Kategoriarkiv: Disputationer

Disputation: John Björkman försvarar ”Healing springs and haunted woods: Sacred sites of folk belief and spatial order in Southwest Finnish village societies” (2024)

Disputationer, Doktorsavhandlingar, Publikationer

FM John Björkman disputerar den 22 november 2024 i nordisk folkloristik vid Åbo Akademi med avhandlingen Healing springs and haunted woods: Sacred sites of folk belief and spatial order in Southwest Finnish village societies.

Opponent är docent Sonja Hukantaival, Åbo universitet och kustos är professor Lena Marander-Eklund, Åbo Akademi.

Disputationen äger rum i Argentum, Aurum, Henriksgatan 2, Åbo

Disputationen kan också följas via videolänk, länken publiceras här ungefär en vecka innan evenemanget.

Disputation: Lenita Kefala försvarar ”Inget riktigt hem: Kvinnors erfarenheter av den tillfälliga bostadsmarknaden i Stockholm” (2024)

Disputationer, Doktorsavhandlingar, Publikationer

Den 15 november 2024 försvarar Lenita Kefala sin avhandling i etnologi vid Stockholms Universitet ”Inget riktigt hem: Kvinnors erfarenheter av den tillfälliga bostadsmarknaden i Stockholm”.

Opponent: Professor Anna Sofia Lundgren, Institutionen för kultur- och medievetenskaper, Umeå Universitet

Datum: fredag 15 november 2024
Tid: 10.00 – 12.00
Plats: Hörsal 9, hus D, Södra huset

En trygg bostadssituation är en grundläggande förutsättning för att kunna verka i samhället, upprätthålla sociala relationer, känna trygghet och stabilitet. Idag saknar många i Sverige en egen bostad. I städer med bostadsbrist och höga bostadspriser tvingas många att hyra tillfälliga andrahandslägenheter, korttidskontrakt utan besittningsskydd eller nöja sig med att hyra ett rum som inneboende. I väntan på en permanent bostad väcks frågor om vad hemmet egentligen betyder och hur en bostad kan fyllas med mening under omständigheter präglade av tillfällighet och osäkerhet.

Boken kretsar kring frågan om vilken roll kön spelar på en alltmer ojämlik bostadsmarknad och varför just kvinnliga hyresgäster är så eftertraktade. Utifrån feministisk teori och etnografiskt fältarbete skildrar denna bok kvinnors utmaningar och strategier på Stockholms svårnavigerade bostadsmarknad. Läsaren får ta del av de utmaningar kvinnorna möter i sin strävan efter en egen bostad. I berättelserna framträder möjligheterna att skapa ett hemlikt liv ofta som svårt och begränsat. Dessa begränsningar påverkar i sin tur flera aspekter av vardagslivet såsom att upprätthålla rutiner, relationer och det handlingsutrymme vuxna individer förväntas ha. Avhandlingen väcker vidare frågor om privatlivets gränsdragningar, normer kring feminina förväntningar samt hur autonomi upprätthålls och utmanas genom klass, kön, ålder och rasifiering.

Länk till avhandlingen i DiVA

Läs mer om Lenita Kefala och hennes forskning

Health in Negotiation : Cultural Analytical Perspectives on Health and Inequalities in the Swedish Asylum Context (2024)

Disputationer, Doktorsavhandlingar, Publikationer, , , , , ,

Talieh Mirsalehi will defend the thesis in ethnology at Lund University Health in Negotiation: Cultural Analytical Perspectives on Health and Inequalities in the Swedish Asylum Context on 24 May 2024. Opponent is Jenny Gunnarsson Payne.

The thesis can be found here.

Summary:

