This visual essay reflexively explores experimental photographic research methods. Using cyanotypes, beer can cameras, maps, and exhibitions to make physical spaces and surfaces occupied by photography tangible, I show how these methods work with traditional anthropological approaches to orient us to how local place is represented, and how this visual critique connects with the ways landscape is experienced in contrast to historical national discourses. These methods were aimed at having a better understanding of local experiences and understandings of Northern landscapes in rural Sweden.

I examine how tensions between locals, environmentalists, and State politicians in a small town in northern Sweden are reinforced through national discourses of climate change and sustainability. Turbulence emerges across different scales of responsibility and environmental engagement in Arjeplog as politicians are seen by local inhabitants to be engaging more with the global conversation than with the local experience of living in the north. Moreover, many people view the environmentalist discourses from the politicians in the south, whom they deem to be out of touch with rural life, as threatening to the local experience of nature. These discourses pose a threat to their reliance on petrol, essential for travel, and are experienced locally as a continuation of the south’s historical interference in the region. Based on thirteen months of field research, I argue that mistrust of the various messengers of climate change, including politicians and environmentalists, is a crucial part of the scepticism towards the climate change discourse and that we as researchers need to utilise the strengths of anthropology in examining the reception (or refusal) of climate change. The locals’ mistrust of environment discourses had implications for my positionality, as I was associated with these perceived ‘outsider’ sensibilities. While the anthropology of climate change often focusses on physical impacts and resilience, I argue that we need to pay due attention to the local turbulence surrounding the discourses of climate change, which exist alongside the physical phenomena.  

The aim of this paper is to point out benefits as well as disadvantages associated with the use of locally available, not necessarily standardized, components in stand-alone electrical power systems at rural locations. Advantages and challenges arising when the direct involvement in design, construction and maintenance of the power system is reserved to people based in the area of implementation are discussed. The presented research is centered around one particular PV-diesel hybrid system in Tanzania; a case study in which technical and social aspects related to the particular power system are studied.

This thesis explores the ways in which improvements in HIV and AIDStreatment affect the German non-governmental support community for HIVpositivepeople. It draws on two months of anthropological fieldwork conductedin four different federal states in Germany between June and August 2012. Thisfieldwork consists of semi-structured interviews and participant observation.The study seeks to understand how the reduction in severity of an HIV diagnosisaffects the people involved in HIV/AIDS-related education and social support,and the ways in which their communities are reproduced. The thesis will arguethat a perception of AIDS as a normal, treatable disease coexists withdiscriminatory practices that stem from fear. It seeks to trace how both viewsaffect the non-governmental AIDS-sector. It will argue, further, that thoseindividuals who work formally and informally in the sector act as bearers of abiopolitical regime. The thesis demonstrates that a belief in the notion ofpersonal responsibility and autonomy is central to this form of biopolitics, andexplains the ways in which they adapt and extend this regime to the lives ofHIV-positive people. A belief in the notion of personal responsibility andautonomy causes HIV-positive people who want to avoid being perceived asirresponsible to keep their diagnosis to themselves.

This article uses ethnographic research from two Year 8 classes in two middle-sized secondary schools about a kilometre apart in a Swedish west-coast town to examine how new policies for personalised learning have developed in practice, in the performative cultures of modern schools in a commodity society. One school stands in a predominantly middle-class area of privately owned 'low-rise' houses. The other is in an area of 'high-rise' rented accommodation, where the first language of many homes is not Swedish. The differences are important. According to the article, personalised learning mobilises material and social resources in these schools that support new forms of individualistic, selfish and private accumulations of education goods from public provision and a valorisation of self-interest and private value as the common basis for educational culture. The article describes this cultural production in school and links it to processes of cultural and social reproduction.

