bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Varför rappar ingen om Norrland längre?
Authors: Andersson Fredrik , Enbom Jesper , Nordlund Christer
Published: October 2024

Between 1982 and 1993 the folk music group Euskefeurat released six LPs and gave numerous live performances. As well as being entertaining they also played an important role as subversive cultural critics of the political and environmental circumstances in the north of Sweden, Norrland. This essay highlights three central themes in the lyric production of Euskefeurat: class conflicts, the relationship between centre and periphery and landscape as an arena for value conflicts. The authors argue that these perspectives are neglected today in Swedish popular culture discourse, where urban art directors and Internet-consultants are more in fashion than workers and small farmers in the countryside. The essay asks a concluding question: can contemporary popular music (as hip-hop) channel cultural expressions that capture regional experiences and dilemmas in Norrland?
Mot cyberrymden — och vidare
Authors: Bergquist Magnus
Published: October 2024

The article gives an overview of the development of ethnologic and folkloristic research in the area of information technology (IT) use and relates this to international research agendas in different communities. It is argued that IT-research opens up for new empirical, methodological and theoretical issues, as well as makes it possible to rethink established — and sometimes revitalise abandoned — concepts and ideas. Ethnologic and folkloristic IT-researchers are influenced by a wide variety of disciplines, which vitalise discussions, but sometimes tend to restrain research in progress since other disciplines have a longer tradition in doing IT research. The use of IT in everyday life and studies of emerging communities and associations on the Internet are put forward as important and interesting fields of investigation for the future.
På fältet — i "labbet"
Authors: Andersdotter Gunnel
Published: October 2024

In this article video recording and analysis in contemporary ethnological research is discussed. The dissertation work in question is within the field of culture and new technology. It pays special attention to people being shaped and shaping gender and profession in relation to objects in and around a workplace; a contemporary software technology company. The ethnologist herself has in her daily work stepped out of "pure" ethnology and situated herself in a multi academic setting within a technical university collage in Sweden. Video recording and analysis is emphasised as a possibility to open up the research process in different directions. Video is argued to act like, what Susan Leigh Star (1989) calls a boundary object. Such objects "both inhabit several intersecting social worlds and satisfy the informational requirements of each". Video is argued to facilitate co-constructive analytic activity in the research process. This activity involves both the software designers at the field site as well as colleagues from different academic disciplines. Co-operation is facilitated, but without forcing consensus.
Möjligheter att förändra/s
Authors: Lundgren Anna Sofia
Published: October 2024

There has been a certain debate in swedish media concerning the harsh climate among young people of today. One of the proofs of this being so has often enough been examples where young women tell about the increase of fights between girls taking place in public. For the sake of presenting a fuller description of an event with some importance for how to think about body scripts, the public, and gender, this article tries to bring together views and opinions collected from several informants but reorganised in a literary style. The aim is to describe one specific situation that ended in a fight between two teenage girls, and to ask questions about what this experience might mean in terms of experienced gender belongings and possibilities.
". . . dessa olika egon"
Authors: Meurling Birgitta
Published: October 2024

In this article the aspect of reflexivity in Anna Birgitta Rooth's study of L.O., the wife of a small farmer, and her world view is discussed (Rooth 1981). How does Rooth interpret her role as a scholar in the field? Even if not explicitly discussed, it is obvious that she is aware of the impact of gender and social background when conducting field work. However, the point of departure in the L.O.-study is another: Rooth wants to develop a new tool for source criticism. By repeated interviews she scrutinizes L.O.'s repertoire, especially her telling of memorates. By doing so she can describe the relationship between continuity and change and reveal how the context of performance influences L.O.'s storytelling.
In the latter part of the article I argue that reflexivity is not a child of the 1980's and the writing culture-school. Scholars have for a long time, probably always, been aware of the reciprocal process of influence: the ethnologist is influenced by the informant, but the informant also influences the ethnologist. However, the articulation of this insight is characteristic of the time. We often like to think of ourselves as pioneers, but we seldom are. Every period produces certain kinds of scholarly standards, methods and theories. Our own time is no exception and guided by this insight we should show our precursors our respect.
Den homogena travhästen
Authors: Berglund Sara
Published: October 2024

During the last few decades, horses used for harness racing have become increasingly similar in different places all over the world where the sport exists. Due to fast communications, a well-developed infrastructure and techniques for transporting horses and semen, stallions and mares from different places can be used to produce foals without moving far from their everyday domains. In this article, I try to explain this phenomenon, which leads to homogenisation and inbreeding, through theories about globalisation. I also discuss the horses as travelling creatures, whose status of living and moving is dependent on success or failure on the trotting-course.
Det akademiska könet
Authors: Meurling Birgitta
Published: October 2024