Health inequalities are a persistent and growing issue in different countries worldwide. Sweden, despite being one of the scandinavian countries with internationally recognized welfare system is no exception. The issue of health disparities and its increase among some groups, including those who are categorised as migrant have been acknowledged. Emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, however, revealed the gravity of the situation when groups of people who had migrated to Sweden from countries mainly within Africa and the Middle East were on the frontline experiencing disproportionate impacts of the Coronavirus. Although the effect of structural factors on health vulnerabilities among these groups have been identified, there is still little knowledge about how individuals who are placed into migrant categories have experienced and responded to health risks caused by the pandemic. This dissertation aims to provide a cultural analytical account of the ways in which people who undergo an asylum process in Sweden relate to, navigate, and negotiate health. By empirically investigating a group of asylum seekers’ perceptions of health, body, and risk, this study demonstrates how the participants make meaning of their embodied experiences of generating health and practicing self-care while living in a transitional state. In a health care landscape where taking responsibility for one’s health is a sociocultural norm, protecting health and preserving body is seen as a moral percept, expected from all members of society. Disparities in health, from this view, may be perceived as avoidable by leading a healthy way of life and avoiding exposure to health risks. By focusing on a group of asylum seekers’ experiences of navigating health and care before and during the COVID-19 pandemic in Sweden, this study reveals how perceptions and practices of health and care are situational, contextual, and negotiable in relation to the conditions within asylum processes. While being expected to actively participate in the society they want to be a part of, those who joined this study revealed how uncertainties about the state of their ‘at-risk’ bodies clash with performances of membership.While making meaning of notions of health and care in the new society and turning it to projects of familiarization, those who joined this study shared challenges of building a fit and equally immune body that matches new parameters of health and well-being under unqual circumstances. However, it may not be translated as passivity and lack of initiation among ‘vulnerable’ groups when it comes to generating health. The notions of health, care, risk, and immunity, from this perspective, are boundary concepts and open to interpretation. In order to access the experiences, perceptions and practices of health among ‘inaccessible’ migrant populations, more emphasis needs to be put on methodological considerations in health research among different groups.

Public defence with Paul Sherfey: Cultivating Responsible Citizenship: Collective Gardens at the Periphery of Neoliberal Urban Norms (2024)

Disputationer, Doktorsavhandlingar, Event, Publikationer, , ,

Paul Sherfey defends his thesis ”Cultivating Responsible Citizenship: Collective Gardens at the Periphery of Neoliberal Urban Norms”

When? 22 March 2024 15:00-17:00

Doctoral thesis: ”Cultivating Responsible Citizenship:
Collective Gardens at the Periphery of Neoliberal Urban Norms”
Research area: Historical Studies
Research school: The Baltic and East European Graduate School (BEEGS)
External reviewer: Katarina Saltzman, docent in Ethnology , Institutionen för kulturvård, Göteborgs universitet
Language: English

Abstract
As the growing human population becomes concentrated in urban environments across the globe, these environments have increased in both overall population and population density (OECD, 2020). Consequently, political debates and social movements concerned with urban planning and land use have become ever more pertinent. One way of problematising and scrutinising dominant rationales of urban land use is to examine in them in relation to activism and collective action by which they are challenged.

Among the many such examples available are what proponents in some countries refer to as collective gardens, a subset of community gardens distinguishable by their explicit emphasis on collective management and publicly oriented educational and cultural programming – typically with an expressed intent or mission involving social change and environmental stewardship (cf. Rosol, 2006; Villace, Labajos, Aceituno-Mata et al., 2014). Geographically situated in social environments shaped by capitalism, they can be considered pericapitalist places, “simultaneously inside and outside capitalism” (Tsing, 2015, p. 63) to the extent that their use of urban land and collective forms of social organisation appear inconsistent with the proclivity towards privatization and a free-market economy characteristic of neoliberal capitalism (cf. Mouffe, 2018). Studying collective gardens in relation to neoliberal capitalism thus has implications for understanding how these places represent political forms of sensemaking, expressing grievances and demands that respond to the dominant political-economic context of contemporary urban life.

Based on this understanding, the aim in this study is to explore discourses about what collective gardens signify politically as places where alternative norms of urban life are nurtured. What sense of place can be understood to be nurtured in relation to collective gardens, and what does this convey about citizenship and experiences of urban life in the context of neoliberal capitalism? This question is investigated through the application of a political discourse framework, supplemented by discursive theories of aesthetics, narratives, and sensemaking to learn about the meanings attributed to collective gardens and how these are constituted in relation to their social contexts. The aesthetics of collective gardens are explored through multi-sited research undertaken at gardens across Germany and Sweden, in order to analyse how the materials and design of these gardens reimagine urban space.

The study then turns to individual case studies in both nations to explore a range of narratives – first to understand how the history of each garden sets up a problem that is solved by the establishment of the garden, and later to analyse how each garden is situated in discourses about contemporary urban development, as well as work and social life. Through these multiple perspectives on the construction of their meaning and relevance as places of political activity, the study offers an interpretation of how collective gardens represent a particular ethos of democratic citizenship through the social critiques being fostered in these places. Additionally, it provides an exploration of complex relationships and different interpretations of responsibility, whereby collective gardens can be seen to resist neoliberal capitalist rationalities while also fulfilling or contributing to their objectives.

