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  • 1.
    Arvidsson, Alf
    et al.
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts, Department of culture and media studies.
    Wolanik Boström, Katarzyna
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts, Department of culture and media studies.
    Det berättas...!: muntligt berättande som självförståelse, estradkonst och kulturarv2022Book (Other academic)
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  • 2.
    Boström, Gert-Olof
    et al.
    Umeå University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Umeå School of Business and Economics (USBE), Business Administration.
    Winka, Katarina
    Umeå University, Umeå University Library, Centre for teaching and learning (UPL).
    Wolanik Boström, Katarzyna
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts, Department of culture and media studies.
    Extra-curricular activities as a way of teaching sustainability2021In: Handbook on Teaching and Learning for Sustainable Development / [ed] Leal Filho, Walter, Lange Salvia, Amanda, Frankenberger, Fernanda, Cheltanham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2021, 1, p. 323-334Chapter in book (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    This chapter takes its point of departure in the complexity of education for sustainable development (ESD) and the potential in regarding the surrounding environment as a resource and complement to the classroom and curricular activities. This inherent complexity demands different approaches to teaching and in this chapter the value of extra-curricular activities (ECAs) is elaborated upon. Two examples of ECAs conducted at Umeå School of Business, Economics and Statistics in Sweden are presented, discussed and analyzed. The chapter brings together a series of linked concepts, namely ESD, ECAs and experiential learning theory (ELT). The described activities provided experiences not possible to embrace within regular course syllabi and have the potential to benefit both students and teachers. A transdisciplinary context, where university and society meet in order to visualize the complexity of sustainability, can encourage dialogue and lifelong learning. A challenging dimension of sustainability is its dynamics, as development is continuous and therefore not always possible to frame in traditional university teaching. A transformative and transdisciplinary learning can take place when guest lecturers, researchers and students meet in a contemporary discourse about sustainability. There is a need for complex learning environments in order to support learning about SDGs and learning for sustainability.

  • 3.
    Boström, Gert-Olof
    et al.
    Umeå University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Umeå School of Business and Economics (USBE), Business Administration.
    Wolanik Boström, Katarzyna
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts, Department of culture and media studies.
    Hibernation: a strategy for building competitiveness during a recession2020In: Journal of Competitiveness Studies, ISSN 2330-4103, Vol. 28, no 2, p. 103-118Article in journal (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    Management during a recession is a particular challenge for the CEO of a company. This paper presents a case study of a small, but world-leading manufacturing company located in the sparsely populated northern part of Sweden. Sweden is a country highly dependent on its exports; the company studied was also strongly reliant on its international business. The activities performed by the company during the recession are studied through Resource Based Theory, which puts competitiveness in focus. The strategies adopted by company management during the recession can be summarized as 1) Hibernation: preparing the company for survival, securing access to money, downsizing, and adjusting to challenges 2) Building a team spirit: creating bonds of commitment, solidarity and shared involvement in the company, “we are in this together”. 3) Further training and involvement of the employees, resulting in increasing effectivity and productivity. These strategies helped overcome the crisis and ultimately changed the company culture, where the employees’ commitment has given increased competitiveness. 

  • 4.
    Ciesielska, Malgorzata
    et al.
    Teeside university.
    Wolanik Boström, Katarzyna
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts.
    Öhlander, Magnus
    Observation methods2018In: Qualitative Methodologies in Organization Studies: Volume II: Methods and Possibilities / [ed] Ciesielska, Malgorzata, Jemielniak, Dariusz, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018, p. 33-52Chapter in book (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    Observation is one of the most important research methods in social sciences and at the same time one of the most diverse. The term includes several types, techniques and approaches, which may be difficult to compare in terms of enactment and anticipated results; the choice must be adapted to the research problem and the scientific context. As a matter of fact, observation may be regarded as the basis of everyday social life for most people; we are diligent observers of behaviors and of the material surroundings. We watch, evaluate, draw conclusions and make comments on interactions and relations. However, observation raised to the rank of a scientific method should be carried out systematically, purposefully and on scientific grounds - even if curiosity and fascination may still be its very important components.

    In this chapter, we discuss the main characteristics of three types of observation, that can be used in different ways and to some degree even combined. In participant observation, the researcher strives towards an "immersion" in a specific culture, preferably for a longer period of time, in order to acquire an insider understanding of this culture either as a (marginal) member or as a visitor. In non-participant observation, the researcher tries to understand the world, relationships and interactions in a new way, without prevalent categorizations and evaluations. In indirect observation, the researcher relies on observations done by others (e.g. other researchers), on various types of documentation, recordings or on auto-observation.

    In the first part of this chapter, we discuss common features of different observation techniques and some essential elements in the design of a study based on observation methods. We also consider some possible roles an observer may take and be ascribed, and how to document the observations in a form of notes. In the second part, we discuss different approaches to direct and indirect observation. 

  • 5.
    Ciesielska, Malgorzata
    et al.
    University of Teesside, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom.
    Wolanik Boström, Katarzyna
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts, Department of culture and media studies.
    Öhlander, Magnus
    Södertörns högskola.
    Obserwacja2012In: Badania jakościowe: metody i narzędzia / [ed] Dariusz Jemielniak, Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 2012, p. 42-68Chapter in book (Other academic)
  • 6.
    Egan Sjölander, Annika
    et al.
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts, Department of culture and media studies.
    Wolanik Boström, Katarzyna
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts, Department of culture and media studies.
    Ögren, Kenneth
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts, Department of culture and media studies.
    Framing Chemicals in Sweden and Poland. Journalists’ narratives and media texts.2008In: Paper presented at 1, the conference International Association for Mass Communication Research world congress Media and Global Divides Stockholm, Sweden, July 2008.2, the conference Nordic Media in Theory and Practice, University College London, UCL, London, November 2008., 2008Conference paper (Refereed)
  • 7.
    Egan Sjölander, Annika
    et al.
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts, Department of culture and media studies.
    Wolanik Boström, Katarzyna
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts, Department of culture and media studies.
    Ögren, Kenneth
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts, Department of culture and media studies.
    Framing chemicals in Sweden and Poland: journalists’ narratives and media texts2010In: Regulating chemical risks: multidisciplinary perspectives on European and global challenges / [ed] Johan Eriksson, Michael Gilek, Christina Rüden, Dordrecht: Springer , 2010, p. 45-69Chapter in book (Other academic)
    Abstract [en]

    How are chemicals framed in the press in Sweden and in Poland? We have conducted interviews with journalists representing local press, tabloids and national newspapers in order to grasp the professionals’ own narratives about chemicals and also the range of diversity within journalism. What at first can appear as a marginalized topic, chemicals, partly because it is not an established journalistic genre, has turned out to have many faces. All news treating additives in food production and every report relating to medicines, such as the growing resistance towards antibiotics among the population, is part of the discourse, not to mention accidental releases of hazardous substances, etc. Secondly, it is a central part of the study to understand how these dominant themes are textually constructed in the press coverage. The news and media debate about chemicals are not only a central information source for the majority of citizens; the mass media also influence stakeholders, opinion-leaders and decision-makers in society. By and large the results indicate that the types of frames that are used by journalists in these two countries have a lot in common, even if the content of the media texts and the specific national contexts differ substantially between Sweden and Poland.