In this article the male dominance of the university is discussed. Studies of academic life indicate that many women feel unfamiliar with the structures within the academy and therefore leave the university to a greater extent than their male colleagues do. I present some mentor projects within my own faculty, that I have coordinated together with a colleague, and discuss with reference to the gender equality plans of the university what possibilities there are for keeping women within academia. There are no simple solutions to this problem, but the first step must be an open discussion within the academy.
När kvinnor tar slut och män går in i väggen
Authors: Lundén Mia Marie
Published: October 2024

The purpose is to study the establishment of the burnout-syndrome in Swedish media. The material consists of 350 articles from 2003, publiched in four major newpapers: Dagens Nyheter, Svenska Dagbladet, Aftonbladet and Expressen. In the 90's a new kind of sickness-profile seemed to take shape with diffuse stress-symptoms — insomnia, anxiety and extreme fatigue. In order to understand and explain the development, journalists started to use the word burnout. A database-search shows a highly increased use of the word in the four newspapers mentioned above during the last decade.
The burnout-concept seems to have become the main-metaphor for the increasing sick leave at the time. Newspapers' articles form two different kinds of burnout-syndromes: 1. A psychological female burnout-syndrome, where women talk analytically and emotionally about their symptoms, often in self-disparaging terms — they become worn out. 2. A physical male burnout-syndrome, where sportsmen — both athletes and coaches — analyse their dysfunctional bodies, using mainly machine-metaphors such as "running out of steam", "getting rust" — they are actively hitting the wall.
Ett vackert lidande
Authors: Johansson Anna
Published: October 2024

In this article I discuss how a certain mood — in this case a complex one, summarized in the word suffering — takes material, physical and linguistic shape, and how the feeling, expressed through certain aesthetics, becomes the means for social positioning. My focus is on young people in specific subcultures, where suffering is regarded as something attractive and desirable. Giving physical shape to suffering is for these people a way to present themselves as unique and different from the mainstream culture with its "superficial happiness". At the same time, there is a hierarchy within these subcultural settings, where the ones with the most "cred" have the highest rank. Cred is a sort of symbolic capital which is principally about being authentic. To stand out as suffering in an authentic way, you need to find a balance between showing too much or too little. Irony is an important part of this balancing act.
"Göteborgskravallerna" 2001 och polisens machoattityd
Authors: Liliequist Marianne
Published: October 2024

The author has carried out interviews with activists who in June 2001 participated in the demonstrations connected to the EU-conference in Gothenburg. The main theme in the respondents' stories is the traumatic experience of the conduct of the Swedish police force. Their macho manners was seen in their choice of strategy where they preferred aggressive confrontation to dialogue. It was also apparent in their sexist and racist threatening of the activists, in their verbal abuse and otherwise.
Den döda kroppen — närhet och avstånd
Authors: Davidsson Bremborg Anna
Published: October 2024

This paper discusses the ambivalent view on dead bodies in our society.
Luftslott och andra fantasier
Authors: Ehn Billy
Published: October 2024

Fantasies are a marvellous tool for escape and freedom. Social life is unthinkable without imagination. It both creates gulfs and bridges them. The conversation on the telephone relies upon guesswork by the listeners. Using very slight data we jump to quite unjustified conclusions about people. On the other hand misunderstandings may be quite creative interpretations of what they think. The distinction between the world outside and the world of imagination is by no means obvious. This article presents several examples of how everyday fantasies can be used in the cultural analysis of, for example, the home, different professions and the politics. With "ethnography from the corner of the eye" we will see the imaginative potentials of social life in a new perspective.
Hur dör djur?
Authors: Åkesson Lynn
Published: October 2024

When mourning pets, customs and rituals are in many ways similar to what is used for humans. Graves are decorated with symbols such as crosses, stones with inscriptions, flowers, and candles. On the internet, special web-pages are designed, devoted to the mourning of loved animals. Quite new in a Swedish context are announcements in daily and weekly press, where the obituary notices are designed just the same as for deceased persons. For owners that can not stand the thought of death as the final departure for the loved pet, cloning is an (expensive) alternative.
In a Christian context, the borderland between man and beast is absolute, and should not be crossed even by death. This ideological construction does not seem to hold truth for all persons, and the borderline is trespassed by secretly placing the ashes or the whole cadaver of an animal in the coffin containing the remains of the dead owner.
Everybody does not approve of customs that equal man and beast, however. Some people think of it as inadequate or silly, some take offence when announcements for dead dogs comes to close to the announcements of deceased relatives. But whether one likes it or not, the market for pets, dead or alive is an expanding and lucrative one.
The Phantom of the Matrix
Authors: Jansson Hanna
Published: October 2024