The idea of democratic schooling with its emphasis on equality is seriously attacked by the marketisation of education. New policies of educational restructuring emphasise accountability and close links between school and industry, where schools and students become targets of constant evaluation and competition. This book challenges such policies and practices through analyses of their negative consequences for social justice and democracy. It explores the effects of restructuring on everyday life in schools and other educational institutions and presents analyses of how differences based on gender, social class, ethnicity, nationality and embodiment are dealt with in educational settings. The authors draw on a range of theories, including poststructuralist, postcolonial, feminist and Marxist perspectives, and the localised ethnographies are contextualised in changing educational politics. How policies are contradicted by practices is discussed in relation to the classroom, teacher education and issues of inclusion and exclusion. A critical gaze is directed at Nordic countries where restructuring processes contradict a political discourse based on equality and comprehensive education. It is the immersion in the daily life of institutions and their participants that gives ethnography a particular edge in obtaining insights into what changes and what stays the same. This book provides a looking glass into the tensions and contradictions that New Right policies have introduced in educational institutions. Actors in the field experience frustration in introducing changes and controlling the direction of those changes. It is their voices that ethnographers try to hear and disseminate. Most ethnographers do not simply tell a (more or less) gripping story about the field - they aim to analyse the practices they encounter, and endeavour to render them into analytical narratives that tell different stories than those produced through policy research or questionnaires and interviews. Although these are not necessarily better stories, we suggest that they are particularly relevant in demonstrating the organisation and practice of producing difference. (Description by the publisher).

This article argues that the essentialist and the constructivist positions within theories of ethnicity are in fact compatible if one introduces a concept here called "internalized fluid capacities", connoting that which is inherently (genetically) dispositional — and in that sense biologically "anticipated" — but which remains to be developed into observable social characteristics through sociocultural impact. This perspective is based on the genetic capacity to mold or "instruct" the development of an organism from its embryonic state and onwards by using prior stages as points of departure for further instructions. In this way, certain fluid capacities become imprinted in individuals and collectivities through reinforcing interaction with the ambient society. These capacities may then harden and develop into apparent "essentials", forming a group's collective self-image. The article concludes with the suggestion that this explanatory model can be usefully applied to the debate around Swedish governmental definitions of Saamihood.

Texten följer hur figuren Santa Ana, Marias moder och katolskt skyddshelgon, framställs i olika sammanhang, medier och föreställande former i en by i södra Mexiko som bär helgonets namn. På vilka olika sätt kan Santa Ana - helgonfiguren såväl som platsen - träda fram i mötet mellan två skilda sociokulturella sammanhang där de relitiösa och politiska axlarna korsas? Tolkningarna som Santa Ana-berättelserna ger upphov till skifter mellan olika medietyper och lokaliteter, i vilka olika varianter av religiositet och konstnärligthet flätas ihop. 

With over 40 years of direct democratic organization and one shared bank account amongst 102 members, kibbutz Samar is a community which stands for an alternative life style compared to the historical development of the Kibbutzim Movement in Israel. In the development of the traditional kibbutzim, from communist/socialist organization to a partly forced privatization and capitalist renewal of the communist/socialist ideals, kibbutz Samar comes to represent an alternative entity through its exclusion of written and formalized rules. Tracing the ways that members of kibbutz Samar have been organizing their life alternatively in regard of the traditional and the renewal kibbutzim, I investigate how the findings of David Graeber's analysis of bureaucracy helps to understand notions of hierarchy, freedom, cooperation, shared economy, direct democracy, and anarchism. This study finds that the members of Samar conduct themselves, comprehensively, in terms of a particular kind of egalitarian management, which is identified as an anarchic orthopraxy (a way-seeking paradigm orientation) opposed to an orthodox (truth-seeking-paradigm) orientation. Given the tendency for globalized, neoliberal, economic, bureaucratic organization to concentrate power and thus constrict the potential means and possibilities of human organization, members of Samar create meaning and the transformation of social life by replacing the principal of formalized rule with that (principle) of social utility.

This article deals with individuals of immigrant background in Swedish higher education—i.e., those who have a PhD and work in Swedish universities. The aim of the study is to examine whether and how factors other than academic qualifications—such as gender and migrant background—may affect the individual’s ability to find employment and pursue a successful career in a Swedish institution of higher education. The data used in the first section are Swedish registry data (LISA database and population), administered by Statistics Sweden. The second part of the paper is based on semi-structured interviews with 19 academics of migrant background. The results show that, given the same work experience and compared to the reference group (born in Sweden with at least one Swedish-born parent), individuals born in Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America are, firstly, more likely to be unemployed and, secondly, if they are employed, to have a lower income (lower position). The ways in which such gaps arises are also examined.