  • 8.
    Pettersson, Helena
    et al.
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts, Department of culture and media studies.
    Wolanik Boström, Katarzyna
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts.
    Nyfikenhet som motivation och distinktion2017In: Kulturella perspektiv - Svensk etnologisk tidskrift, ISSN 1102-7908, Vol. 25, no 3-4, p. 7-17Article in journal (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    The aim of this article is to analyze the meanings attributed to curiosity in relation to international mobility among physicians and researchers in the medical field. On the basis of 43 in-depth interviews, we discuss our informants' views on curiosity as well as its relation to mobility practices that affect the professional's choice of career options and place of work - and thus their knowledge, in terms of both learning and production. What is the importance of curiosity when people choose to go abroad for some time in their professional life? How is curiosity narrated as a genre of academic mobility? To entangle these questions, we will in this article problematize curiosity as a motive, pleasurable driving force, ideal and practice weighed against the family and internal professional career requirements, and as a tool for professional distinktion against the non- och less mobile colleagues.

  • 9.
    Pettersson, Helena
    et al.
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts, Department of culture and media studies.
    Wolanik Boström, Katarzyna
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts, Department of culture and media studies.
    Öhlander, Magnus
    Stockholms universitet, Stockholm.
    Att analysera kunskap: vad internationellt mobila medicinare lär sig av att arbeta utomlands2015In: Kulturella perspektiv - Svensk etnologisk tidskrift, ISSN 1102-7908, Vol. 24, no 1, p. 61-69Article in journal (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    Analyzing Knowledge - what internationalized and mobile medical professionals learn from working abroad

    The aim with this article is to discuss analytical tools to understand knowledge and learning processes. Our point of departure is data from our research project about international mobility among highly skilled professionals in the medical field. In this text, we problematize how to classify and analyse different types of knowledge as physicians and medical researchers who have worked abroad and then returned to Sweden tell about their experiences. In the interviews we have conducted so far, we can identify declarative knowledge (facts, theoretical knowledge); skills and embodied know-how; meta knowledge (about how the medical field works, i.e. publication strategies) and reflexive abilities (broaden one's vision, learn about and be able to deal with cultural variations, extend professional habitus). We find that professional knowledge in the medical field is a process were the different types of knowledge are interdependent. It is therefore necessary to analyse these interrelations. Since we define professional knowledge as a process, difficult to completely separate from everyday knowledge and everyday life, we suggest that reflexive abilities have a vital role among the interrelated knowledge types.

  • 10.
    Pettersson, Helena
    et al.
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts, Department of culture and media studies.
    Wolanik Boström, Katarzyna
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts, Department of culture and media studies.
    Öhlander, Magnus
    Kapital, habitus och fält2017In: Tillämpad kulturteori / [ed] Jenny Gunnarsson Payne, Magnus Öhlander, Lund: Studentlitteratur AB, 2017, p. 133-150Chapter in book (Other academic)
  • 11.
    Pettersson, Helena
    et al.
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts, Department of culture and media studies.
    Wolanik Boström, Katarzyna
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts, Department of culture and media studies.
    Öhlander, Magnus
    Practice and Knowledge “Over There” and “Here”: A Cultural Analysis of How Mobile Highly Skilled Professionals Create Meaning With Comparison as a Tool2020In: Cultural Analysis, ISSN 2572-0643, E-ISSN 1537-7873, Vol. 18, no 1, p. 5-21Article in journal (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    Comparison is a way to make sense of reality, e.g., by contrasting places, “cultures,” or practic- es. It may present different degrees of something, create a dichotomy, and imply a hierarchy of values. The article analyzes how comparison as a tool is used by highly skilled Swedish profes- sionals when they talk about participating in international work mobility and their subsequent return to Sweden. Empirically, the analysis is based on 46 interviews with Swedish medical professionals and 30 interviews with scholars in Swedish Humanities.

  • 12.
    Wolanik Boström, Katarzyna
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts.
    Agnes Malmgren: Efterklang/efterskalv. Minne, erkännande och solidaritet i Nowa Huta. Språk- och litterturcentrum, Lunds universitet, Lund 2018. 310 s, ill. ISBN 978-91-88473-72-1.2019In: RIG: Kulturhistorisk tidskrift, ISSN 0035-5267, E-ISSN 2002-3863, no 2, p. 100-102Article, book review (Other academic)
  • 13.
    Wolanik Boström, Katarzyna
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts, Culture and Media.
    Berättade liv, berättat Polen: en etnologisk studie av hur högutbildade polacker gestaltar identitet och samhälle2005Doctoral thesis, monograph (Other academic)
    Abstract [en]

    The study takes its point of departure in the notions of life story, narrativity and context. It is based on extensive life story interviews with well-educated professionals in Poland – academics, teachers, managers, physicians, artists – during the period of transformation (or transition) from ”real socialism” to democracy and a market economy. The aim is to analyse the multilayered process of constructing a personal identity, as the narrators interweave stories about their lives with images of history and society. The central approach is narrative analysis, focusing on the interview interaction as well as the wider cultural, societal and political context in which the self-presentation takes place, and which it simultaneously creates. Concepts of cultural and paradigmatic narratives are combined with a gender perspective and selected terms from Pierre Bourdieus theory of practice. The narrators’ life experiences are shaped and evaluated in an implicit dialogue with cultural narratives of ideal biographies, professional careers, gender roles and family models in Poland during socialism and the transformation. In family background stories, the ancestors’ gendered biographies are depicted in relation to the underlying paradigm of the romantic-patriotic tradition. In childhood stories, the evaluation models used are psychological, social and based on political correctedness. The interviewees often shape their nostalgic, bitter and ambivalent memories against a background of the power relations between the family and the state, using nostalgia, dark rhetorics and a well-established genre of coping strategies during the socialism. In narratives about formal school-education during the socialist period, two paradigms are seen as highly incongruous: the intellectual-elitistic tradition and the socialistic citizen-schooling. Also stories of being a part of both formal and oppositional organisations and networks are told. In narratives about careers and working life, the pride in doing a good work is prevalent, but the narrators also depict complications in the professional paradigm due to the proliferation of politicised and informal power relations; en influence still lasting during the transformation period. The troubled issues of legitimacy, status and economy are discussed. In stories about close relationships, there is an underlying paradigm of love, marrital happiness and being a good parent, even though the stories follow a variety of plots. The evaluations become complex and sometimes contradictory. By presenting their life-experience in a proud, ambivalent, defensive or ironic way, the narrators reproduce, deconstruct and challenge the dominant cultural narratives, shaping their unique personal paradigms.