In this article I discuss humouros and intertextual elements from the Internet fan site The Phantom of the Opera Discussion Board. By applying folkloristic tools of analysis to the material it becomes clear that although the "phans" discuss modern popular culture on the Internet, the poplore they produce follow the same patterns as older folklore. The phans share a common world with highly specific internal codes and discourses. By repeatedly combining various adaptations of the Phantom of the Opera with other narratives and texts the phans produce a comic effect. Either elements from "outer" texts, such as the Wizard of Oz or the Matrix, are claimed and placed within a Phantom context, or the characters of the Phantom är themselves extracted from their plot and relocated into, for instance, ABBA's well known songs.Without clear specifications of the sources, it is up to the reader to identify the references and by adding to the others' jokes one can prove that one has indeed succeeded in doing this. I therefore argue that "phan humour" can be regarded as a highly creative way to prove one's status as a "real" phan, as well as a result and display of a broad intertextual and cultural competence.
"BEAUTIFUL GIRLS and antiquities"
Authors: Johansson Carina
Published: October 2024

This text focuses on narrative and visual representations of Visby and Gotland in tourism mindscapes. In Visby, the Middle Ages have become "the Age" that determines the tourist's gaze. Numerous paintings, photos and other visual images back up narratives to make Visby visible and well known in a very specific way — as a medieval theme city. This process, thus highlighting specific objects, creates views, symbols and icons, reproduced over and over again. Narratives connected with images characterize the dominant mindscape in well-known ways. In my article, I show what happens when images showing something else and unexpected suddenly appear. The ideas of blurred genres and competitive disursive fields can explain the clash between the conflicting mindscapes.
Berättelsen Vamlingbo prästgård
Authors: Oscarsson Tony
Published: October 2024

This article is based on fieldwork and interviews carried out around a newly opened cultural heritage site on the southern part of Gotland. My purpose is to suggest an alternative way of understanding cultural heritage. In the article I discuss activities appearing in the potential spaces that emerge when places are recontextualized in connection with cultural heritage production. My investigation unveils some of the methods in which concepts about local past, present and future are being promoted. The fact that cultural heritage sites are becoming more frequent around the globe can be understood both as a reaction to local socio-economic problems and as an ideological response to arguments about the necessity of remembering local pasts.
Kulturarv — ikon för en sekulariserad tid?
Authors: Wangefelt Ström Helena
Published: October 2024

This article examines how the term "holiness" can be applied to the discussion about cultural heritage, and raises the question whether cultural heritage might even have substituted institutionalized religion as an object of devotion in a secularized society. A comparison between the religious field and the heritage field is performed by studying two specific examples, the Trinity icon and the medieval wall surrounding Visby. Different aspects of these examples are examined, such as Creating distance — creating intimacy; Pedagogical example — The real thing; Who is the Subject — Who's viewing who?; To bless and to petrify; and Between preservation and use, form and function. The parallels between the religious field and the heritage field makes the author state the necessary comeback of "holiness" as a factor — especially important in a society of an increasing cultural diversity.
Hemmavid i tid och rum
Authors: Meurling Birgitta
Published: October 2024

In this article the process of turning two Swedish artists' houses into museums is discussed. Anders Zorn (1860-1920) and Bror Hjorth (1894-1968) stipulated their respective houses to function as museums after their death. Zorngården in Mora (Dalecarlia) opened in 1942 and Bror Hjorths Hus in Uppsala in 1977. Zorn and Hjorth were influenced by the domestic ideals of their time and were very different from each other. While Zorngården is a huge house lavishly decorated, Bror Hjorths Hus resembles a small-sized farm-house from Uppland with little relatively decoration. When visiting the houses today, one can see the result of different domestic ideals and styles of interior decoration, but also of different ideals of masculinity. Zorn is described as a successful, wealthy and masculine man, while Hjorth seems to have been reserved, modest and not particularly wealthy. But not only gender is a part of the process of "making museums", social background is also a part of telling the stories of Zorn, Hjorth and their wives. Emma Zorn was a woman with plenty of capital, both financial and cultural and she assumes a strong position in the success story of Anders Zorn. She was also one of the vital forces in the "museum making" of her husband's life and work. Bror Hjorth's wives do not command the same sort of status as Mrs Zorn when the story of Bror Hjorth is told. Bror and his first wife, Tove Friis, divorced in 1952 and Tove took up her own career as an artist. His second wife, Margareta Adde, was his young model and she and Ole Hjorth (Bror's and Tove's son) were active in the creation of Bror Hjorths Hus as the museum celebrating the work of the artist.
Containern och värdet av ovisshet
Authors: Ottoson Erik
Published: October 2024

