Kategoriarkiv: Disputationer

Thesis defence: Aida Jobarteh. Routes and Ruptures of the Mediterranean Backway: An ethnography of Gambian men navigating the European border regime (2025)

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Aida Jobarteh defends her thesis in Ethnology ”Routes and Ruptures of the Mediterranean Backway. An ethnography of Gambian men navigating the European border regime” at Stockholm University.

The defence will be held May 28 2025, 10:00 at hörsal 3, hus 2, Campus Albano, Albanovägen 20, Stockholm, and will also be available via Zoom (in english). The opponent is Marie Sandberg (Associate professor in ethnology at the University of Copenhagen).

Read more here.

The thesis can be found open access in DiVA

Abstract:

This thesis examines how Gambian men navigate and assert themselves within the political economy of borders through their migration to Europe. By centering their lived experiences, I analyze how they negotiate, respond to, and resist borders along the Mediterranean Backway, with a particular focus on their arrival and continued pathways in Italy. The study highlights various vantage points along the participants’ migration trajectories – from their departure from the Gambia and transit through Libya to their interactions with Italian state institutions. Particular attention is given to their encounters with the migration and asylum system, the labor market, and the asylum accommodation system in Italy.

Drawing on critical border studies, critical phenomenology, theories of Black masculinity, and racial capitalism, this study interrogates the European border regime from the perspective of those navigating Its’s margins. The concept of border tactics works as an analytical tool to explore how control over mobility manifests in the participants’ everyday lives. These tactics are conceptualized as reactive measures employed by states in response to migratory movements. The central border tactics identified in this thesis are containment, categorization, formal abandonment, and temporal control.

Methodologically, the research draws on ethnographic engagements with eight core participants and nine occasional participants over a period of five to six years. This has involved interviews, conversations, participant observations, video documentation, and collaborative, participant-driven methods conducted across five Italian cities. Grounded in an ethnological and decolonial tradition, the research has been guided by participatory methods that center the co-construction of knowledge between the research participants and the researcher, centering the participants’ own narratives and experiences of migration.

The thesis studies the participants’ use of vernacular concepts in their narratives of the Mediterranean Backway, such as the Babylon system, napse, just sitting, and semester. These expressions become anchor points in the analysis to understand how they navigate various border tactics. In doing so, the analysis situates the European border regime within enduring structures of coloniality, racial hierarchies, and capitalist exploitation, highlighting the production of a racialized, exploitable labor pool of migrant workers. By centering understandings of migration, mobility, and border control from the margins, this study challenges Eurocentric knowledge production and foregrounds alternative knowledge of borders and movement drawn from participants’ own narratives. The thesis contributes to an interrogation of the profitability of borders – how borders actively shape the political economy of migration.

Public defence Johanna Latva: Hiuksetko naisen kruunu? Suhtautuminen naisten kaljuuteen ja naisten kokemukset hiuksettomuudesta Suomessa (2025)

Disputationer, Doktorsavhandlingar, Publikationer,

FM Johanna Latva will publicly defend her doctoral dissertation Hiuksetko naisen kruunu? Suhtautuminen naisten kaljuuteen ja naisten kokemukset hiuksettomuudesta Suomessa (Is the hair a woman’s crown? Attitudes towards women’s baldness and women’s experiences of hairlessness in Finland) at the University of Turku on Saturday, May 17, 2025, at 12:00 PM (University of Turku, Arcanum, Aava Lecture Hall, Arcanuminkuja 1, Turku).

The opponent will be Docent Hanna Ojala (University of Tampere) and the custos will be Docent Tytti Suominen (University of Turku). The event will be held in Finnish. The field of the dissertation is ethnology.

It is possible to participate remotely.

Read more here

The dissertation is available in the university’s publication archive: https://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-02-0088-6

Abstract in english:

Is the hair a woman’s crown? Attitudes towards women’s baldness and women’s experiences of hairlessness in Finland

This dissertation examines women’s experiences regarding baldness and the prevailing attitudes towards women’s hairlessness in the Finnish society and culture. The study explores women’s personal experiences of baldness and the public discourse around the matter. The research argues that being bald is still regarded as an abnormal and unbecoming of the gender, despite the increased exposure women’s baldness has gained in the 2000s.

The research material consists of responses to the Finnish Literature Society’s questionnaire regarding bald women as well as digitized newspapers from the collections of the National Library of Finland and Sanoma archives. The temporal context of the research is mainly from the 1990s to the 2020s. The research methods include close reading, thematic analysis, content analysis and cultural analysis. Ethnography and cultural analysis form the methodological foundation for the research. By focusing on the theoretical concepts of embodiment, gender and wellbeing the research contributes to the scientific and societal discussions on cultural health research, body normativity and dress studies.