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  • 14.
    Wolanik Boström, Katarzyna
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts, Department of culture and media studies.
    Complex Professional Learning: Physicians Working for Aid Organisations2018In: Professions & Professionalism, ISSN 1893-1049, E-ISSN 1893-1049, Vol. 8, no 1, article id e2002Article in journal (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    This article addresses the issue of professional learning of Swedish physicians returning from their work for international aid organisations in the global South. It is a qualitative case study based on 16 in-depth interviews,whichuses a thematic narrative analysis, a typology of knowledge, and the concept of symbolic capital. The doctors’ assignments in settings radically different from the welfare state context meant professional challenges, including an initial feeling of de-skilling, but also enhanced reflexivity andintensiveand complex learning. The doctors acquired new medical and organisational knowledge, improved diagnostic skills, new perspectives on different health care systems, cultural contexts, global power relations, and postcolonial hierarchies. Since their return to Sweden, they have encountered a friendly but rather shallow interest in their experiences. Their new insights and ideas for change have not been easy to validate assymbolic capital, and their intensive individual learning is seldom utilised for organisational learning.

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  • 15.
    Wolanik Boström, Katarzyna
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts.
    Familjen och omvärlden1999In: Familj och kön / [ed] Lundgren Britta, Lövkrona, Inger & Meurling, Birgitta, Lund: Studentlitteratur AB, 1999Chapter in book (Other academic)
  • 16.
    Wolanik Boström, Katarzyna
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts, Department of culture and media studies.
    Försåtlig skjortstrykning och subversiva skratt: om kön, politik och ett polskt familjeliv2001In: Bestämma, benämna, betvivla: kulturvetenskapliga perspektiv på kön, sexualitet och politik / [ed] Britta Lundgren; Lena Martinsson, Lund: Studentlitteratur AB, 2001, p. 61-84Chapter in book (Other academic)
  • 17.
    Wolanik Boström, Katarzyna
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts, Department of culture and media studies.
    “Highly skilled mobility and tourism as intertwined practices – the case of Swedish doctors working for international help organisations”.2016Conference paper (Other academic)
    Abstract [en]

    My paper concerns the intertwined practices of highly skilled mobility and tourism by focusing on Swedish physicians working abroad for international help organizations like MSF/Doctors without Borders, the Red Cross, Operation Smile or the United Nations. The study is based on 16 extensive narrative interviews with doctors who have returned to Sweden, after working outside the Western context, encountering diverse medical, organisational, local and national (sub)cultures.

    When the physicians tell about their motivations to work abroad, they talk not only about the wish “to do some good” and “to make a difference” where the medical resources are insufficient, but also a strong wish “to see the world”, “to really get to know other cultures” and even to experience an “adventure”. The doctors try to combine their work in Kenya, India, Lebanon, Colombia or Afghanistan with getting to know the local environments, the region and the country, e.g. by shorter round-trips on their free-time or making a longer trip after the assignment has been completed. As the mobile doctors picture their assignments, there seems to be no clear-cut boundaries between their work and every-day life in the local setting and tourism; all those practices may be a source of exotic bewilderment and carry educational and enlightening aspects. Work mobility and tourism thus supplement each other and put some of the well-known social and cultural practices into perspective.

    The doctors are, however, concerned about the post-colonial implications of working and sightseeing in the global south. They fret about the implications of being white, privileged subjects who are more protected and cherished than the local population and free to leave the deprived or problematic region. The work assignment may, however, be a kind of alibi for tourism, the only “proper” and “decent” way to visit a Third World country – offering their medical competence and effort, co-operating with local colleagues, is regarded as a way to reduce the unfair power relations and the exploiting tourist gaze.

  • 18.
    Wolanik Boström, Katarzyna
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts, Department of culture and media studies.
    Infernot på kollot. Berättandets transformativa verkan2022In: Formbundet, formbart!: vänbok till Alf Arvidsson / [ed] Bo Nilsson; Anna Sofia Lundgren; Susanne Holst, Umeå: Umeå universitet , 2022, p. 111-118Chapter in book (Other academic)
    Abstract [sv]

    Kapitlet bygger på narrativ analys av en intervju med en professionell berättare, med särskild fokus på den effektfulla användingen av genrer som hjälteberättelse och saga inom den livshistoriska ramen.

  • 19.
    Wolanik Boström, Katarzyna
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts.
    Materialising suffering, medical help and humanitarianism on Swedish Médecins sans Frontières/Doctors without Borders’ web site2014Conference paper (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    The paper discusses the dynamics of materialisation with the example of how the all-pervading materiality of suffering, death and medical help is portrayed – i.e. materialised – in the Swedish web site of Medecins sans Frontiers /Doctors without Borders, Läkare utan Gränser. The site is presenting the organisation’s work as heavily anchored in material circumstances on many levels. There are the brutish forces of natural catastrophes and human-induced conflicts, wars, extreme poverty, malnourishment, epidemics, all shattering human lives, causing suffering and foreboding death. These conditions together with the climate, distances and myriads of other material circumstances limit also the MsF teams’ labour and the help that is possible to give – the help that is vital and desperately needed, though always too scarce. The depicted efforts to bring relief and assistance may also be regarded as the constant process of materialisation of the ideology of humanitarianism. There is the materiality of the gendered human body, of those who need help and those who provide it. The gendered, embodied humans are the subjects who suffer and make sense of suffering; they are also the objects of treatments that the teams (i.e. also gendered, embodied humans) may offer. The MsF-site is trying to portrait - materialise once more through digital means - the all-pervading materiality of suffering and humanitarian, medical help, using texts and images, reports, blogs, digital newsletters and journals and also linking to other web-sides on Facebook and Instagram, to radio and TV programs.

  • 20.
    Wolanik Boström, Katarzyna
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts, Department of culture and media studies.
    Memory, recognition and solidarity in Nowa Huta: Anges Malmgren: Efterklang/Efterskalv. Minne, erkännande och solidaritet i Nowa Huta. Språk- och litteraturcentrum, Lunds universitet, Lund 2018. 310 pp. Ill. Diss. (review)2019In: Arv. Nordic Yearbook of Folklore, ISSN 0066-8176, E-ISSN 2002-4185, Vol. 75, p. 216-219Article, book review (Other academic)
    Abstract [en]

    Book review of Anges Malmgren: Efterklang/Efterskalv. Minne, erkännande och solidaritet i Nowa Huta. Språk- och litteraturcentrum, Lunds universitet, Lund 2018. 310 pp. Ill. Diss.