Although it is often pointed out that uncertainty can be a source of insecurity and fear, there are also situations when it is a good thing.
David, a man around 30 years of age, maintains an urban resource-landscape consisting of dumpsters where usable things occasionally can be found, and fruit trees of which the legal and moral ownership is unclear. Besides making his excursions exciting and fun, uncertainty acts as a key element that enables him to make use of the resources. This uncertainty revolves around whether harvesting the fruit or picking up things from the dumpster is legally, morally and culturally acceptable or not. If it clearly is not, he will have to stop doing it, and if it clearly is, others may start competing over the goods. He visits the fruit trees and dumpsters secretly, and strives to develop his capacity to deal with feelings of disgust over the sometimes stinking garbage. In this way he is able to maintain this state of liminality and his ability to make use of it.
In the article, David and I take a bicycle tour around his dumpster sites, and while we look for usable things, he tells me about his motivations and experiences.
Ljudets etnologi
Authors: Eriksson Karin
Published: October 2024

The purpose of this article is to give an example of how you can work with sounds in the cultural fields of research. The experience of fieldwork in Istanbul is presented with a number of applicable, cultural perspectives. Definitions like soundwalk and soundscape are presented.
During a soundwal you listen to the acoustic environment as well as the culturally fascinating sounds. What influence does sound have on a person's everyday life and in what way does sound create meaning? Memories of sound, which you can refer to and thoughts that you can have at your disposal in your coming composition as well as reflections of socially censored sounds and sounds as symbols of assurance, are an important and interesting part of the research. There are unwritten rules of how to act, if you are supposed to be heard or silent.
Sound has an important significance in the urban environment and in today's metropolitan areas. Sounddesign has quickly become a way of creating a sort of image, a feeling, an idea and help for the individual to feel confident in the physical environment. The rhythm of the city indicates a sort of constant movement and the city sounds are always variable following a tempo without pause. The article emphasizes how a diversified empiricism of soundcultures and a mapping of the city soundscape, can create exciting insights within the cultural research.
Kaffet, blomman och det tända ljuset
Authors: Lundälv Jörgen , Larsson Per-Olof
Published: October 2024

What is gift-giving? This article presents a brief theoretical overview concerning the concept of gift-giving in the modern society. The concept of gift is an old social and cultural phenomenon. In this article we compare the concept of gift and gift-giving with the concept of recognition. The recognition of the identity is a continuously ongoing process in the society. The aim of the article is to discuss some interesting perspectives of gift-giving in Sweden during recent period.
Eve kör bil i högklackat
Authors: Petersson Magdalena , Mörck Magnus
Published: October 2024

The gender norms of the car industry show a preference for masculinity in attitude and the choice of design. In this article the possibility of upsetting this predictable gender order is studied through the recent example of the Volvo Car YCC, Your Concept Car. Designed by a team of nine women, this concept was launched as a car by women for everybody. To the management it represented a way to further females in the organisation, while the team itself tried to shield themselves from politics, instead pointing to the new marketing ideas of Marty Barletta. Building the car meant keeping track of gender at all times, especially femininity represented a problematic value. The car came to be appreciated for its strong masculine looks, confirming the interests of female designers. Through a number of significant design decisions discussed in the text controversies around gender were argued, both within the group and in relation to critics within the organisation. Our conclusion points to the project as successful up to a certain point, gender is in fact given new meanings, but there is also a tendency to hark back to the dominant norms of the car industry and to repeat femininity as problematic.
Handikappade och 1800-talets fattigvård
Authors: Drugge Ulf
Published: October 2024

This article is based on local poor relief records from parishes in the Sundsvall Region, Sweden. The period described, i.e. decades around the mid-19th century, is characterized by rapid shifts from a rural society and to an industrialized one. The article consists of cases with poor, blind and deaf people involved. The final decisions by local authorities in poor relief cases were pargmatic in nature and primarily based on the way various parts involved responded to the problems that appeared, either these parts belonged to the local elite, or poor and handicapped, or they were relatives of neighbors to those subjected to destitution. By systematically studying these cases socially salient elements within the local community have been uncovered.
Distinctive features involving ordinary people were first of all related to maintenance obligations more than one hundred years ago. Thus to struggle hard to make a living could hardly be underrated. If someone was unable to keep up his or her living by work, close relatives were put in duty to support this person, and if no one could fill this duty, the local community became finally the responsible part. However the local poor relief was almost always in constant lack of means to support those in distress. Therefore extraordinary means were sometimes utilized by the local authorities to minimize expenses. From time to time such steps led to conflicts between parts involved and with moralizing, and social controlling undertones.
Ideologiska strategier och maskulin rationalitet
Authors: Nilsson Bo
Published: October 2024