Read more about the event here

The thesis can be found in diva-portal

Disputation: Förhandlingar på dansgolvet. En etnologisk studie av lindy hop och polska – två svenska dansscener (2023)

Disputationer, Doktorsavhandlingar, Publikationer, , , , , , ,

Linnea Helmersson disputerar i etnologi vid Umeå Universitet med avhandlingen Förhandlingar på dansgolvet. En etnologisk studie av lindy hop och polska – två svenska dansscener. Opponent är Oscar Pripp.

När? Fredag 17 november, 2023 kl. 13:00 – 15:00 UTC+1/CET
Var? Humanisthuset, HUM.D.230 (hörsal G)

Abstrakt på engelska:

In Sweden today, many different dances are practiced within distinct scenes, which all have their specific characteristics, norms and ideals. This thesis analyses two of these scenes, polska and lindy hop. They share a similar background of revitalisation and revival. The aim of the thesis is to describe and analyse meaning-making processes within the scenes formed around these dance forms. It includes descriptions of historical revival processes but above all analyses of practitioners’ understandings and practices.

The main research data consists of interviews with practitioners, and observations on dance events and courses. Theoretically, the study is based on a view of dance and dancing as cultural expressions whose meanings and forms are constantly being created and recreated. The analysis draws on a wide variety of theories and concepts within the humanities and performing arts research.

The findings show that beliefs about the past emerge as a framework for practice in the two scenes. In the data, tradition and authenticity are important themes, and there is a shared discourse of preservation. Nevertheless, how important history is for today’s practitioners, and how the past is enacted and what meanings are ascribed to it, differs between and within the scenes. Discourses about the past, as well as processes of authentication, are much more prominent within the lindy hop scene, as compared to the polska scene. This includes aspects such as clothing and the making of and expression of gender. A notable difference between the scenes is that learning to dance is formalised through workshops in the lindy hop scene, whereas it is more informal among polska dancers.

The thesis adds to the growing field of studies of revivals of music and dance, and shows how scenes formed around revived dances bear traces of the revival processes while at the same time creating something new in the present.

Avhandlingen kan hittas på diva portal.

Dissertation Defence: Kun kunta lakkasi olemasta: Kylä- ja kotiseutuyhdistykset kuntarakenteen muutoksiin reagoivina toimijoina (2023)

Disputationer, Doktorsavhandlingar, Publikationer, ,

Niina Koskihaara is defending her thesis in ethnology at University of Turku on November 10, 12:00-16:00 at Arje Scheinin -sali, DENTALIA, Lemminkäisenkatu 2, 20520, TURKU. The defence can also be followed online.

Read more here

English abstract:

When the municipality ceased to exist. Village and local heritage associations as reactive actors to municipal mergers

The topic of this study is the restructuring of local government and services in the early 2000s (PARAS project) and its impacts on communities operating at the local level. The research project examines how the reform, initiated at the highest level of state administration, affected the activities and operational environment of village and local heritage associations as well as the cultural processes resulting from the municipal mergers at the local level. The actors involved with village and local heritage associations have most clearly focused their efforts on specific villages and local regions. During the municipal restructuring, concerns were expressed at the local level about the villages and home regions being left behind as neglected and remote villages, causing the sense of place and local identity to disappear.

The study focuses on nine village and local heritage associations that operate in municipalities where the reform was carried out in 2007 and 2009: Mynämäki (Mynämäki and Mietoinen in 2007), Pälkäne (Pälkäne and Luopioinen in 2007), Salo (Salo, Halikko, Kiikala, Kisko, Kuusjoki, Muurla, Perniö, Pertteli, Suomusjärvi and Särkisalo in 2009) and Hämeenlinna (Hauho, Hämeenlinna, Kalvola, Lammi, Renko and Tuulos in 2009). The main data for the research project consists of thematic interviews conducted with association actors. In addition, the interviews include discussions with the main actors in LEADER groups and cultural associations. The method employed for analysing the data is close reading. The theoretical framework guiding the research and shaping the close reading approach is based on Lefebvre’s triad of social space, which adopts the perspective of viewing the municipality as a conceptualised, perceived and lived space.

The study demonstrates that the restructuring of local government and services was not merely about administrative reorganisation but also concretely impacted community activities and the operational environment as a whole. Municipalities are important partners for village and local heritage associations. The municipal restructuring brought about alterations in the forms and prerequisites of such relationships. The operational methods of the new municipality required the associations to adapt, redirect their approaches and engage in advocacy with respect to the municipality. The municipal mergers also triggered processes whereby village and local heritage associations became subject to new expectations, leading them to reconsider the contents of their activities, their (geographical) scope and their inter-associational collaboration. The removal of municipal borders also revealed the ways in which the former ‘boundaries’ between communities had impacted municipal relations.