  • 21.
    Wolanik Boström, Katarzyna
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts, Department of culture and media studies.
    Migrationsberättelser i samspel2014In: Kulturella perspektiv - Svensk etnologisk tidskrift, ISSN 1102-7908, no 4, p. 12-21Article in journal (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

     Migration narratives in interplay

    This article takes an interview with two Polish specialist physicians, a married couple currently living and working in Sweden, as a point of departure for exploration of a co-narration of experiences of migration and hybridisation. A narrative support is offered both within the couple and by the researcher and the evaluation of a story is often strengthened by a shared laughter. The analysis focuses how ”narrative sparkles” are evoked by the decision to leave Poland, the feeling of linguistic and cultural hybridisation, the predicaments of marking status in the right way and the ambivalence of belonging to both a highly respected social stratum and the category of ”immigrants”.

  • 22.
    Wolanik Boström, Katarzyna
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts, Department of culture and media studies.
    Mostrar, fastrar och andra livsviktiga tanter2011In: Kulturella perspektiv - Svensk etnologisk tidskrift, ISSN 1102-7908, no 1, p. 19-28Article in journal (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    While our close family relationships, e.g. with the parents or siblings, are surrounded by strong cul­ tural norms and requirements, the relations with aunts and other women of “chosen kin” seldom meet strong expectations (Ellingson & Sotirin 2010). The article draws on interviews with two middle­aged Swedish teachers, who reflect on the profound importance of “aunts” in their lives. They tell about how the aunts provided them with extra­ ordinary moments of loving presence and indul­gence, practical and existential help, friendship and support in big and small issues – versatile re­ sources vital for their identity and quality of life.

  • 23.
    Wolanik Boström, Katarzyna
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts.
    My mother’s aunts – on family stories and societal context2013In: The 16th Congress of the International Society for Folk Narrative Research: Folk Narrative in the Modern World: Unity and Diversity, 2013Conference paper (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    While many close family relationships, e.g. with the parents or siblings, are surrounded by strong cultural norms and requirements, the relations with aunts seldom meet clear expectations (Ellingson & Sotirin 2010). Still, these relations can be of great value. My paper draws on interviews with my mother, reflecting on the profound importance of aunts in her childhood during the 1950-ies and 1960-ties in Poland. In her stories, she tells how different "aunts” (by birth, marriage or acquaintance) provided her and her family with practical and emotional support, profoundly enhancing the quality of life during the rather meagre early decades of early socialism in Poland. The aunts took care of each other's children on holidays, giving them an opportunity to widen their horizons, they provided more elegant clothes than those available in stores, they helped each other to organize social gatherings and festivities. The stories are a part of "family stories" and I reflect on how the relationships with aunts and the "socialistic times", which are an important background in the stories, are narrated and negotiated with me as a daughter.

  • 24.
    Wolanik Boström, Katarzyna
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts.
    Oförrätter, motstrategier och distinktioner. Om  den polska intelligentian1996In: Oväntat. Aspekter på etnologisk kulturforskning / [ed] Jacobsson, Roger och Lundgren, Britta, Stockholm: Carlsson Bokförlag, 1996Chapter in book (Other academic)
  • 25.
    Wolanik Boström, Katarzyna
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts, Department of culture and media studies.
    Opowiadania o karierze: zawodowe paradygmaty i gra dystynkcji2012In: Nowe kierunki w organizacji i zarządzaniu: organizacje, konteksty, procesy zarządzania / [ed] Beata Glinka, Monika Kostera, Warszawa: Wolters Kluwer, 2012Chapter in book (Other academic)
  • 26.
    Wolanik Boström, Katarzyna
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts, Department of culture and media studies.
    Opowieść paradygmatyczna, pole, kapitały i gra dystynkcji w opowiadaniach o karierze.2008In: Nowe kierunki w zarzadzaniu.: Podrecznik akademicki / [ed] Monika Koster, Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Akademickie i Profesjonalne , 2008, p. 511-529Chapter in book (Other academic)
  • 27.
    Wolanik Boström, Katarzyna
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts, Department of culture and media studies.
    (Re)creating identity and authority? Work with autobiographical stories on courses and workshops for migrants in Sweden2019In: [SIEF2019 congress programme] Track changes: Reflecting on a transforming world, 2019, p. 328-328Conference paper (Other academic)
    Abstract [en]

    SHORT ABSTRACT: This paper investigates the use of autobiographical narrating in migrant adult education, on courses and museum workshops.  Working with stories is an important pedagogical tool helping to (re)create identity, coherence and authority and to invoke empathy and identification. 

    LONG ABSTRACT: This paper investigates the use of autobiographical storytelling as a pedagogical tool and a way to address the cultural and social diversity in migrant adult education, in a project “With your own words” for young migrants, and in Västerbottens museum’s workshops. It is based on ethnographic methods: observations (of museum workshops and events at “Narrative festivals” where several groups presented for a wider public); interviews (with a teacher, a project leader, and a museum pedagogue); the project’s activities on social media and printed material from the project. The museum’s narrative workshops and the public presentations at the Narrative festival aimed at new forms of engagement and inclusion of little represented and seldom participating groups. In the interviews, a strong belief in autobiographic storytelling’s emancipatory, integrative and democratic potential was articulated. It was regarded as an excellent way to improve language skills and to make one’s life more comprehensible to oneself and to others by everyday, common memories and not only the biographical “disruption” of migration (the reports from media, however, still focused rather on the dramatic narratives of oppression, escape and otherness). Inclusion and social emancipation lied at the heart of the pedagogical stance (with mostly non-prestigious activities) and documentation practices of the studied courses, workshops and events. Stories about personal experiences were considered to be a crucial and creative human practice; implicitly a tool for (re)creating identity, coherence, authority and continuity of the self, and a way to make oneself comprehensible, invoking empathy and identification. 

  • 28.
    Wolanik Boström, Katarzyna
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts.
    Swedish physicians working for international help organizations – on new work contexts, knowledge and reflexivity2016In: 3rd ISA Forum of Sociology - The futures we want: Globala sociology and the struggles for a better world: Book of Abstracts, 2016, p. 751-752, article id RC52-JS-31.6Conference paper (Other academic)
    Abstract [en]

    What do Swedish physicians experience, teach and learn when they work abroad at international organizations like MSF/Doctors without Borders, the Red Cross, Operation Smile or the United Nations? How do they share their experi- ences with other medical professionals when they return to the Swedish work- place? My paper is based on an interview study with doctors who have returned to Sweden and it combines theories of knowledge with Pierre Bourdieu’s con- cepts. I discuss how the physicians re ect on performing their professional role under unusual and at times di cult circumstances, encountering di erent med- ical, organisational and local subcultures and gaining and sharing practical and theoretical knowledge The work abroad is often guided by acute requirements rather than accurate scheme It puts the well-known, taken-for-granted medical practice into perspective The Swedish doctors in the study talk about the some- times tough, but educational adjustment to the new cultural and occupational context Sometimes, they have to deal with disasters and extreme stress, and there are ethically complex issues when equipment or medicines are perceived as inadequate. In their very re exive accounts, the doctors appreciate the valuable experience of saving or improving lives, making a di erence with small means, as opposed to the overly organized Western medical care, but there are also critical re ections about the long-term bene ts of this kind of contribution. The doctors are especially concerned about the post-colonial implications of working in the global south When they return to a Swedish workplace, their experience is often met with a positive, but rather shallow interest and there is seldom any systematic arrangement for knowledge transfer or utilizing their experiences in the Swed- ish context Neither is all knowledge regarded as relevant and valuable in the Swedish/Western medical and organizational reality.

