Kategoriarkiv: Doktorsavhandlingar

Thesis defence: Anna Marlene Karlsson. ”The Future is a Foreign Country : The Presence of the Future in Contemporary Norwegian Cultural Heritage Policies and Practices”

Disputationer, Doktorsavhandlingar, Publikationer

Hvilken rolle spiller fremtiden i norsk kulturminnesektor?

Anna Marlene Karlsson disputerer 12.9.2025 for ph.d.-graden ved Universitetet i Bergen med avhandlingen «The Future is a Foreign Country: The Presence of the Future in Contemporary Norwegian Cultural Heritage Policies and Practices».

Tid: 12.9.2025 – 09.30–13.00

Sted: Digitalt (Zoom Webinar)

Avhandlingen er tilgjengelig i BORA.

Denne avhandlingen utforsker fremtidens rolle i den norske kulturminnesektoren. Selv om bevaring av kulturminner ofte fremstilles gjennom et generasjonsperspektiv – som en plikt overfor både tidligere og fremtidige generasjoner – finnes det lite kunnskap om hvordan ulike måter å tenke om fremtiden på påvirker kulturminnepolitikk og -praksiser.

Målet med avhandlingen er å undersøke hvilke verdier, antakelser og fortellinger som ligger til grunn for fremtidsrettet tenkning i den norske kulturminnesektoren. Ved å benytte diskursteori og logikperspektiv som inngang, gjennomfører avhandlingen en omfattende analyse av nasjonale stortingsmeldinger fra Klima- og miljødepartementet, strategidokumenter og rapporter fra Riksantikvaren, samt en kvalitativ spørreundersøkelse blant medlemmer av lokalhistorielag.

Studien identifiserer hvordan fremtidstenkning påvirker kulturminnesektoren, men også hvordan dagens forståelse av kulturminners funksjon og verdi former hvilke handlinger som anses som mulige. Den viser hvordan forestillinger om kontinuitet, ansvar, usikkerhet og endring strukturerer og påvirker bevaringspolitikk og strategier. Avhandlingen observerer at selv om fremtiden ofte implisitt påkalles for å legitimere bevaringspraksiser, finnes det mulige konflikter mellom langsiktige mål og kortsiktige politiske hensyn. En manglende anerkjennelse av dette kan begrense sektorens evne til å møte utfordringer knyttet til klimaendringer, samfunnsmessig transformasjon og fremtidig usikkerhet på en fleksibel og konstruktiv måte.

En sammenligning med perspektiv fra de frivillige viser en større vektlegging av personlige og lokale aspekter ved bevaring og forvaltning av kulturminner, samtidig som mange av de samme logikkene og antakelsene om kulturminner deles med den offentlige forvaltningen.

Avhandlingen bidrar til debatten om de etiske og politiske sidene ved fremtidsrettet bevaring og forvaltning av kulturminner i møte med samtidige utfordringer. Den etterlyser en mer eksplisitt, reflektert og pluralistisk fremtidstenkning i kulturminnepolitikk og -praksis, som avhandlingen viser ofte hindres av rådende forestillinger om kulturminner som et uttrykk for sammenheng, stabilitet og kontinuitet.

Abstract in English: 

This thesis explores the role of the future in the Norwegian heritage sector. While cultural heritage preservation is often framed through an intergenerational perspective – as a duty towards both past and future generations – there is a lack of knowledge about the impact different ways of thinking about the future have on cultural heritage policies and practices.

The objective of this thesis is to explore the values, assumptions, and narratives that underpin future-oriented thinking in the Norwegian heritage sector. Using a discourse perspective and the method of logics of critical explanation, the thesis conducts a comprehensive analysis of national white papers from the Ministry of Climate and Environment, strategy documents and reports from the Directorate for Cultural Heritage, as well as a qualitative survey among members of local historical organisations.

The study identifies how future thinking impacts the heritage sector, but also how current understandings of the functions and values of cultural heritage informs what actions are perceived as possible. It demonstrates how notions of continuity, responsibility, uncertainty, and change structure and influence preservation policies and strategies. The thesis observes that while the future is often implicitly invoked to legitimise preservation practices, there are potential conflicts between long-term goals and short-term policy aims. A failure to recognise this can limit the ability of the sector to respond to the challenges of climate change, social transformation, and future uncertainty in a flexible and productive way. A comparison with volunteer perspectives reveals a larger focus on personal and local aspects of heritage preservation and management, while at the same time sharing some of the underpinning logics and assumptions about cultural heritage with the official heritage management.