The characteristics of places, family and friendship ties, as well as involvement in associations, serve as factors emotionally connecting associational actors at the local level. The interviewees’ descriptions of their personal local identities appear more fluid and shifting in the study than their identities at the community level, whose modes and areas of operation are defined more narrowly. People are the most significant resource in association activities, but they also pose a threat to the continuation of operations if associations fail to attract new participants. Changes that impact residents’ everyday lives at the local level motivate people to participate in association activities.

The thesis can be found here.

Disputation: Ett tjejligt rum. Tidningen Starlet 1966-1996.

Disputationer, , ,

Kristina Öhman disputerar i etnologi vid Göteborgs Universitet med sin avhandling  Ett tjejligt rum. Tidningen Starlet 1966-1996. Disputationen äger rum 10 nov 2023, 13:00 – 16:00 i Hörsal J222, Humanisten, Renströmsgatan 6, Göteborg. Opponent är Blanka Henriksson, docent vid Åbo Akademi.

”Min avhandling Ett tjejligt rum. Tidningen Starlet 1966-1996 handlar om Starlet, en svensk tjejtidning som har kommit att bli en del av svenska tjejers kulturhistoria och -arv, men som inte har behandlats vetenskapligt tidigare. Starlet riktade sig framför allt till tjejer i 10-14-årsåldern och innehöll serier, redaktionellt material samt texter inskickade av läsare.

Redan från Starlets lansering fick konsumenterna stort utrymme att själva medverka och producera material för publikation. Tidningen talade därför till unga tjejer samtidigt som läsarna hade möjlighet att kommunicera sinsemellan, vilket gjorde Starlet till ett socialt medium innan internets genomslag på 1990-talet. Starlet-tidningen blev en förlängning av flickrummet, med och i vilken läsarna kunde förströ och roa sig, men också efterfråga och erbjuda stöd, försöka hantera nya ämnen och situationer, och vända sig till varandra med högt och lågt, glädje och problem.

Avhandlingens primära syfte är att utforska tidningen Starlet som en tjejlig produkt och erfarenhet, för att förstå vilka praktiker och vilket rumslighetsgörande som synliggörs i tidningen samt medarbetares och läsares minnen av den. En övergripande forskningsfråga handlar således om hur man kan tala om ett tjejligt rum i relation till tidningen Starlet. Populärkulturella produkter är en resurs, inte minst för ungdomar som hade en begränsad tillgång till publika forum och kontexter innan internet, och min ambition är att visa och diskutera vad som gjordes i samt med det här materialet som producerades till, av och med tjejer i trettio år.”

Läs mer här

Disputation: When The Dam Burst. Perspectives on Genre and Tellability in Testimonies of Rape (2023)

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FM Sofia Wanström disputerar i nordisk folkloristik med avhandlingen When The Dam Burst. Perspectives on Genre and Tellability in Testimonies of Rape.

Opponent är docent Lena Karlsson, Lunds universitet, Lund, Sverige och kustos är professor Lena Marander-Eklund, Åbo Akademi

Tid: Fre 24.11.2023 kl. 13.15–17.00
Plats: Auditorium Argentum, Aurum, Henriksgatan 2, Åbo

Disputationen kan också följas på distans

Läs mera här.

Avhandlingen kan läsas i doria.

Kutsu osallistua tieteelliseen toimintaan. Etnografisia näkökulmia monitieteisen kyselytoiminnan yhteistyöhön ja käytäntöihin (2023)

Disputationer, Doktorsavhandlingar, Publikationer

Anna Kirveennummi is defending her doctoral thesis ”Kutsu osallistua tieteelliseen toimintaan. Etnografisia näkökulmia monitieteisen kyselytoiminnan yhteistyöhön ja käytäntöihin” in ethnology at University of Turku 16 June 2023 at 12:00.

Read more here.

English summary of the thesis:

An invitation to participate in scientific activity: ethnographic perspectives on collaboration practices in multidisciplinary questionnaire activity

Qualitative thematic inquiries form a specific method for creating research material, comparable to fieldwork, interviews and semi-structured questionnaire forms. The idea behind this method of collection was to send questionnaires published in printed leaflets to people who assisted researchers in providing information about their observations, experiences and memories connected with folk life. The basis of this study is the multidisciplinary and collaborative process of inviting citizens to create a new set of ethnological and sociological collections at the University of Turku. It took shape through the series of questionnaire leaflets Tiedusteluja kansallisten tieteiden alalta (Inquiries from the field of national sciences).