    Download full text (pdf)
    Working paper
  • 29.
    Wolanik Boström, Katarzyna
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts, Department of culture and media studies.
    The Hard-Working Hero/ine among Phantoms, Donors and Dark Forces: on Mythical Features in Polish Organizational Imagination2008In: Organizational Olympians: Heroes and Heroines of Organizational Myths / [ed] Monika Kostera, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, p. 132-141Chapter in book (Other academic)
  • 30.
    Wolanik Boström, Katarzyna
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts, Department of culture and media studies.
    The migrant interview: the researcher as migrant studying sideways2016In: Cross-cultural interviewing: feminist experiences and reflections / [ed] Gabriele Griffin, London: Routledge, 2016, p. 173-191Chapter in book (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    There is a growing strand of work on qualitative 'insider' research on migration and mobility, e.g. where migrants who have become researchers interview either other migrants from the same country of origin, or return to their country of origin to do research there. This kind of insider research involves particular methodological conditions, especially when it means studying 'sideways', where the power relations are negotiated in complex ways (e.g. Farahani, 2007; Voloder and Kirpitchenko, 2014; see also Ganga and Scott, 2006; Temple and Koterba, 2009; Ghorashi and Moghissi, 2010). In this chapter, I use two sets of extensive, narrative interviews with highly skilled Polish professionals to discuss certain methodological issues that arise in 'sideways migrant interviewing', e.g. interviewing both as a migrant and interviewing people of similar socio-cultural status as myself. The interviews in question were a) migrant-to-'non-migrant' interviews in Poland in the late 1990s; and b) diasporic migrant-to-migrant interviews in Sweden in the early 2010s. I discuss how the researcher may use her biographical experiences as a tool both in collecting data and for gaining a deeper understanding of the issues to be investigated, and how her shifting positioning may be used to secure and enrich data.

  • 31.
    Wolanik Boström, Katarzyna
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts, Department of culture and media studies.
    Working with life experience stories. On teachers’, course leaders’ and narrative coaches’ work to stimulate and shape autobiographical narrating2020Conference paper (Other academic)
    Abstract [en]

    In recent decades, autobiographical storytelling and life experience stories has become increasingly popular in Sweden. Narrative courses, circles, workshops, “narrative cafes” etc. are organized for articulating and sharing memories in interaction with the leader and other group participants, and learning different ways to “discover” and present life experiences in oral and/or written form. Stories about lived experiences are also used in adult education, e.g. training Swedish as a second language for migrants. Stories from life are regarded as a splendid pedagogical tool not only for language training, but also for strengthening group cohesion and creating more cultural understanding among the participants. 

    A life story involves an ongoing reconstruction work, as the interpretation of our experiences and our self-perception changes. In my presentation, I draw upon a distinction between "memories" and "representations of memories". It takes some cultural and narrative competence, and often interaction with others, to develop an experience into a suitable story that we share with others. How can such narrative and cultural competence be trained and developed? This paper presentation is based on an interview study with teachers, course leaders and narrative coaches telling about their work to stimulate and shape autobiographical narrating, and depicting the conditions and benefits of such narrating. What are their ideas about the process of evoking memories and “polishing” them into stories, and what are the advantages of narrating life experience? The leaders and teachers talked e.g. about the identity-creating, transformative, social and emancipatory potential.

  • 32.
    Wolanik Boström, Katarzyna
    et al.
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts, Department of culture and media studies.
    Arvidsson, Alf
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts, Department of culture and media studies.
    Berättande: uttryck, samspel, förhandling2014In: Kulturella perspektiv - Svensk etnologisk tidskrift, ISSN 1102-7908, Vol. 23, no 4, p. 2-3Article in journal (Other academic)
  • 33.
    Wolanik Boström, Katarzyna
    et al.
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts, Department of culture and media studies.
    Pettersson, Helena
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts, Department of culture and media studies.
    Öhlander, Magnus
    Expatriate experiences of Swedish medical professionals: opportunities and barriers in international mobility2015Conference paper (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    In our paper, we discuss international mobility of highly skilled professionals in the Swedish medical field: specialized physicians and medical molecular biologists and who had been trained and worked in Sweden, but spent some time working abroad and returned to Sweden. Our aim is to analyse the returners’ narratives about experiences of (repeated) mobility. We will present their incentives to move to another country and the not always smooth process of organizing the prolonged stay abroad. There are family considerations – with both hardships on and benefits for family life, there are practical issues to solve and economic obstacles. The expatriates reflect also on the knowledge gained during work in different settings, e.g. about organisational and national cultures and how international mobility affects the life trajectory. The expat mobility in the medical field will be presented through our three sub projects, focusing on: 1. Molecular biologists depended on international mobility for successful research, 2. Specialist physicians involved in both research and clinical practice, where mobility is more optional, but encouraged 3. Specialised physicians working as volunteers for international organisations, often under difficult circumstances, making it difficult to e.g. bring a family with them. The study is based on ethnographic methods, primary in-depth interviews. Cultural analysis is combined with theories on knowledge, materiality, Bourdieu’s theory of capital, gender and ethnicity perspective.

  • 34.
    Wolanik Boström, Katarzyna
    et al.
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts, Department of culture and media studies.
    Öhlander, Magnus
    Södertörns högskola.
    A doctor’s life-story: on professional mobility, occupational sub-cultures and personal gains2011In: Selling one's favourite piano to emigrate: mobility patterns in central Europe at the beginning of the 21st century / [ed] Jakub Isański och Piotr Luczys, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011 , 2011, p. 205-222Chapter in book (Refereed)
  • 35.
    Wolanik Boström, Katarzyna
    et al.
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts.
    Öhlander, Magnus
    A transnational occupation with national subcultures? Migrating doctors and cultural challenges2012Conference paper (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    In our paper, based on in-depth interviews with Polish doctors, we analyse how they narrate the complex process of adapting to the professional role in different national and cultural contexts, e.g. in Poland, England, France and Sweden. The field of medicine may be conceptualized as largely transnational, with the professional knowledge and skills being a kind of universal “capital” that can be used in different countries. But alongside this transnational medical field there are also national or regional “subfields”, more hedged in by cultural ideals, ideas and practices. The implicit cultural requirements for a successful professional performance differ, e.g. from more strict and authoritarian doctor's style in England and France to the imperative of "pleasantness" and calm in Sweden, from heavily gendered style in Poland to "gender-neutral" style in Sweden.