The thesis contributes to important debates about the ethical and political aspects of future-directed heritage preservation and management in facing current challenges. It calls for more explicit, reflective, and pluralistic future thinking within the heritage sector, which the thesis demonstrates is often hindered by prevailing notions of cultural heritage as representing coherence, stability, and continuity.

Thesis defence: Satumaarit Myllyniemi. ”Herkistyneen mielen enteet: Etnografinen tutkimus suomalaisten kertomista toisen maailmansodan yliluonnollisista kokemuksista ja kokemusperinnön luomisesta” (2025)

Disputationer, Doktorsavhandlingar, Publikationer,

Väitös (folkloristiikka): FM Satumaarit Myllyniemi
Aika: 28.11.2025 klo 13.00 – 17.00
Paikka: Tauno Nurmela -sali, PÄÄRAKENNUS, Yliopistonmäki, 20500, TURKU

FM Satumaarit Myllyniemi esittää väitöskirjansa ”Herkistyneen mielen enteet: Etnografinen tutkimus suomalaisten kertomista toisen maailmansodan yliluonnollisista kokemuksista ja kokemusperinnön luomisesta” julkisesti tarkastettavaksi Turun yliopistossa perjantaina 28.11.2025 klo 13.00 (Turun yliopisto, päärakennus, Tauno Nurmela -sali, Turku).

Vastaväittäjänä toimii dosentti Ulla Savolainen (Helsingin yliopisto) ja kustoksena professori Anne Heimo (Turun yliopisto). Tilaisuus on suomenkielinen. Väitöksen alana on folkloristiikka.

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IN ENGLISH:

Tine: 28.11.2025 klo 13.00 – 17.00 (UTC+2)
Place: Tauno Nurmela -sali, PÄÄRAKENNUS, Yliopistonmäki, 20500, TURKU

FM Satumaarit Myllyniemi will publicly defend her doctoral dissertation titled ”Herkistyneen mielen enteet: Etnografinen tutkimus suomalaisten kertomista toisen maailmansodan yliluonnollisista kokemuksista ja kokemusperinnön luomisesta” [Omens of a Sensitized Mind: An Ethnographic Study of Supernatural Experiences Related to World War II as Told by Finns and the Creation of Experiential Heritage] at the University of Turku on Friday, November 28, 2025, at 1:00 PM (University of Turku, Main Building, Tauno Nurmela Hall, Turku).

The opponent will be Docent Ulla Savolainen (University of Helsinki), and the custos will be Professor Anne Heimo (University of Turku). The event will be conducted in Finnish. The field of the dissertation is folkloristics.

***

Tiivistelmä väitöstutkimuksesta:

Vuosina 2017–2023 etnografisesti muodostamani tutkimusaineisto käsittää 218 suomalaisen kokemuskertomukset toisen maailmansodan yliluonnollisiksi tulkituista kokemuksista. Aineisto sisältää Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seuran arkiston syksyllä 2017 järjestämän Yliluonnollinen sota -muistitietokeruun vastaukset.

Tutkimuskysymystä ei ole aiemmin itsenäisesti käsitelty ja se innosti ihmisiä avautumaan. Sota herkisti suomalaisten mielet. Tutkimus rikastaa ja haastaa tuttuja tulkintoja sekä avaa näkymää tiedon katveeseen jääneeseen. Viidennes aineistosta perustuu kertojan omakohtaiseen kokemukseen. Suurin osa on läheisille periytyneitä muistoja. Kokemuskertomukset liittyvät enteisiin omasta, läheisen ihmisen tai Suomen kohtalosta sota- ja kotirintamalta sekä evakkoteiltä. Lähestyn kokemuskertomuksia muistitietotutkijoiden tavoin subjektiivisina, moniäänisinä ja hedelmällisinä.

Tutkimuksessa selviää, että sotaan liittyvät yliluonnollisiksi tulkitut kokemukset ovat yleisiä ja tavallisten ihmisten kokemia. Kaikki eivät ole kuitenkaan tulleet kuulluiksi ja ymmärretyiksi sodan jälkeisessä Suomessa, ja osa kuulemastani on sellaista, josta on vaiettu. Kokemus on ollut henkilökohtaisesti arkaluonteinen tai tulkinta yhteiskunnallisen keskustelun kannalta vaikea. Monen kertojan kokemuskertomus on perhemuisto, jotkut kertojista avautuvat julkisesti ensimmäisen kerran tähän tutkimukseen.