Kiruna is a relatively young and small town in the north of Sweden. Due to the expansion of the mining industry parts of the central Kiruna has to move a few kilometers in a northwest direction. About ten percent of the population are in the long run going to be affected by the relovation. The mining company, LKAB, and Kiruna municipality argue for the necessity of the city moving, and the same view is reproduced by local and nationwide media. This article discusses the ideological strategies involved in the argumentation for a relovation, e.g. the use of historical perspectives and the production of a king of utopian future. The article also discusses how a semitraditional masculinity is reproduced through this argumentation and its focus on technological aspects of for example moving houses and building new roads. Social, cultural and emotional aspects are more or less invisible in the process.
Att mäta forskning — naturvetenskapen som norm
Authors: Myrdal Janken
Published: October 2024

This article discusses the difference between the natural sciences and the human sciences (humanities and social sciences) as different crafts of science, and especially in relation to different forms of publication. In the natural sciences, publication of research results in articles totally dominate, while in the human sciences, extensive monographs are often the most estimated form of publication. With a changed culture of evaluation, articles published in journals registered in ISI have been given a paramount importance. This simplified form of evaluation will alter researchers' publication habits, and natural scientists will be the first to answer to the focus on ISI journals. Human sciences run a risk that the thorough and critical analysis of human behavior will be disadvantaged. Statistics show that the performance of human sciences is underestimated with the prevalent measures, and the article proposes the building of a database for scholarly books, and the avoidance of simplified measures for research output.
Publiceringsstrategier och kvalitet inom humanistisk forskning
Authors: Carlquist Jonas
Published: October 2024

This article discusses how humanistic research in Sweden can continue to establish exciting results in a new academic climate. During the last years, Swedish universities have been forced to adapt themselves to a harder economic climate where the distribution of funds has been linked to quantitative surveys of quality. This has been hard and has had implications on nearly everything, for example on how we present our results in editions that can undergo a bibliometric survey. In Sweden, humanistic scholars often have published their results in monographs, written in Swedish. This will not change, but in the article, I argue that we also must present our research in international peer review magazines. This is important because of at least three things, first, our results become more visible, second, our results become more widely available, and third, our academic qualifications become more strengthened. But if this will be reality, there must eb an easier way to review the language as English is not our mother-tongue.
En apologi för nyttan
Authors: Larsson Lisbeth
Published: October 2024

"An apology for usefulness" is discussing the crisis of Comparative Literature in Sweden in terms of tradition and usefulness. The origin of literary history both as genre and discipline is connected to the nineteenth century's nationalism and the project of creating a national identity. The golden age of comparative literature, from the end of the nineteenth century up to the midst of the twentieth, is connected to the modern interest in humanity and the ongoing process of defining the human. After the linguistic turn and during the latter part of the twentieth century the discipline became a combination of canon studies and text analytical exercise. Opposing the established focus on modernist texts and text analysis and the common view of the literary text as autonomous the article argues for the need of including the problems focused in the proliferating uses of literature and text analysis in other scientific fields after the narrative turn in the end of the twentieth century.
Ideologi och retorik i kungaskämt
Authors: Nilsson Bo
Published: October 2024

There are many jokes and humorous stories about Swedish kings. For example, the current king Carl XVI Gustaf has been the object for jokes in several humour programs on radio and TV, and in humorous stories on the Internet. This article describes and analyses royal jokes, and how these can be understood rhetorically and ideologically. The concept of ideology represents notions that are collective or semi-collective, and which speak both about how the world is and how it should be. Ideologies describe something, but also help to reproduce and create the described. The article discusses how jokes can challenge the king and the monarchy as well as the bourgeoisie in more general terms. But in many cases this questioning is (only) on a rhetorical level. Jokes are inside the ideological, which means that they represent a more or less legitimate genre in which it is accepted but also harmless to challenge the upper classes.
Könlösa akademiker och maskulina arbetare
Authors: Eldh Christer
Published: October 2024

The present article discusses sexual consciousness in the field of research on the working class. By way of a re-reading of Billy Ehn's study of factory life in Arbetets flytande gränser, the academic's own masculinity is contrasted with the masculinity which asserts itself in the factory. By employing a gender perspective and reflecting on the type of masculinity taken for granted by intellectuals and members of the working class, respectively, we are able to perceive how unconscious sexual conceptions influence scholarly interpretation.
När hände 1968?
Authors: Arvidsson Alf
Published: October 2024