  • 36.
    Wolanik Boström, Katarzyna
    et al.
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts.
    Öhlander, Magnus
    Södertörns högskola.
    A troubled elite?: Stories about migration and establishing professionalism as a Polish doctor in Sweden2012Report (Refereed)
  • 37.
    Wolanik Boström, Katarzyna
    et al.
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts.
    Öhlander, Magnus
    Aspects of intersectionality in migrating physicians’ professional roles – narratives of Polish doctors in Sweden2012Conference paper (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    In Sweden, there are a growing number of immigrant doctors and Poles are one of the largest non-Scandinavian groups. In our paper, based on in-depth interviews with Polish female and male doctors, we analyse how they narrate the complex process of adapting to the professional role in different national contexts, especially in Poland and Sweden. This process has profound ethnical, class, gender and religious implications. A doctor’s role is not only about “transnational” medical knowledge and skills, but also the more nationally specific social and cultural “capital” and embodied dispositions. In this paper we understand intersectionality as a process of power in the interplay of gender, class, sexuality, ethnicity and religion. Cultural stereotypes, ideas, values and notions – e.g. about professionalism as gender neutral or gender-specific and about Poles and Swedes in general – are interoperating in the interplay of gender, class, ethnicity and religion. Some of these stereotypes, values and notions are complex and contradictory. In a specific context as the Swedish heath care they are always hierarchically ordered and sometimes objects of contestation and negotiation. We focus on the cultural aspects of the social intersectional process.The interviewees tell how migration can create a feeling of de-skilling and confusion, not only due to language problems, but also not knowing the social codes, e.g. the ”right” way of performing class and gender, thus threatening a doctor’s professional status in spite of the acknowledged medical competence. The Swedish professional role is perceived as gender-neutral, very politically correct and with strong focus on emotional control. A “too feminine” way to dress may be considered inappropriate for a female doctor in the Swedish context and cause a loss of status, similarly a too expressive display of impatience or anger. The ”normalisation” of the professional role has profound implications on the doctors’ identity and they tell about a process of both adaptation and resistance to what they perceive as “Swedish” norms and values.

  • 38.
    Wolanik Boström, Katarzyna
    et al.
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts, Department of culture and media studies.
    Öhlander, Magnus
    Södertörns högskola.
    En utsatt elit?: etiska överväganden i en studie om polska läkare i den svenska vården2012In: Etiska dilemman: forskningsdeltagande, samtycke och utsatthet / [ed] Kalman, Hildur & Lövgren, Veronica, Malmö: Gleerups Utbildning AB, 2012, p. 87-99Chapter in book (Refereed)
  • 39.
    Wolanik Boström, Katarzyna
    et al.
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts, Department of culture and media studies.
    Öhlander, Magnus
    Etiska dilemman i forskning om en sårbar elit2019In: Etiska dilemman: forskningsdeltagande, samtycke och utsatthet / [ed] Hildur Kalman & Veronica Lövgren, Malmö: Gleerups Utbildning AB, 2019, 2, p. 89-102Chapter in book (Other academic)
  • 40.
    Wolanik Boström, Katarzyna
    et al.
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts, Department of culture and media studies.
    Öhlander, Magnus
    Södertörns högskola.
    Ett samtal om samförståndsblinkningar och solskenshistorier2011In: Kulturella perspektiv - Svensk etnologisk tidskrift, ISSN 1102-7908, no 3-4, p. 80-82Article in journal (Refereed)
  • 41.
    Wolanik Boström, Katarzyna
    et al.
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts.
    Öhlander, Magnus
    Familjetajming och parentetisk dislokalisering2016In: Kulturella perspektiv - Svensk etnologisk tidskrift, ISSN 1102-7908, Vol. 3-4Article in journal (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    The article discusses how a “family timing” may be a crucial factor in highly skilled international mobility. It is based on narrative interviews with Swedish physicians and molecular biologists. In the stories, the family often creates a kind of inertia and complication for working abroad. The interviewees’ dreams of career development, learning new theories and methods or “making a difference” in the world must be negotiated with a partner pursuing his/her own career, as well as the rest of the family. But mobility is also regarded as an amazing opportunity for the whole family to learn about new cultural and social contexts, even though the prolonged stay abroad means both hardships and benefits and there are a lot of logistics and practicalities to take care of. In many stories, the"parethetic displacement" abroad influences gender roles and the ideals of dual careers, equal relationship and a respectful parenthood, vital parts of the image of Swedish middle class.

  • 42.
    Wolanik Boström, Katarzyna
    et al.
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts.
    Öhlander, Magnus
    Migrating physicians as everyday organizational ethnographers2013In: 8th Organization Studies' Summer Workshop: Organization Studies and the Day to Day Life of Cultures and Communities, 23-25 May 2013, Mykonos, Greece, 2013Conference paper (Other academic)
    Abstract [en]

    In the case of physicians, there is a common assumption that their knowledge and skills are transnational, spatially unbound and easily transferable from one organizational setting to another. But though the human body is seen as “universal”, the national and local health-care organizations are cultural units. They are characterized by ideas and norms about “proper” diagnosis and treatments or a “correct” professional performance. A migrating doctor may soon feel a pressure of implicit expectations on how to perform as a (male or female) professional, how to signal the right social stratum, how to perform authority, what treatments and techniques are the most acclaimed ones etc. In Sweden, there are a growing number of immigrant physicians. In our study, we focus on Polish doctors, who are one of the largest non-Scandinavian groups. Based mainly on in-depth interviews, we analyze how Polish doctors who are working in Sweden talk about their professional migration with a kind of “ethnographic sensibility”, a keen attentiveness to organizational details and cultural differences.

    For many Polish physicians, migration initially created a feeling of de-skilling and confusion, not only due to language problems, but also because of the implicit social codes, e.g. the ”right” way of performing class and gender in the organizational context. In their endeavor to make sense of the implied standards and become a culturally viable professional subject, they applied what we call the “ethnographic sensibility”, observing an analyzing the processes they have been emerged in. They describe idiosyncratic organizational characteristics of the Swedish workplaces (and, by contrast, their former Polish ones), the explicit and implicit demands and know-how of a cultural setting. They also present their strategies for adjusting or resisting adjustment, and trying to make a difference in the organizational culture.