Laadullisessa analyysissa tarkastelen kokemuskertomusten ominaispiirteitä, teemoitan ne kokemistavoiksi ja kytken tapahtumahistoriaan, vertailen kokemuskertomusten sisältämiä tunteita ja affekteja sekä yliluonnollisen tulkintoja ja liittymistä uskomuksellisuuteen. Jaan aineiston kristinuskoa, kansanuskoa, henkisyyttä ja rationaalista tulkintaa korostaviin. Lisäksi tutkin, millaisia intersubjektiivisia yhteyksiä kokemuskertomusten välillä on.

Tarkastelen aineistoa myös kulttuuriperinnön, kokemusperinnön, lähteenä ja pohdin sen potentiaalia. Kokemuskertomusten avulla on mahdollista vahvistaa emotionaalista sidettä sodan kokeneisiin ja eläytyä luovasti merkityksiä etsivien yksilöiden yleisinhimilliseen kokemusmaailmaan. Kriittisten kulttuuriperintötutkijoiden tavoin haluan voimistaa käsitystä tavallisista ihmisistä kulttuuriperinnön luojina ja kutsua sellaiset ihmiset osallistumaan, jotka on ohitettu. Sodan muistamisen kulttuuri on kertojien näköistä ja moniäänisempää kuin miten se on julkisesti esitetty.

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

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

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.

Resilient Pastoralism : A Cultural Analysis of Navigating Climate Change, Modernity and the Development Industry in Northern Kenya (2025)

Doktorsavhandlingar, Publikationer, , , , , ,

Resilient Pastoralism : A Cultural Analysis of Navigating Climate Change, Modernity and the Development Industry in Northern Kenya is Billy Jones’s dissertation from the Department of Arts and Cultural Sciences at Lund University.

The thesis can be found here.

This thesis offers a cultural analysis of climate change, modernisation and sustainable development in the pastoral landscape of Baringo, Northern Kenya. For the majority of the pastoralists living there, life is defined by crippling poverty, ethnic violence and an increasingly erratic and unpredictable climate. In response, a growing number of people have moved away from the traditional reliance on communal pastures and started intensively farming grass on individual farms. Baringo has also been somewhat of a testbed for International Development projects over the past half century. The majority of these, however, have failed. This thesis explores the parallel histories of Baringo’s marginalisation in the national economy and by International Development organisations. What social, political and ecological processes in Kenya and the global economy have led to this marginalisation? In what ways are people using grass farming to help cope with droughts, flooding and economic insecurity? Why have these local adaptations been overlooked by development organisations? And why have so many projects failed to bring sustainable development to the region? The material to answer these questions has been gathered during fieldwork in Baringo, in collaboration with local researchers, through qualitative research methods including interviews, observations and archival research. It consists of fieldnotes, interviews with pastoralists and historical documents from development organisations. The research has been inspired by cultural theories on cultural landscapes and global cultural flows as well as postcolonial perspectives on modernisation and development. The main findings demonstrate that modernisation has contributed to increased poverty, land degradation and ethnic clashes in the region. They also show that grass farming is an inherently flexible mode of production which emerged out of traditional forms of pastoralism as a way to cope with these new hardships. The thesis has also highlighted that pastoralist economic models and ways of thinking have historically been overlooked in global development discourses. As global discourses are translated into tangible projects on the ground in Baringo, they often ignore local solutions, resulting in a landscape littered with abandoned project sites and invasive species.

Storsjöodjuret i ett kalejdoskop. Humanekologiska perspektiv på en svensk kryptid (2024)

Doktorsavhandlingar, Publikationer, ,

Sanna Händén-Svensson disputerade i Humanekologi vid institutionen för kulturgeografi och ekonomisk geografi vid Lunds Universitet år 2024 med doktorsavhandlingen Storsjöodjuret i ett kalejdoskop. Humanekologiska perspektiv på en svensk kryptid

”Storsjöodjuret”, eller “The Great Lake Monster”, är ett undflyende fenomen i sjön Storsjön, belägen i landskapet Jämtland i norra Sverige. Denna avhandling i ämnet humanekologi undersöker hur det sammankopplingar av det sociala, det kulturella, det historiska och det lokala påverkar formandet av detta svenska kryptid, eller “dolda djur”.

Syftet med studien är att visa hur detta vetenskapligt ännu ej validerade djur fungerar som en intressant representant för ett gränsland mellan det verkliga och det föreställda.