The present article begins with a discussion of how "the Sixties" and "1968" became significant ideological concepts in public debate, used in order to contrast ideas concerning the societies of today and tomorrow. Furthermore, this article advocates that the 1960s be considered an object of critical ethnological research, which identifies and emphasizes the long-term changes in cultural patterns which constitute the dynamics of the 1950s, 60s and 70s. Two fundamental questions of a methodological nature are therewith actualized. The first concerns the mass media's place within ethnological research. As ethnologists, we must see the mass media as something which does not simply reflect and/or influence everyday life, but which also constitutes a central component of everyday life. Another question concerns the fact that a study of the 1960s unconditionally implies a study of politics, and thus questions must be posed as to how power is constituted and how "politics" as a concept is constructed.
Tidelag ⁠— ett uttryck för manlighet eller mäns ambivalens till djur?
Authors: Lövkrona Inger
Published: October 2024

The article is based on a doctoral thesis by the historian Jonas Liliequist, Crime, Sin and Punishment: The Crime of Bestiality in 17th and 18th Century Sweden (Dept. of History, Univ. of Umeå, Sweden, 1992). The author's purpose is to reconstruct the various cultural and symbolic significations which the act of bestiality had for the society. Liliequist suggests that the act of bestiality has a strong connection with the division of labour between the sexes: tending the animals was a female task. Boys were permitted to have a close connection to animals, but as adults they were excluded from this female sphere. This created a fundamental ambivalence in the relationship between men and animals, which might explain the increasing number of crimes in 17th- and 18th-century Sweden.
However, according to the present author's opinion, bestiality should rather be analyzed in terms of gender theory. Committing bestiality is closely related to the construction of manhood in preindustrial society. The sexual aspect of manhood contained a strong element of aggressivity and instrumentality, that can explain why men performed sexual acts with animals. Mutual desire seems not always to have been a necessary component in sexual activity for men. This perception of manhood also includes an idea of the man as virile and unsenselessly sexually powerful. To commit bestiality can then be considered as a mean to confirm manhood and men's sexual identity.
The repudiation of bestiality can further be explained by the organisation of sexuality in society. Sexuality, marriage and reproduction were closely connected. Men as well as women were controlled and punished, if they violated the "sexual contract". This "contract" was strongly influenced by the church's view of sexuality. A man who commited the crime of bestiality offended the norm which stated that sexuality is not permitted outside marriage and that the aim of the sexual act is reproduction. Further he is also breaking the norm for what was considered as the only "natural" position in a sexual act. In general the rigorous condemnation of all sexual crimes at this time, including witchcraft, incest, infanticide, adultery and premarital conception has its roots in the importance attributed to marriage not only by elite culture but also in folk culture.
Etnicitet och historia
Authors: Berg Magnus
Published: October 2024

The present article deals with history in its use as a tool in the present day; more precisely, how a group of second-generation Turkish immigrants living in Gothenburg uses Turkish history as a way of indirectly describing itself and its own current ideological standpoints. These self-descriptions are aimed in two directions. The first is directed internally, and its intention is to formulate an understanding of the Turkish group in Sweden today which the group itself can accept. The second self-description is directed externally, and here the intent is to produce a dignified image of the group that can function as a challenge toward and resistance against Swedish stereotypes about Turks.
Two rather distinct tendencies can be discerned among the references to Turkish history made within the group. One emphasizes the antiquity of Turkish culture ⁠— it is more ancient and therefore superior to Swedish culture. Significant here is the image of the Turkish village, described as a true gemeinschaft consisting of positive human virtues such as solidarity, generosity, a "natural" religiosity.
The other tenddency is characterized by indignant opposition toward what is apprehended as an anti-modern attitude dominant within the group. The desire here is to draw attention to Turkey's modernistic experiences and to market an idea of historical progress against the continuous disapproval of the unmodern element. In emphasizing this aspect, the group protexts itself against Swedish stereotypes concerning its native country's cultural backwardness.
Vem vill äta surmört?
Authors: Arnstberg Karl-Olof
Published: October 2024

When you as a traveller or field worker encounter foreign cultures, food could be most problematic. This short essay is based on the writers’ memories of food, from childhood and onwards. What is fit for food and what is not? Strange meals leave strong memories.
Korsande väg
Authors: Arvastson Gösta
Published: October 2024

Based on field work in Poland in the early seventies, the author describes an exciting development of ethnology. Referring to some thoughts of Billy Ehn it is a serious task to write and take notes. Language is a laboratory. But why single out the experimental from the one in this case normal ethnology? All science is tentative. Ethnology is based on the dominant idea, to seek opportunities to stretch the method to describe and analyze the world.
Rave på högfjället
Authors: Tegner Elisabeth
Published: October 2024

