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- Smedberg, Carl-Filip, 1992-
(författare)
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Klassriket : Socialgruppsindelningen som skillnadsteknologi under 1900-talet
- 2022
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- During the 20th century, a number of actors and institutions set out to develop taxonomies of the Swedish population. This thesis examines the most important social classification system, the social group, which despite its great importance in administrative, scientific, commercial, political and media contexts has received little attention in historical research. Invented by the Central Bureau of Statistics in 1911 to map voters according to their social position, the division enabled Swedes to be hierarchized under the categories of social group I, II or III. The taxonomy became a standard for a number of knowledge-producing institutions in their studies of the Swedish class structure: for the nascent market research companies and their assessments of consumers from the 1930s onwards; for the polling companies’ surveys of public opinion from the 1940s onwards; and for the post-war social science research and government committees’ statistical production about higher education.The thesis analyses classification systems in use and in movement between actors and contexts. Social taxonomies are understood as difference technologies: by which I mean ways of mapping and studying populations. They link populations together, quantify concepts into precise classifications and enable specific overviews of social structures – knowledge that can then be used as a basis for action and societal interventions. Moreover, the social group division was widely discussed in post-war Swedish press and mediated into images and tables. Actors within media interpreted and used it differently, and as a result, new meaning was created around it. The division was presented by some as cultural communities, while others pointed to it as evidence of a new social phase, characterised by declining class conflicts. Finally, it became the focus for meta-reflections on the societal place and impact of social divisions. Through these mediated engagements, the taxonomy became a given yet contested part of the Swedish public sphere.
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| 2. |
- Tistedt, Petter, 1981-
(författare)
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Visioner om medborgerliga publiker : Medier och socialreformism på 1930-talet
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation investigates how progressive social reformers in Sweden used mass media in order to encourage the general public to take part in discussions on contemporary social and political problems. Two cases are studied in detail: the population debates of the mid-1930s, and the Modern Leisure exhibition in Ystad 1936. How were audiences – readers, radio listeners and exhibition visitors – invited to participate in these media events? Which tasks were assigned to audiences and according to which criteria were they evaluated? Why, according to social reformers themselves, was audience participation important? The aim is to contribute to our understanding of the early formation of Western democratic culture.The investigation shows how possibilities of civic action were created. The Swedish population was conceived of as a question to discuss, and the role of citizens was to form new opinions based on their political views and current social scientific knowledge. In contrast, modern leisure was conceptualized as a new problem. The task given to exhibition visitors did not include taking a stand in a political debate. Rather, visitors were encouraged to make well-informed individual choices and to form new domestic habits. In both instances citizens were encouraged to contemplate the social and political consequences of their own actions.The dissertation offers new insights into the history of social engineering. In a Swedish context, Alva and Gunnar Myrdal are understood as a paradigmatic case. This investigation shows, however, that their arguments and actions do not fit very well with some aspects of the standard understanding of social engineering. Their insistence on the need for public discussion, opinion formation and universal education for active citizenship are cases in point. This study also highlights previously under-researched aspects of interwar democratic activism. The actors studied in this dissertation were not primarily discussing or educating people about the danger of authoritarian ideologies. Instead, they were preoccupied with creating conditions in which democracy could survive and prosper. Creating citizen audiences was a way of defending democracy.
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| 3. |
- Haffenden, Chris
(författare)
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Every Man His Own Monument : Self-Monumentalizing in Romantic Britain
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- From framing private homes as museums, to sitting for life masks and appointing biographers, new forms of self-monumentalizing emerged in the early nineteenth century. In this study I investigate the emergence and configuration of such practices in Romantic Britain. Positioning these practices at the intersection of emergent national pantheons, a modern conception of history, and a newly-formed celebrity culture, I argue that this period witnessed the birth of distinctively modern ways for the individual to make immortality. Faced with a visceral fear of being forgotten, public figures began borrowing from celebrity culture to make their own monuments.Concentrated upon early nineteenth-century London, I characterize these practices as attempts at self-made immortality. I do so by analyzing the legacy projects of three well-known but seldom connected individuals: the Auto-Icon by the philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832), the Soane Museum by the architect Sir John Soane (1753–1837), and the life-writing efforts of the painter Benjamin Robert Haydon (1786–1846). Employing both sociological and materialist frameworks to analyze the making of immortality, I contend that these projects were characteristic of a novel regime for the production of lasting renown. Whereas earlier scholarship on Romantic recognition has tended to focus either on mass-media celebrity or the longer history of canon-formation, I highlight the interactions of celebrity and monument embodied in entrepreneurial efforts to secure future recognition.In Every Man His Own Monument, I demonstrate how a constellation of media forms and recording practices we now take for granted—the statuary figure, the house museum, and the published Life—assumed a central place within a new memorial regime. Bringing the historical roots of self-monumentalizing individuals to light, this study contributes to discussions both within the History of Celebrity and Cultural Memory Studies, and to broader debates regarding our Instagram-saturated present.
