| 1. |
- Backvall, Karin
(författare)
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Constructing the Suburb : Swedish Discourses of Spatial Stigmatisation
- 2019
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- By exploring representations of place, this thesis treats practices of spatial stigmatisation in the context of segregated Swedish cities. In three papers, different aspects of stigmatisation and place-making are discussed and analysed, where the overarching ambition is to identify and critically deconstruct the ideology behind stigma as well as suggest ways of making representation positive. In other words, this thesis takes issue with the negative labels attached to certain urban areas by exploring dominant discursive trends and mechanisms, or techniques, of creating spatial stigma.Theoretically, the analysis is informed by postcolonial critical research on segregation and representations of people and place, where place-making is of particular importance. The case study consists of printed news media and political discourse concerning stigmatised urban areas in Sweden, and the method is inspired by critical discourse analysis.The empirical material covers a period of twenty years, and the analysis is particularly focused on constructions of ‘race’ and poverty and how these two dimensions intertwine. The main findings point to a dominant trend of representing stigmatised neighbourhoods as failed and miserable places that are not considered part of Sweden. They become racialised both through representations of the neighbourhoods as foreign and unintegrated places and through representations of the residents, usually categorised as the ‘immigrants’, as culturally different from ‘Swedes’. There are signs of a more critical discourse which challenges the negative representations, but it remains weak compared to the predominance of the negative reporting.
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| 2. |
- Eriksson, Åsa, 1974-
(författare)
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Resisting feminised precarity : Farm workers in post-strike Western Cape, South Africa
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation seeks to contribute to the body of research on gender, neoliberal globalisation and work, and on the forms of resistance people engage in within a deeply unequal global order. It was devised in relation to developments during and after widespread, unprecedented labour and social protests among farm workers in export-oriented agriculture in the Western Cape, South Africa, 2012–2013. The protests, referred to in popular discourse as the ‘farm worker strike’, are widely held to have been spearheaded by people in the most precarious positions: seasonal workers, including migrants both from within and outside South Africa, many of whom were women. The dissertation draws on multi-sited ethnography conducted among farm workers in several of the areas to which the protests spread, during what I refer to as the post-strike moment.The aim of the study is to contribute to an understanding of differently positioned farm workers’ experiences of work and life precarity, organising and resistance – as well as to the interlinkages between these phenomena. Using intersectionality as an ‘analytic sensibility’, the dissertation explores how power relations linked to gender, race/ethnicity and nationality/migration status may be understood as shaped by, and contributing to shaping, work and life precarity. It also looks at how these hierarchies are articulated through labour regimes on farms and through workers’ resistance. Moreover, it interrogates labour activism as a route to resisting not only socio-economic deprivation and apartheid legacies, but further to restoring a sense of dignity (of labour).The dissertation engages with various broader theoretical discussions. It deliberates on the overlaps between the notions of feminisation of labour, precarious work and precarity – conceiving of precarity as a feminised phenomenon. Experiences of precarity in the Western Cape farmlands, it suggests, are shaped by the devaluing of some workers, linked to racism, sexism and global inequalities, as well as to historical and contemporary processes of dispossession. The dissertation also describes how (some) female farm workers, through presenting themselves as knowledgeable about their rights, and through accentuating feminised aspects of care and responsibility in their activism, position themselves as respectable. Furthermore, through identifying silences and exclusions in representations of farm workers, it contributes to writing black/African female migrant workers back into the strike narrative as important and militant actors. Finally, the dissertation argues that attention to multiple forms of violence – slow, structural, symbolic and direct – and the violence of globalisation under neoliberalism is crucial in order to understand the messy and violent aspects of the ‘farm worker strike’. Importantly, it explores these topics as informed by broader global developments, through which power, control and the retention of value are increasingly placed outside of the deeply unequal spaces that constitute commercial farming areas, discussing links with Sweden as a destination for South African wine and deciduous fruit.