On the basis of participant observation of a three day rave at a Norwegian mountain hotel, I pose the question: what can compel 600 youths up in a mountain to dance for three days? In the article a few possible explanations are discussed. One is that the self-organized rave culture can be seen as a subcultural attempt to compensate for shortcomings in today's western society — e.g. the scarcity of attractive adult examples and the lack of meeting places for ideological dialogue. Supported by research in developmental psychology, I interpret the abandoned dancing as a striving for integration, an active birdging of opposites. Pairs of opposites which the young ravers attempt to join are: body—soul, past—future, the primitive—the highly technological, female—male, and daughter—mother. In the article I have mainly dwelled on the dichotomy female—male. I conclude by suggesting that the upgrading of the physical, which is what the house-culture is built on, also contains a deeper dimension of "the feminine" — the female body is no longer exclusively young, strong and aggressive (as in the eighties), but may also be motherly.
Från kultur till kultur
Authors: Hooks Bell , Liliequist Marianne
Published: October 2024

In the USA, Cultural Studies, by concentrating on culture, "difference" and "otherness", is in the process of establishing itself as a new academic discipline. Some see Cultural Studies as a possible alternative to both "Black Studies" and "Women's Studies". In the present article, possibilities for the development of Cultural Studies are discussed. The author warns that Cultural Studies, like the new ethnography represented by Clifford's and Marcus' anthology Writing Culture, could become yet another discipline which while theorizing about "otherness", "difference" and reflexivity, in practice continues to exclude the voice and presence of "the Other" in its research. Is Cultural Studies to become nothing more than an expression of "the latest hip racism", featuring white, predominantly male, researchers who continue to (if in a somewhat more refined manner) interpret the experiences of blacks/coloureds; or can Cultural Studies use the opportunity offered to become a meeting-place for multiple discourses from numerous different perspectives? The article concludes by exhorting the concerned researchers and university lecturers to take advantage of the anti-racist, radical potential of Culture Studies. We ought not to content ourselves with sophisticated discussions about forging new concepts about "the Other". Instead, we ought to welcome those voices which have traditionally been excluded from the academic discussion and therewith challenge the dominant power structures construed around race, sex and class.
Kroppens berättelser, kroppens gränser
Authors: Martin Emily , Engman Karin
Published: October 2024

In this article Emily Martin analyses resistance and its relations to power and hegemony. She discusses the ideological effects of biological imagery. When human reproduction is described in biology texts, scientific as well as popular, the egg and the sperm are depicted differently. The egg is seen as "feminine", passive, special, holy, set apart and above, in need of rescue by the sperm. In contrast sperms are described as "masculine", active; they have a mission, a quest, they undertake a perilous journey through a hostile environment, and make an existential decision to penetrate the egg.
What social effects might such vivid imagery have? Endowing cells with intentional action, an important aspect of personhood, may break down the boundaries between the self and the world. What will constitute the inviolable self? This might lead to a change of focus, the patient (or person) may become an environment for a new core self, which exists at the cellular level.
Finally Emily Martin describes a group of young people watching a film about human reproduction, "The Miracle of Life", and how the following discussion shows that the group manages to analyse the imagery and see its implications.
Selvforståelse og samfunnssyn i "vanlige menneskers" selvbiografier
Authors: Gullestad Marianne
Published: October 2024

This paper presents some preliminary ideas that are part of an ongoing project on changes in popular moral reasoning in Norway in this century. The empirical material consists of 630 life stories written by "ordinary people" and elicted by means of the nation-wide competition "Write Your Life" in 1988/89. The project focuses in particular upon changing moral notions, and on how different ways of defining self and society and the articulation between them involve different kinds of moral dilemmas.
Kulturell komplexitet och komplexa kulturer
Authors: Ronström Owe
Published: October 2024

One of the odd things about cultural studies is that "culture" is both the most important object of its pursuit and the central theoretical concept used to achieve that objective. For that very reason it is necessary to constantly call the implications of the concept of culture into question. Previously, the existence of clearly defineable units — "culture" — has been taken for granted. Concurrent with the interest cultural researchers have begun to display for big-city life, modern, hi-tech societies and the like, awareness has increased about the fact that a new arsenal of concepts is necessary in order to better treat cultural complexity. In his book Cultural Complexity, social anthropologist Ulf Hannerz discusses a number of concepts and tools which take their impetus from the apprehension of culture as a process. Hannerz considers culture as having two loci: the external forms through which meaning can be make accessible to all, and the cognitive prerequisites in the minds of individuals which enable them to interpret these forms meaningfully. He sees culture as the flow between these external forms and the internal mental structures. The problem discussed here is that this cultural flow does not spread itself evenly over a population. Thus Hannerz concludes that cultural analysis of complex modern societies must keep in mind the relationship between three dimensions of culture: ideas and ways of thinking; the forms through which meaning can be externalized and made accessible to others; and social distribution, ie. how and to what extent these ideas and forms are disseminated among the population.
Anmälningar och notiser
Authors: Lundgren Britta , Jönsson Lars-Eric , Berg Magnus
Published: October 2024