The starting point for my work is the University of Turku TYKL-Collections of the Archives of the School of History, Culture and Arts Studies (HKTL-archives). I examine the series of questionnaire pamphlets as well as related archive materials and discussions. I contemplate how questionnaire activity directed at citizens was planned and realized and on what kinds of social and intellectual interaction, circumstances and practices these forms of collaboration were based. By studying the processes from various ethnographic perspectives I attempt to deepen understanding of the many connections between the methods applied in questionnaire activity, on the one hand, and cultural, societal and scientific changes, on the other.

The series of questionnaire pamphlets was initiated in 1958 by Esko Aaltonen (1893-1966), Professor of Sociology, while he was serving as head of the Department of Sociology and the new Department of Ethnology in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Turku. I have identified the most active period for multidisciplinary collaboration to be 1958–1962, during which time 14 questionnaire pamphlets appeared. They contained a total of 28 questionnaires, of which 12 came from sociology and 13 from ethnology, sometimes in parallel and sometimes consecutively. Three questionnaires intended for rural workers in specific trades were implemented in closer collaboration between the two disciplines. The basis for scientific co-operation was formed through regular work on the methodology of questionnaire leaflets. The invitation process was intended to be accessible and engaging for the respondents as well as to fit the research profiles of the institutions.

Esko Aaltonen and other researchers in the so-called national sciences participated actively in the Finnish Local Heritage Federation (Kotiseutuliitto) and other rural and museum organizations. It was also through these organizations that citizens were familiarized with the process of collecting materials and responding to questionnaires as aspects of knowledge creation and circulation. Prompts and practical instructions for amateur scholars who collected and wrote down responses to the questionnaires were shaped in the guides to local work (Kotiseututyön opas, 1948, 1953, 1963) published by Esko Aaltonen. During the 1950s and 1960s the methodological attention shifted from collection of material to new use contexts for the materials connected with rural sociology and planning the emerging modern society. The polyphony of questionnaire activity can be read in the various research programs that I recognize in the formulation of the questionnaires and prompts. During the 1950s and 1960s as well the significance of field work gradually began to be emphasized and questionnaire activity was modified to be a kind of passive field work conducted in rural communities.

Finally, using selected examples of personal data forms, I contemplate what preconditions for responding were created in survey activity. In the closing discussion I explore the opportunities for analyzing and developing methods of asking in connection, for example, with emerging areas of practice in sustainability and citizen science.

Translation by Kendra Willson

The thesis can be found here.

Desires of Decoloniality and Museal Logics: Encounters between the Swedish Museum of Ethnography, democratic ideals, and contemporary audiences (2023)

Disputationer, Doktorsavhandlingar, Publikationer, , , , ,

Charlotte Engman disputerar den 5 maj 2023 i etnologi vid Umeå Universitet med en avhandling vid namn Desires of Decoloniality and Museal Logics: Encounters between the Swedish Museum of Ethnography, democratic ideals, and contemporary audiences. Opponent är Anna Rastas.

Tid: Fredag 5 maj, 2023 kl. 10:00 – 12:00
Plats: UB.A 240, Lindellhallen 4, Samhällsvetarhuset, Umeå

Avhandlingens abstrakt:

‘Decolonisation’ is a frequently used expression in museum contexts, and a growing museal practice. In ethnographic museums, such attempts are usually performed in the shape of projects that seek to establish new relationships with source– or diasporan communities. However, little research has been produced about how these practices relate to the political demands and expectations set on state museums, and how they are shaped in a Swedish context. By following the project Ongoing Africa at the Museum of Ethnography in Stockholm, Sweden, the thesis aims to explore how different museal logics condition activities, are reproduced, and relate to each other. The empirical data consists of interviews with museum staff and collaborators engaged in the project, observations of project activities, and written data such as policy documents and government publications.

The findings show that tension and ambivalence characterise museal decoloniality. Along with ideals of social inclusion, co-creation and decolonial agendas, the museal economy is being eroded and activities market-adjusted, at the same time as the museum is also expected to be educative and authoritarian. While museum professionals struggle with creating relevance for the museum and the collections, the latter has been discursively fragmented through contemporary investments in heritage justice and repatriation discourse. To external stake holders, the ethnographic collection symbolises ongoing forms of colonial violence and heritage items that contribute to diasporan identity formation. Furthermore, the public museum is today a place where contemporary anti-racist ideology manifest itself through silences performed in relation to racialisation, and knowledge is at the museum a contingent and relational practice.

Avhandlingen kan läsas i diva-portal.