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| 3. |
- Foultier, Christophe, 1972-
(författare)
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Regimes of Hospitality : Urban Citizenship between Participation and Securitization – the Case of the Multiethnic French Banlieue
- 2015
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis analyzes various local development policies in Europe’s big urban areas. Striving to understand the respective places accorded to the measures to increase the participation of the inhabitants on the one hand, and to improve for security and public peace in the context of social and territorial policies on the other, I examine how urban policies define models of urban citizenship. The empirical work concerns two sites in the greater metropolitan area of Paris, Le Franc-Moisin–Bel-Air in Saint-Denis and Les Cinq Quartiers in Les Mureaux. It consists of an analysis of public documents as well as a series of interviews and observations. This methodological approach serves to gain an understanding of how participative and security procedures emerge in the history of French urban policy and how these norms interact locally.By investigating the overlap of security politics and participatory devices, I demonstrate that deprived areas do not have access to an adequate form of intervention to meet the expectations and needs of its inhabitants, who are squeezed between a logic of development reluctantly accepted by, but rarely negotiated with its inhabitants, and a logic of security that often leads to the confinement of residents to their respective areas. The thesis thus demonstrates how institutional interventions in multiethnic areas can fuel feelings of suspicion be-tween local stakeholders and civic distrust. Indeed, the participatory procedures that are developed in urban strategies influence the conduct of participants on matters of identity and belonging and can intensify socio-ethnic stigmatization. This effect provides me with a critical standpoint on new techniques of government. The local partners of the state develop daily routines in urban strategies that contribute to articulating participatory devices and security procedures. I claim that the results from this process are “regimes of hospitality”.
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| 4. |
- Kalyukin, Alexander, 1989-
(författare)
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Everyday life in avant-garde housing estates : A phenomenology of post-Soviet Moscow
- 2020
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis explores the social meaning and function of what is known as avant-garde, or constructivist, housing estates located in central Moscow. Five of these estates – Budenovsky, Dubrovka, Khavsko-Shabolovsky, Nizhnyaya Presnya and Usachevka – comprise the empirical foci of the study. Built in the late 1920s, the avant-garde estates are the architectonic expression of specific ideals about everyday life and collective living for Soviet citizens.Exploring the avant-garde housing in their current post-Soviet setting, the thesis analyses the lived and social experiences of their residents in the mundane fabric of everyday life, against the backdrop of structural societal forces and the sweep of historical changes occurring in the built environment. Theoretically, the study draws on phenomenologically informed humanistic geography scholarship as well as Henri Lefebvre’s Marxist analysis of everyday life and social space. Empirically, the analysis is based on semi-structured interviews with local residents, including walking interviews, and interviews with architecture historians and preservation activists, as well as a survey, a range of historical sources and state register data. The findings show that residents, in relation to the spatial, architectural and design features of their housing estates, make sense of their residencies as home places, thereby transcending the official historical and cultural heritage narratives. Furthermore, associated with the restructuring of housing markets in post-Soviet Moscow, the change in social (housing) relations has had a clear effect on the physical and social space of the estates, leading to novel patterns of place-based socialisation and politicisation. The thesis also demonstrates how residents rediscover the historical meanings and underpinnings of avant-garde housing in the course of their daily lives, showcasing the awareness and possibility of envisioning housing as a fundamental social right built with human needs, not profits, in mind.This study should be of special interest to those concerned with housing and urban planning, urban history, residential architecture and urban phenomenology. It is also an invitation to revisit and actualise the humanistic tradition in current human geography studies.
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| 5. |
- Karlsson, Sandra, 1981-
(författare)
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Områdesbaserad politik – möjligheter till strukturell förändring : Lokalt utvecklingsarbete i marginaliserade bostadsområden i Malmö
- 2016
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In 1995 the Swedish government launched the first area-based initiative Special initiatives in immigrant-dense neighbourhoods as a response to the current debate concerning the failings of the integration policy. The area-based policy and projects undertake the mission to reverse the trend in marginalized neighbourhoods in Sweden’s major cities from 1995 to 2014. The empirical material is from the projects Area-programs for a socially sustainable Malmö (2010-2015) and Lindängen towards the future (2012-2014), Malmö municipality. Adopting a social constructionist approach the study’s aim is to examine the projects’ assumptions concerning what – and who – should be changed and how. Based on the policy´s claim to achieve structural change the study also examines if, and if so what, possibilities the projects have to create opportunities for structural change. The study shows that the area-based projects cannot create opportunities for structural change but rather work to reduce the social consequences of structural deficiencies that are made visible through the reproduction of marginalised neighbourhoods. In the projects the social problem is constructed as consisting of four interrelated factors: long-term unemployment, foreign background, segregation and lack of social responsibility. The strategy is to mobilise public, private and civil sector actors so that they – despite society’s exclusion of people of foreign background in situations of long-term unemployment – take their social responsibility and make available resources to individual residents in order to prepare them for becoming active citizens. As they are not able to reduce poverty, promote inclusive political and economic processes or legitimate relationships between those in power and representatives of civil society with demands for changing conditions, their ability to create opportunities for structural change is found to be limited.