Recension av: Ella Johansson: Skogarnas fria söner. Maskulinitet och modernitet i norrländskt skogsarbete. Stockholm: Nordiska museets handlingar 118, 1994.
Karin Johannisson: Den mörka kontinenten, 1994.
Britta Lundgren: Den ofullkomliga vänskapen. Stockholm, Carlsson förlag, 1995. (Etnologiska skrifter nr 5, Umeå universitet.)
Den "äckelsköna" döden
Authors: Magnússon Finnur
Published: October 2024

The purpose of this article is to analyze images and narratives of dying in the Swedish health care system. The main question is how the death of patients is dealt with and spoken of at wards and hospitals in contemporary society. Modern thoughts on death and dying are mirrored in several different narratives and assumptions. On a general level we meet the idea that modern man has been deprived of the right to his or her own death. Death has become a matter of medical technology, enclosed in medical institutes. Death has become a threat to some main features of modernity; rationality, the ability to transcend, control of one's body and soul, the creation of self-identity and reflexivity. But at the same time changes in images of death mirror the longing for intimacy and authenticity so prevalent within modern society, as has been pointed out in the works of Anthony Giddens and Alberto Melucci. Death is the painful point where lives come to an end and dreams are scattered, while at the same time offering the opportunity for relatives and hospital staff to explore fields of authenticity and intimacy. Both these images of death should be seen as tendencies towards a change within the general discourse of death, where medical or pathological truths yield to images of death as a cultural and social construction.
". . . den magiske kraften berører alle sider ved livet"
Authors: Selberg Torunn
Published: October 2024

In this article the ideas and contents of the concept of magic as it is used in modern popular culture are discussed. The main idea is that magic is used to give certain values and ideas in modern society a certain significance. The idea of magic is in many ways used in connection with ideas of the past, and how the past in certain ways seems to communicate with the inner self of modern man. By using the word magic, the past, and also other areas in modern culture becomes enchanted.
Berättelser om skolan, berättelser om kön
Authors: Lundgren Anna Sofia
Published: October 2024

The fact that boys often take more place in school, and therefore get more of the teachers' time, is well documented. This article deals with questions concerning the meaning of physical and verbal space in the classroom situation. What does it mean for the construction of gender? When asked to explain expectations from teachers and other pupils, and when they are to explain why they behave in traditional gender specific ways, pupils tend to use individualistic arguments. In this way they can talk about what's possible and isn't, without talking about oppression. Most pupils say the school treats boys and girls in the same way, but at the same time, quite a lot of them feel they are restricted by the school and (although often unconsciously) they use "school" as a scapegoat problaiming that the school has expectations on how they should behave as boys and girls — expectations they cannot feel comfortable with. Whether or not the pupils intended to talk about gender relations when they talked about school, the stories about school always contained stories about gender; what it is, what it means, and how to enact it.
Den dansande kroppen
Authors: Ängquist Lisa
Published: October 2024

The article analyses the discourse of the past folk dance and those gender-related changes I have come across during my field study at dance lessons in schools and youth recreation centres.
Still, dance lessons belong to the subject Athletics, and have the courteous goal of a higher status-dance where they want to disciplinate the body and where the man is the leader. Due to changes in the context of the room and new forms of dance where the body's self-projection plays an important role for young girls' possibility to appear more independent on the official dancefloor.
I stormens öga
Authors: Abnersson Veronica
Published: October 2024

In September 1994 an intense media debate started in Sweden about a group of young people — the vegans. In Umeå, as well as in other Swedish cities, the vegans are known as animal liberators and participants in a new kind of social and political movement. They are also known as a group who have replaced all meat, as well as other animal products, in their food with different kinds of vegetables. In the vegans interpretation of meat, it becomes a metaphor for death, war, evil, power and inequality between species, sexes and races. This kind of demonstration is a symbolic act which strengthens their critique of civilization. In their critique they use food, and especially the refusal of meat, as an important symbol of identification both within the group and as a marker outwards. In this way they struggle for a healthier ecological environment and a better world for the animals — and people — to live in. Their sometimes brutal methods and actions have become widely known and have placed Umeå on the international map.