The research considers both women who are bald by choice and those who have lost their hair due to illness such as alopecia areata or the side effects resulting from cancer treatments. The study confirms that women’s baldness has a strong influence on women´s identity and personal agency. Consequently, the research contributes to discussion on bald women’s life management and how they express their gender identity. Baldness can have an effect on one’s self esteem and relationships while also influencing the person´s clothing styles. It is also a source of various kinds of feelings ranging from shame and sorrow to pride and joy.

The dissertation demonstrates the crucial role of gender in how baldness is experienced and how it influences both the way bald people are encountered and the general attitudes towards baldness. The research also highlights the fact that the reasons behind one’s baldness have no significant influence on the attitudes towards the bald. However, baldness has received more exposure and acceptance over the last few years due to women’s own actions.

Doctoral defence: Terhi Pietäläinen. Monipaikkainen Viipuri – Muistitietotutkimus siirtoväen kaupunkilaisesta karjalaisuudesta

Disputationer, Doktorsavhandlingar,

Master of Arts Terhi Pietiläinen will defend her doctoral dissertation on February 14, 2025, at 1:15 PM at the Faculty of Arts, University of Helsinki. The topic of the dissertation is ”Multilocal Viipuri – An Oral History Study of the Urban Karelian Identity of the Evacuees.” (Original name of the thesis in Finnish: Monipaikkainen Viipuri – Muistitietotutkimus siirtoväen kaupunkilaisesta karjalaisuudesta)

The defense will take place at Athena, room 107 (1st floor), Siltavuorenpenger 3 A.

The opponent will be Professor Anne Heimo from the University of Turku, and the custos will be Pia Olsson.

The dissertation is sold by the Suomen Muinaismuistoyhdistys.

The dissertation is also available as an electronic publication and can be read on Helda.

A link to the stream can be found on University of Helsinki’s website

From the abstract:

This oral history research deals with the reminiscences and urban Karelianness of those who were evacuated from the city of Vyborg and its surrounding areas when it was ceded to the Soviet Union at the end of World War II.

I also analyse Vyborg and its inhabitants’ multi-locality and their experiences of war in relation to the hegemonic narrative, which has influenced Karelian culture and the narrative identity of these evacuees to this day. The study is based on data from interviews undertaken over the period 2000–2002 in the From Karelians to resettled Karelians project, which was implemented in cooperation between the Department of Ethnology at the University of Helsinki and the Karelia Association. The interviews included about 330 former residents of the parishes and municipalities of ceded Karelia. Of these, 40 interviews with people who originally hailed from Vyborg were used in the research material. In my data, the persons from Vyborg and its districts were a catalyst for, and a shaper of, the peer community.

Disputation: Maria Björklund, Psykiatri och pastoral makt: En etnologisk studie av samtida psykiatrisk heldygnsvård (2024)

Disputationer, Doktorsavhandlingar, Publikationer

Disputation

Datum: fredag 29 november 2024

Tid: 11.00 – 13.00

Plats: Hörsal 7, våning 2, hus 4, Albano, Albanovägen 12

Fredagen den 29 november försvarar Maria Björklund sin avhandling i etnologi, ”Psykiatri och pastoral makt. En etnologisk studie av samtida psykiatrisk heldygnsvård” vid Stockholms Universitet.

Opponent: Martin Gunnarson, docent och lektor vid Södertörns högskola

Den här avhandlingen handlar om samtida psykiatrisk heldygnsvård.

Det är snart 30 år sedan de sista stora mentalsjukhusen stängdes ner. Från att ha bedrivits i stora komplex är den psykiatriska heldygnsvården idag decentraliserad och kraftigt nedskuren till förmån för öppnare former av psykiatrisk vård. Idag är det endast de allra sjukaste som vårdas inom psykiatrisk heldygnsvård. Platserna är få och vistelsen idealt sett kortvarig. De psykiatriska heldygnsvårdsavdelningarna utgör på så sätt tillfälliga platser avsedda för att stabilisera och behandla akuta psykiatriska besvär.

Utifrån ett omfattande etnografiskt material ger den här etnologiska avhandlingen inblick i vardagsliv och maktrelationer vid en avdelning för psykiatrisk heldygnsvård. Observationer och intervjuer med patienter och personal ligger till grund för detaljerade beskrivningar och analyser av platsen med dess olika rum, tidsdimensioner och vårdmetoder och sociala relationer som belyser de komplexa sätt på vilka makt utövas, utmanas och omförhandlas.

I avhandlingen diskuteras balansen mellan autonomi och autonomibegränsningar, vilket utgör en grundläggande problematik inom vård och omsorg, inte minst den psykiatriska. Denna balans ställs på sin spets i ett samhälle där patienters självbestämmande kommit att betonas alltmer. Centralt för den psykiatriska heldygnsvården är att personalen ständigt måste balansera mellan att främja patienters delaktighet och autonomi och samtidigt begränsa dessa aspekter i syfte att främja hälsa. Genom att begreppsliggöra vardaglig ”omsorgsmakt” i termer av pastoral makt, undersöker studien hur vården hanterar detta dilemma.

Avhandlingen finns i DiVA

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)

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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.