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| 6. |
- Tunström, Moa, 1975-
(författare)
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På spaning efter den goda staden : om konstruktioner av ideal och problem i svensk stadsbyggnadsdiskussion
- 2009
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In this dissertation constructions of contemporary urban ideals are in focus, starting from the understanding that they are constructed in relation to both an idea of an urban renaissance and one ofa dissolving, or sprawling, city. The aim of the dissertation is to investigate and analyse how the city and the urban are discursively constructed in contemporary Swedish urban planning discussion. This is done by analysing articles from the Swedish Journal of Planning (Plan) and publications from the National Board of Housing, Building and Planning (Boverket) and the Urban Environment Council (Stadsmiljörådet). The main research topics are: How is the city and its history constructed? What norms are constructed about the city and the urban? How is planning and the role of the planner constructed, and what kind of knowledge and practices are emphasised? Methodologically, the dissertation is inspired by social constructivist methods, and mainly discourse theory. Applying this to the urban context means understanding urbanity and cities as constantly constructed and reconstructed discursively, even if both appear to be defined, absolute and recognisable. The analysis investigates these appearances and the meanings they are given – in this case in an urban planning context. The analysis shows that history plays an important part in both the construction of ideals and problems. Both contemporary planning and the urban ideals are conceptualised in the light of a modernist planning era, which is emphasised as the period when the “real” city was dissolved or even destroyed. An “original”, pre-modern city is constructed and guarded as the norm, and the categorisation of places appear as important. Concepts both open and defined appear as central, such as diversity, variation, identity and urbanity. The planning practice that supposedly creates the good city is ideally a sensitive and emotional practice and practitioner, in line with communicative planning theory. Binary conceptual couples structure the discourse to a high degree, resulting in polarisations such as compact/sparse, city/countryside or inner city/suburb. The problematic or contradictory, such as the suburb, is marked off from the “real” city, and an inside and outside of the good city is created. The importance of a holistic and comprehensive planning perspective is emphasized, but at the same time the urban ideal that comes out appear as a strongly normative outlook from the traditional inner city. An inner city “we” is constructed, and the suburb, the suburban and its inhabitants are seen as an Other. The dissertation also discusses some openings and contrary voices in the discourse and in other urban research indicative of an attempt to move beyond the polarisations. By questioning hierarchies and polarisations, and opening up for influence from outside of the discourse, concepts such as diversity and urbanity could be given alternative meanings instead of being used to mourn the loss of a “real”, original city or urban public space.
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| 7. |
- Andersson, Frida, 1977-
(författare)
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Performing Co-production : On the logic and practice of shopping at IKEA
- 2009
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Contemporary western society has often been described as a “consumer society” in relation to the producer oriented form that characterised the industrial society. While consumer habits used to be seen as a reflection of a person’s occupational status or place in a stable societal hierarchy, it has now become recognised as a practice through which people’s identity and status is partially defined by the choices they make as consumers. This has not only changed the view of the consumer but also created a new role for economic actors. Instead of merely responding to demand they have been recognised as active participants in ongoing processes of socio-cultural transformation. In this thesis I develop a particular understanding of the relation between the activities taking place within consumer markets and specific processes of home making. With theoretical reference to a performative perspective on economic markets and using my own empirical study of the multinational retailer IKEA’s operation in the North East of England, the thesis describes shopping at IKEA as a situated encounter where economic exchange becomes framed as meaningful in particular ways. At IKEA, this process is specifically organised around a principle of co-production. By doing part of the work in terms of picking up and assembling flat-packed furniture, the consumers are offered a low price. Rather than being limited to this work, co-productivity is here identified as a “calculative” logic and practice that characterises and frames the shopping experience as a whole and creates a relation between the consumer and the retailer through the medium of the retail brand. The co-productive calculation established through the shopping experience then continues to make sense as part of ongoing processes of home making. It does so in ways that enhances the immediate, temporary and mobile aspects of the home. Hence, it is by linking the experience of shopping at IKEA and processes of home making that the relation between economic exchange and the ongoing processes of socio-cultural transformation is identified. Rather than answering a particular question, the research and analysis constitutes a specific approach to how economic exchange may be understood and offers some suggestions as to what this may entail in terms of how relations within economic markets may be organised.