I avhandlingen besvaras följande frågeställningar:
1.Vilka historiska och diskursiva skepnader har Storsjöodjuret getts genom historien, och hur är dessa relaterade till natur- och vetenskapssyn?
2.Hur berättar människor som säger sig ha sett Odjuret om upplevelsen, och hur kommunicerar berättelserna om relationen mellan människa och natur?
3.Hur framställs relationer till plats och landskap i materialet? Vilka natursyner ger dessa uttryck för?

Genom en utveckling av den humanekologiska triangeln till en analytisk kvadrat med natur, samhälle, gemenskap och den enskilda individen i hörnen, belyses hur relationerna mellan hörnen formas av natursyn, landskap, plats, samhälle, historia och kultur. Berättelserna om kryptider, där perspektiv på socioekologiska samband uttrycks, är ett underutvecklat område inom humanekologin. Tidigare forskning om kryptider och deras regionalt förankrade historia har främst fokuserat deras betydelse i lokal folklore (etnologi/antropologi), utredningar av det som observeras (zoologi/kryptozoologi och miljöhistoria) eller de människor som söker efter dem (sociologi, religionsociologi och turism). Denna undersökning går bortom dessa områden genom att inspireras av den svenske sociologen Johan Asplunds begrepp “tankefigurer”. Genom att utforska hur föreställningarna om detta specifika exempel förändras tillsammans med samhälle, och därmed fortsätter vara ett meningsfullt fenomen för människor, diskuterar detta projekt kraften hos dessa uppfattningar att inte bara ta form, utan också transformera. På detta sätt belyser studien även frågor om när, var och för vem Storsjöodjuret spelar roll.

Avhandlingen kan hittas här

Forestillinger om et bæredygtigt liv : Praksis, skalering og meningsdannelse i hverdagslivets klimaaktivisme i Bærekraftige liv Landås (2024)

Doktorsavhandlingar, Publikationer

Lone Ree Milkær. Forestillinger om et bæredygtigt liv : Praksis, skalering og meningsdannelse i hverdagslivets klimaaktivisme i Bærekraftige liv Landås

Department of Archaeology, History, Cultural Studies and Religion – AHKR, The University of Bergen

Abstract:

This thesis answers the research questions of how the abstract concepts of climate change and sustainability are made meaningful in an everyday life perspective. It is part of the field of cultural science climate research. By closely studying the movement Sustainable Life in Landås in Bergen from a cultural analytical perspective, the thesis answers what notions of how a sustainable life can be created through the movement’s narratives and practices. Based on empirical analyses of written sources, both historical and contemporary and interview and observation material, the thesis uses the classic categories of time, place and social environment as the framework of the analysis.

The practice of sustainable living is seen as an example of how the global phenomena of sustainability and climate change are anchored in places locally and in notions of the future. The analysis shows how Bærekraftige liv Landås use notions of connection to the past to create a sense of chronological connectedness in the present to both the past and the future through experiential concepts of time: tradition, nostalgia, generation and cultural heritage. By connecting global climate change to the concept of local sustainability, the movement is anchoring the meanings, understandings and activities in local neighbourhoods, which, e.g. can be seen in the designation ’Landås’ as part of the movement’s name. In this localisation, Bærekraftige liv Landås creates a sustainable neighbourhood that can function as a framework for downscaling global climate change to local sustainability. Scaling as a practice in itself creates the possibility to move between points or to be at several possible points on a scale at the same time, which also applies to the creation of meaning. Several things can make sense at the same time. In the use of scale as an analytical perspective, movement, connections, and transformations become part of the creation of meaning, which connects past, present and future and the global and the local in the understanding of climate change and sustainability in Sustainable Life Landås’s practice.

The results of the analysis are conveyed in the dissertation’s three articles, which examine aspects of meaning-making. In the first article, ’The great re-skilling. The understanding of generation, tradition, and nostalgia in everyday-life climate activism’ shows the movement’s self-understanding and self-presentation through various written material with a focus on experiential time concepts such as generation, tradition and nostalgia. In the second article, ’The cultural heirs at Lystgården. How constructions of cultural heritage and sustainability intertwine and become a political platform for an everyday climate activist movement in Bergen’, the connection between cultural heritage and sustainability is analysed using Sustainable Life’s headquarters in composer Edvard Grieg’s old family summer home as an example. In the dissertation’s third and final article, ’The cultural heirs at Lystgården. How constructions of cultural heritage and sustainability intertwine and become a political platform for an everyday climate activist movement in Bergen’, I examine how the role of cultural heritage is used to legitimise everyday climate activism.

Read more and find the thesis here

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.