (albeit inadvertently) to obfuscate racism. It is suggested that obfuscation of racism may serve to allow racism to be perpetuated, resulting in a culture of resignation, where resistance to racism isnegligible.
|
|
| 5. |
- Svensson, Mikael, 1981-
(författare)
-
Hur klass gör skillnad : Klasspositionens betydelse för rasistiska och negativt särskiljande praktiker
- 2019
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Previous research concludes that working-class people in general exhibit more negative attitudes towards people with immigrant backgrounds than people in more privileged class positions. However, whilst primarily drawing on quantitative methods, these studies fail to explain how class comes to matter, and even less is known about tangible everyday practices. The thesis examines how class positions affect racist and negatively distinctive practices against persons of immigrant background. The aim is to explore (i) class differences with regard to which negative distinctive practices mainly occur in relation to different class positions and (ii) to identify generative mechanisms of importance to the practitioners, with particular attention to class-specific contexts, such as the workplace, the labor market and housing.This class-comparative study draws on data from twenty qualitative interviews: ten interviews with people in working class positions, living in a working class area; ten interviews with people in more privileged class positions, living in a socio-economically more privileged area. In addition, participant observations were conducted in the two residential areas. The sampling relies on a combination of Marxian and Weberian class criteria, in which conditions of production, occupation and income have been the main criteria for constructing the two different groups. To enable comparisons, eight categories of practice were constructed on the basis of theoretical and empirical arguments.The result shows that categories of practice vary between class positions; e.g. exploiting and corrective practices are characteristic for those in more privileged class positions, while excluding and avoidance practices are more common among those in working class positions. The study also shows that the causes of these practices can vary depending on the class position of the practitioner. The class structure is a mechanism in itself and has different effects on people in different class positions. Perceived class interests in relation to workers of ‘immigrant background’ and the degree of authority in the workplace are both examples of this. Moreover, several other mechanisms are identified, negative notions of persons of immigrant background underpinned by imagined and actual norm circles, exclusion mechanisms linked to profession and language and the pursuit of class and upward status mobility in hierarchically racialized labor and housing markets.
|
|
| 6. |
|
|
| 7. |
- Creswell, Philip K., 1982-
(författare)
-
Chains of Trust : Networks of Persistent Resistance in Digital Activism
- 2021
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Digital manifestations and their networks are seen as agile, but fragile, with the Internet facilitating fast, low-cost activism by bridging actors, distributing information, and circumventing gatekeepers. From this perspective, mediated collective action and digital activism are theorized through the understanding of the Internet as a medium which affords lowered costs and risks for activists. Such theories, however, side-step the phenomenon of hacktivism, where the costs and risks of participation may be higher. Moreover, while issues of legality and risk play an integral part in understanding the phenomenon of hacktivism, they have rarely been studied directly. As such, little evidence exists regarding the effects of increased costs and risks on participation in digital activism. Nonetheless, the research record from non-mediated collective action and activism shows that higher-risk or higher-cost activism is most often supported by tight organizational or interpersonal networks. Such ties, strong or otherwise, frequently go uninterrogated in research on digital activism. To investigate these issues, I performed a three-year ethnography in the digital (social movement) scene called Anonymous. Anonymous has been associated with, among other things, digital protest, and hacktivist actions. These protests and hacking actions have resulted in legal consequences for hundreds of participants throughout the world, some of whom are still awaiting trial or serving prison sentences. Using risks and costs as a lens to explore Anonymous’ digital activism, I aim to interrogate scholars’ understandings and conceptualizations of mediated collective action, as well as the nature of interpersonal ties and trust in uncertain, high-cost, or high-risk, mediated activism. I ask how participants characterized the costs and risks of their participation, as well as how they navigated collaborative relationships and assessed the trustworthiness of peers. My analysis shows that participants in Anonymous viewed their participation as risky and narratively tied increased risks to a series of arrests which took place in 2011 and 2012. Consequently, participants attempted to mitigate the risks of their participation through individual and collective strategies that encouraged the development of clusters of activists who participated in increasingly tight-knit, closed groups. Network closure, in turn, encouraged the formation of bonding ties and affective loyalty. While openly acknowledging the risks of such bonds, participants relied upon them and even justified continued participation through a social lens. These findings exemplify conditions—those characterized by network closure and groups where members are enmeshed in clusters of strong ties—which can be understood as strong, mediated ties. This study offers, therefore, not only a novel understanding of Anonymous, but also evidence that suggests that models of mediated collective action should account for risks and costs even in digital milieus. Furthermore, these findings suggest circumstances under which re-searchers may expect to find persistent resistance in an (almost entirely) digital milieu.
|
|
| 8. |
- Willander, Erika, 1978-, et al.
(författare)
-
Conditions for religious pluralism in Swedish hospital chaplaincy : a research note
- 2019
-
Ingår i: Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy. - : Routledge. - 0885-4726 .- 1528-6916. ; 25:3, s. 99-109
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Research interest in hospital chaplaincy has increased, in part because it is believed to contribute to the development of just models of religious pluralism. This research note brings attention to hospital chaplaincy in Sweden, a country where religious diversity has substantially increased due to migration but where research in hospital chaplaincy is scarce. In order to advocate for future research, this research note describes the organization of hospital chaplaincy in Sweden, presents new analyses of official data showing its extent and religious composition, and proposes that the organization of hospital chaplaincy in this country needs to be re-considered now that religious diversity is a given. Showing that hospital chaplaincy in this country is still under the overbearing influence of Christianity, this research note argues that there is a need for research that sheds light on the asymmetrical power relations that exist and that paves the way for innovations in religious pluralist models for health care chaplaincy.
|
|