    The migrant doctors tell us that theoretical research and such “hands-on”- skills, where good results can be quickly observed (e.g. in surgery or anesthesiology) get easily appreciated and embraced in the new organization. However, other kinds of experiential and more “culturally specific” knowledge (e.g. communication with patients or colleagues, strategies for treatment or health-care organizing) are often encountered with disinterest, suspicion or get “lost in translation”. Some Polish doctors state that the Swedish colleagues treat the Swedish health-care as superior in every aspect and show little interests in learning from the former East Europeans’ experience – even if their organizational knowledge may be far more complex.

    The skills required of a doctor are thus often much wider than just medical or even administrative. When the Polish doctors get recruited, it is on the basis of “transnationally” valued diplomas and professional practice; i.e. the expert knowledge is supposed to be unbound and objectively judged. But then the doctors encounter tangible national and local medical practices, expectations and know-how, coexisting with these transnational standards. The Swedish clinics or district health centers inhabit complex power dimensions and cultural assumptions on the competences, proficiencies, appearance, communication etc. that fit the “proper” image of a doctor. The Polish doctors encounter a complex set of class- and gender-specific norms and traditions of social behavior, life-style, body language, tone of voice etc., considered appropriate for a doctor in Sweden.  The embodied cultural capital should be marked by “right” eloquence, “right” body language, “right” taste, viable expressions of emotions and opinions etc. All of these prerequisites influence a migrating doctor’s possibility to perform a culturally valued professional role and to get respect in the organization.

    One important aspect is the demand on the “right” gender and class performance. In the doctors’ “ethnographic” accounts, there is the notion of emotional control as an important Swedish mark of class and professionalism. Raising your voice or showing irritation towards the personnel is seen as a serious liability. Some women doctors dwell also on how the “feminine” image that used to be an esteemed part of their professional identity in Poland – e.g. short skirts, high heels, elegant blouses, make-up, “feminine” body language etc. – is suddenly very inappropriate in Sweden. Here, this kind of dress code and performance may be treated as unprofessional and unrefined, signaling wrong social stratum. Many informants perceive the Swedish professionalism (especially in the north) as resolutely gender-neutral, e.g. with the obligatory unisex uniforms, and signaling class through other means than elegance. Some male doctors were initially appalled by the rather disheveled and creasy look of their otherwise highly competent male colleagues.

    The Polish doctors thus observe and reflect upon “cultural differences” in their struggles to comprehend, navigate among, adapt to, challenge or negotiate implicit, situated requirements of the doctor’s role, which lie beyond the strictly medical sphere, but still highly influence their professional authority. For some, these “ethnographic” observations and interpretations are a tool for cultural “passing” and doing things “the Swedish way”, e.g. acting along the class- gender-, nationally etc. specific expectations. But some choose the role of a colorful foreign doctor, especially if they possess unique medical competences, which are of value to the local organization.  

     

  • 43.
    Wolanik Boström, Katarzyna
    et al.
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts.
    Öhlander, Magnus
    Mobile physicians encountering other ”cultures” – on ethnographic sensibility and authority2013Conference paper (Other academic)
    Abstract [en]

    In contemporary ethnographical research, there has been a significant broadening of methodological and theoretical horizons, for example questioning the moral and intellectual privilege of schooled ethnographers to describe social reality. In our study, based on extensive work-life interviews with mobile Polish-born physicians, they describe countries and localities in ways bearing many resemblances to ‘schooled’ ethnographical descriptions and interpretations. They outline ‘cultures’ and ‘mentalities’ and discuss ‘identity’.

    Mobility (both spatial and social) seems to enhance the need – and the power – of observation, self-reflexivity and ‘cultural’ analysis. The doctors tell about their experiences with a kind of ‘ethnographic sensibility’, a keen attentiveness to organizational details and behavioural patterns in different setting, in their endeavor to make sense of implicit demands and social know-how. The accounts are grounded in prolonged participation, observation, conversations, written materials and a range of other data, just as ethnographical textbooks recommend – but their goals are more pragmatic than the ‘schooled’ ethnographers and they have a less complex, more popular notion of ‘culture’.

    How can we, the ‘schooled’ ethnographers, study our subjects’ suggestive accounts and generalizations about ‘cultures’ and ‘mentalities’? The mobile highly skilled informants are eloquent and used to express their opinions with authority – but as they are on our ‘scientific territory’, so to say, the power balance gets rather complicated. How can we use their accounts for our analytical purposes, showing respect for their ‘lay ethnographic’ knowledge, but not compromising our own enterprise as cultural researchers? What are the differences between the ‘lay’ and the ‘schooled’ ethnographers’ interests, goals and – above all – responsibility for the descriptions and interpretations of cultural norms and values?

  • 44.
    Wolanik Boström, Katarzyna
    et al.
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts, Department of culture and media studies.
    Öhlander, Magnus
    Mobile physicians making sense of culture(s): on mobile everyday ethnography2015In: Ethnologia Europaea, ISSN 0425-4597, E-ISSN 1604-3030, Vol. 45, no 1, p. 7-24Article in journal (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    This article, emerging from a study of mobile Polish physicians currently working in Sweden, explores the doctors’ ethnography-like descriptions applying the categories of knowledge usually employed by the researchers. The primary material consists of 21 interviews. The term mobile everyday ethnography points out the particular epistemological condition induced by occupational mobility: a tendency to explore and describe settings and behaviours in cultural terms, oscillating between an insider’s knowledge and an outsider’s estrangement. Some recurrent themes in the interviews concerning cultural frictions are presented, followed by a discussion of the specificity of mobile everyday ethnography: its basis in the pragmatics of everyday life, the predominant usage of the popular notion of “culture” and the professional self being the focal point. 

  • 45.
    Wolanik Boström, Katarzyna
    et al.
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts.
    Öhlander, Magnus
    "Mobile physicians: negotiating status and knowledge transfer."2014In: Rethinking Anthropologies in Central Europe for Global Imaginaries. Social and Cultural Change in Contemporary Central Europe, May 26 - 27, 2014, Prague, 2014Conference paper (Other academic)
    Abstract [en]

    Our suggestions for “framework that bring the anthropology in/of Central Europe into conversation with global conceptual development” is that of highly skilled mobility, transnationalism and knowledge transfer, as Central Europeans are becoming increasingly mobile in their professional lives. We would like to present results from an ethnographic study, based primarily on narrative interviews, but also observations and conversations, with 25 Polish physicians currently living and working in Sweden or attending a preparatory course for migration. Health care is often considered a globalized labour market and some of our interviewees have previously worked in Great Britain, US, Israel, France or Norway. Sweden is increasingly dependent on physicians from abroad (18% of doctors were educated in another country) and Polish doctors constitute one of the largest non-Scandinavian groups. We analyse the physicians’ narratives about their working lives in Poland and the various reasons for their decision to move to another country, which they often frame in relation to the brain-drain debate in Polish media. They also tell about their strategies of re-establishing professionalism in a new setting. They present themselves as an integrated part of the transnational elite in the medical field, but at the same time they regard their Central (or former “Eastern-“) European origin as affecting their professional situation. They meet both positive and negative stereotypes. The doctors tell about their successes and tribulations and what may be called “cultural frictions”. The term highly skilled mobility points also to the doctors’ talk about the possibility of further movement – e.g. back to Poland or to another work place abroad.