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| 4. |
- Johnsson, Theresa, 1969-
(författare)
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Vårt fredliga samhälle : ”Lösdriveri” och försvarslöshet i Sverige under 1830-talet
- 2016
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Between 1664 and 1885 labour in Sweden was regulated by compulsory-service statutes. Able-bodied but idle persons could be compelled to submit to employment as a servant. Compulsory service was part of a larger system of laws and regulations that regulated mobility, settlement, begging, and poor relief, all of which aimed at restricting the labouring poor’s freedom and agency. Some parts of this system had medieval roots, such as vagrancy laws. From the perspective of the propertied classes, this system of interacting regulations served several purposes, such as fighting idleness, labour shortage, high wages, begging, demands for poor relief, unwanted settlement in the parishes, and geographical movement. The obligation to serve was abolished in 1885. Failure to comply with these service statutes was punishable by being treated as a ‘vagrant’, which could mean being jailed in a house of correction, or simply being ordered to find employment within a specific time. In short, it was illegal to be without work or other means of supporting oneself, such as property.The purpose of this thesis is to analyse the social practices of the compulsory-service statutes and related issues such as mobility and settlement. The thesis has dealt with four areas of inquiry: the judicial framework, the policing of ‘vagrancy’, in what situations people were exempt from having to comply with the compulsory service statues, and the identity of the ‘vagrant’. The system for dealing with ‘vagrancy’ has left a large number of sources, and different sources give different images of the poor. This applies most clearly in the case of the Swedish Romani population, the Resande. The thesis deals with the county (län) of Västmanland during the 1830s. It highlights how the compulsory-service statutes and related vagrancy laws shaped the lives of people and points to how these institutions restricted poor people’s agency and formed their experiences.
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| 5. |
- Kihlberg, Jakob, 1976-
(författare)
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Gränslösa anspråk : Offentliga möten och skapandet av det internationella, 1840–1860
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The first congresses that claimed to be “international” without involving state representatives took place in the middle of the nineteenth century. In this dissertation these public meetings, with participants from many countries in Europe and America, are described as mediated events related to a specific imaginary of the public sphere. Three cases are studied in detail: two antislavery conventions that were held in London in the 1840s, a series of peace congresses that took place in Brussels, Paris, Frankfurt and London between 1848 and 1851, and four international philanthropic congresses organised in the same cities during the second half of the 1850s and in the first years of the 1860s.The aim of the dissertation is to show that these meetings were arranged as a new form of international actors, and how different media were used to accomplish this. These early international meetings were part of a dynamic culture of public speaking in Europe in the nineteenth century, but they were also closely connected to the development of new forms of printed media. In the dissertation the meetings are analysed as multimedia events, as constellations of speech, image and text. The focus is not primarily on how the meetings transmitted information, but rather on the means by which they created legitimacy, participation and identification.I demonstrate that the logic of the meetings was closely tied to what can be called the mobilisation of reform elites, in the sense that the organisers both presented support from such collectives, and at the same time tried to activate audiences and get them to identify as belonging to these groups. In this respect the investigation relies on a discussion of mediated publics and political representation, notably the theory of representative claims developed by the political theorist Michael Saward. As a general conclusion, I argue that this way of mobilising reform elites was central to the new type of internationality created through these meetings.
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| 6. |
- Tillema, Linnea, 1987-
(författare)
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Övningar i frihet : Pedagogiseringen av känslolivet och mellanmänskliga relationer i 1970-talets Sverige
- 2021
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- During the 1970s, Sweden saw the rise of a new set of pedagogical methods and techniques, aimed at educating and training people to become emotionally emancipated and authentic in their relationships with others. The purpose of this study is to analyze this pedagogization of emotional life and interpersonal relations as a historically specific form of government. Using theoretical perspectives and tools from the field of governmentality studies, the dissertation asks which human subjects and relationships the pedagogical initiatives were supposed to produce, what benefits were ascribed to them, and how their proponents argued for their value in contemporary Swedish society. The investigation is organized around three case studies, concerned with the introduction of pedagogizing authenticity techniques within three different arenas of social life: the workplace, the family, and sexual relationships. Drawing upon a wide range of empirical materials, including instructive manuals and contemporary media reports, the study explores the parallel introduction of “sensitivity training” at the workplace, “active parenting” as a new method for educating parents, and sensuality training aimed at enhancing pleasure in sexual relations. By shifting the focus away from the countercultural movements, which have received considerable attention elsewhere, this investigation shows that techniques to promote authenticity and emotional liberation were widely circulated in 1970s Sweden, and advocated by established and powerful actors. The emotional and relational competences that the authenticity techniques were set to produce were ascribed a crucial role not only for the transition to a new economy, but also for the formation of a specific democratic ideal and practice, that is characterized in this dissertation as emotional democracy. Övningar i frihet demonstrates that the authentic, self-expressive, sensitive and responsibilized subject, regarding herself and her relationships with others as projects of optimization, emerged earlier and in other contexts than previous studies of the “neoliberal” or “advanced liberal” modes of government have claimed.
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