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| 8. |
- Hedman, Lina, 1981-
(författare)
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Residential Mobility and Neighbourhood Effects: A Holistic Approach
- 2011
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The number of studies estimating neighbourhood effects has increased rapidly during the last two decades. Although results from these studies vary, a majority find at least small effects. But to what extent can we trust these estimates? Neighbourhood effect studies face many serious methodological challenges, of which some are related to the fact that people move. The mobility of individuals may cause neighbourhoods to change over time, result in exposure times that are too short and seriously bias estimates. These methodological problems have not been given enough attention in the neighbourhood effect literature: no study controls for them all, and implications of mobility are rarely included in theoretical discussions of neighbourhood effects.In a comprehensive summary and five different papers, I argue that the two scholarly fields of residential mobility and neighbourhood effect studies are intrinsically connected and that any arbitrary separation between the two is both conceptually problematic and risks leading to erroneous conclusions. Studies of neighbourhood effects must address the problems caused by mobility, before it can be convincingly argued that results actually show neighbourhood effects. To do this, longitudinal data are necessary. Furthermore, the connection between the two fields may also have implications for studies of residential mobility.
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| 9. |
- Hierofani, Patricia Yocie
(författare)
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"How dare you talk back?!" : Spatialised Power Practices in the Case of Indonesian Domestic Workers in Malaysia
- 2016
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- By taking the experiences and narratives of Indonesian women in Malaysia as the empirical material, this dissertation offers an analysis on spatialised power practices in the context of paid domestic workers. Family survival prompts these women to work abroad, but patriarchal norms shift their economic contribution as supplementary to the men’s role as the breadwinner. The interviews reveal that these women chose Malaysia as their destination country after having listened to oral stories, but despite the transnational mobility involved in their decisions, they are rendered immobile in the employers’ house.Furthermore, the analysis shows an intricate ensemble of power relations in which gender, class and nationality/ethnicity interact with each other, inform and reproduce spatialised domination and labour exploitation practices by the employers. Immigration status of the workers, meanwhile, puts them in a subordinated position in relation to the employers, citizens of the host country. Without the recognition from the state on this particular form of embodied labour, the employers are responsible for defining the working conditions of the workers, leading to precarious conditions.Findings on several resistance practices by the workers complete the analysis of power practices, where resistance is treated as an entangled part of power. Contributing to the study of gendered geographies of exploitation, the study identifies the home and the body as the main levels of analysis; meanwhile, practices at the national level by the state, media and recruitment/placement agencies and globalisation processes are identified as interrelated factors that legitimate the employers’ practices of exploitation.Finally, the dissertation contributes to feminist geography analysis on gender, space, and power through South-South migration empirics.
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| 10. |
- Hinchcliffe Voglio, Gabriela, 1981-
(författare)
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Jaget, laget, Dotterbolaget : En studie av feministiskt nätverkande och rummets betydelse
- 2019
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This research explores how entrepreneurship interacts with feministic political commitments and praxis. It shows that this interaction is intimately shaped by its spatial setting, in this case Möllevången in the city of Malmö, Sweden. For a long time, the independent comics industry in Sweden has had men in leading positions and the medium has had masculinist connotations. My thesis shows that for women and transgender persons working in such a male-dominated industry, networking and collaborating are crucial for succeeding and staying in business. The particular network studied here is Dotterbolaget, a women and transgender separatist comic’s network based in Malmö.Dotterbolaget practices a feministic approach. The thesis analyses firstly its work practices and secondly the motives animating their adoption. Avoiding competition and promoting collaboration are important factors. So too is finding a means of motivation other than monetary, such as having fun and creating a professional environment for one another. The analysis also considers the spatial setting of the network, showing the deep significance of physical place. Finally, the non-hierarchal form of the network is considered. What does it mean to work as a comic’s artist without hierarchies in an individualised society? What tensions and strengths does such an organisational form give rise to?
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