  • 46.
    Wolanik Boström, Katarzyna
    et al.
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts.
    Öhlander, Magnus
    Mobility of knowledge and professional sub-cultures: the case of physicians2012Conference paper (Other academic)
    Abstract [en]

    In the paper, we discuss negotiations of the professional role that makes the practise of expertise knowledge (fully) possible, taking our study of as a point of departure. In the case of physicians, there is a common assumption that their knowledge and skills are transnational, spatially unbound and easily transferable from one setting to another. In our study, the Polish doctors migrating to Sweden, England or France tell that both strictly theoretical research and “hands-on”- skills where good results can be quickly observed (e.g. in surgery or anaesthesiology) are easily transferable. Other kinds of experiential and more culturally specific knowledge (e.g. communication with patients or strategies for health-care organizing) are, however, often encountered with disinterest in a new national setting or get more easily “lost in translation”. Some of the Polish doctors tell that the Swedish colleagues treat the Swedish health-care as superior in every aspect and show little interests in learning from the former East Europeans’ experience – even if their experiential knowledge may be more complex.

    Additionally, the skills required of a doctor are often much wider than just medical or administrative. When they come to Sweden, France or England, they do it on the basis of a transnationally valued diplomas and professional practise in the (ideal type of?) overarching, transnational medical field where the expert knowledge is supposed to be unbound and objectively judged. But, as we conclude from our interviews, there are the concrete and tangible national and local medical sub-fields coexisting with this transnational field. These sub-fields inhabit a whole set of complex power dimensions and cultural assumptions on the various competences, traditions, know-how, procedures etc. which fit the “proper” image of a doctor. Those are not only medical – there are expectations on the (nationally, or even locally bound, class- and gender-specific) social behaviour, life-style, embodied cultural capital (Bourdieu) marked by eloquence, body language, viable expressions of emotions and values, opinions etc. All of these prerequisites influence a migrating doctor’s possibility to perform a culturally valued professional role. The Polish doctors tell about their struggles to comprehend, navigate among, adapt to, challenge or negotiate such implicit, locally or nationally situated requirements of the doctor’s role, which lie beyond the strictly medical sphere, but still influence their professional authority. In their endeavour to become a culturally viable professional subject, they may try cultural “passing”, e.g. acting along the class- gender-, nationally etc. specific expectations and become a skilful doctor and not a skilful “Polish doctor”. Thus from the Polish professional subject, through the transnational passage, they become once more locally situated and culturally accepted professional subjects.  But they may also choose the role of a colourful foreign doctor, especially if they possess a set of unique medical competences, which is of value to the local setting – as the “transnational” medical knowledge is ranked higher than the locally bound knowledge.

     

  • 47.
    Wolanik Boström, Katarzyna
    et al.
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts, Department of culture and media studies.
    Öhlander, Magnus
    Institutionen för genus, kultur och historia, Södertörns Högskola.
    Polska läkare i Sverige: om läkarroll, status och kulturella processer2011In: Socialmedicinsk Tidskrift, ISSN 0037-833X, Vol. 88, no 3, p. 273-281Article in journal (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    The article presents an analysis on Polish-born doctors’ experiences of changes of status and cultural variations in connection to their migration to Sweden. The point of departure is two work-life interviews with Polish doctors who are currently working in Sweden. The medical field in which the doctors dwell can be understood as mainly transnational, where knowledge and competences are acknowledged on a nation-exceeding level, but there are also national sub-fields with specific norms and traditions. The interviews show that the high social status connected to the profession cannot be easily translated from Polish to Swedish context. Both professional status and the manoeuvre space in the work-place are influenced by cultural difference.

  • 48.
    Wolanik Boström, Katarzyna
    et al.
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts, Department of culture and media studies.
    Öhlander, Magnus
    Re-negotiating Symbolic Capital, Status, and Knowledge: Polish Physicians in Sweden2015In: Rethinking Ethnography in Central Europe / [ed] Hana Cervinkova, Michal Buchowski, Zdenek Uherek, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, p. 41-57Chapter in book (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    This chapter explores what happens when well-educated, highly skilled professionals leave their country of origin to work abroad to make use of their skills and competences in another organizational framework and cultural context. Do they experience any limits regarding the acknowledgement of their seemingly transnational competences and diplomas? What kind of obstacles do they meet and what are their strategies for reestablishing professionalism and status in a new setting? We present the results from our ethnographic study “Polish Doctors in Swedish Medical Care”  as a point of departure for a Bourdieu-inspired discussion on negotiations regarding symbolic capital in another national medical field (cf. Bourdieu 1984, 1988) and the conditions and limitations of transnational mobility of symbolic capital.

  • 49.
    Wolanik Boström, Katarzyna
    et al.
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts, Department of culture and media studies.
    Öhlander, Magnus
    Yrkesvardag mellan friktion och integration: Polskfödda läkare i Sverige2018In: Högutbildade migranter i Sverige / [ed] Maja Povrzanovic Frykman & Magnus Öhlander, Lund: Arkiv förlag & tidskrift, 2018, p. 157-170Chapter in book (Other academic)
  • 50.
    Wolanik Boström, Katarzyna
    et al.
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts.
    Öhlander, Magnus
    Pettersson, Helena
    Umeå University, Faculty of Arts, Department of culture and media studies.
    “Family timing” and reflexive learning in highly skilled international mobility. The case of Swedish medical professionals2016Conference paper (Other academic)
    Abstract [en]

    In the paper, we discuss how a “family timing” may be a crucial factor in international mobility and result in reflexive learning outside the occupational context. The paper is based on narrative interviews with Swedish physicians and molecular biologists. In the stories, the family often creates a kind of inertia and complication for working abroad. The interviewees’ dreams of career development, learning new theories and methods or “making a difference” in the world must be negotiated with a partner pursuing his/her own career, as well as the rest of the family. But mobility is also regarded as an amazing opportunity for the whole family to learn about new cultural and social contexts, even though the prolonged stay abroad means both hardships and benefits and there are a lot of logistics and practicalities to take care of. We discuss the informants’ experiences of how international mobility influences gender roles and the ideals of dual careers, equal relationship and a respectful parenthood, vital parts of the image of Swedish middle class. For the specialists, a proper “family timing” and different strategies for “family adjustment” are vital aspects in for evaluating the stay as successful – even a rewarding job and excellent professional learning may fall short if the children or partner are miserable. The stay abroad is, however, regarded as a time for both professional learning and a valuable learning for the whole family, questioning the taken for granted and acquiring social and cultural skills and extended reflexive knowledge.

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