This study examines how early age immigrants to Sweden from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Chile and Somalia perform in education and the labour market in comparison with the children of natives. As the results demonstrate, the socio-economic position of the parents, family structure and other demographic characteristics of individuals only partially explain the differences between the descendants of natives and young immigrants from these countries. A further analysis demonstrates that the socio-historical contexts into which these immigrant children arrive and settle, that is the processes of migration, are equally likely to have an impact on young immigrants' performance.

The Lipa Temporary Reception Centre is a transit camp, located in the North-West part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, for only single men who cross the Balkan Route to enter the European Union territory through the Croatian border.

This thesis aims to describe the life inside the camp, combining an analysis of Lipa architecture with the experiences of the people who transited through there. A focus on space and relationships will then drive this thesis, reflecting on how the transit camp features and stylistic decisions affected people's experiences: discussing how places and individuals mutually influenced each other in such a context. More specifically, it will highlight the broad political implications that led to the opening of migrant reception centres like Lipa and discuss their hypothetical temporary nature, studying the roles played by European Union Institutions and non-governmental organizations within the field.

This research is the outcome of ethnographic fieldwork conducted inside the Lipa Temporary Reception Centre from November 8th until December 19th and from the investigation of the existing literature regarding the design of camps and the Balkan Route. 

Throughout history South Africa has been dominated by a white race group and during the era of apartheid racial segregation was encouraged as well as an idea of racial order was established through institutionalised racism. Marriage across racial borders was prohibited according to the Mixed Marriages Act. The end of apartheid and the transition to democracy in 1994 meant a radical political change within the country, but the issue of race became a question of social and economic inequality. In this essay I study the approaches and experiences of interracial couples in the post-apartheid society, and interracial couples impact on the South African society. I am particularly interested in the South Africans idea of social order today and whereas racial thinking is still present in the postapartheid society. I use qualitative content analysis to discuss ideas of order in relation to race and my material consist in audio files from interviews with interracial couples, as well as literature, books and articles. In my analysis I discuss cultural and social norms, fear of race pollution, prejudice and racial stereotypes as well as thoughts about unity and humanness. Racial thinking is still present in the South African society although the development of relationships across racial borders has increased since the end of apartheid. The interracial couples in my study notice a certain uncomfortableness among the people in their surroundings, some more than others, because people are still getting used to the thought of interracial couples. Although racist beliefs and power relations are still implied by the surroundings the couples appear to feel increasingly at home in South Africa, even though they live in an in-between world, in a New South Africa. 

Materialist Activist Communities (MACs) concern themselves with material flows in a politically engaged form of maker culture. They speculate, design and make collectively, with a marked environmental orientation, often developing impossible forms of bio-hacking and bio-art. The futures animating them grow out of technoscientific and mundane presents, but as they make knowledge on the sidelines, materializing the existing and the improbable, such groups render the Anthropocene and more-than-human futures tangible. While “maker culture” has been prone to techno-utopian hype, MACs embrace dirt, mess and bodies nurturing a “dirt way” of learning, a principled way of being in situated and partial confusion. We imagine alongside them, also in the dirt way, through ethnography, an explicitly messy way of working out what is important and why.

The chapter is a theoretical discussion about disasters and vulnerability in relation to time, and predominantly in relation to the future. It is critically scrutinizing disaster management strategies and the organization of recovery work by shedding light over (power) relations between rescuers and victims and between local knowledge and expert knowledge. In doing so, the chapter suggests alternative ways of how to gain knowledge trough participation. By exceeding the notions of recovery and resilience using concepts as utopia and dystopia the chapter is a gentle reminder of that we are responsible for a future that is not ours – but “theirs”.

The equine industry faces problems in terms of recruitment and retention of employees when it comes to fostering decent working conditions and sustainable employments, despite the obvious advantage of offering a lifestyle-oriented work with the privilege of personal leisure interests. The overall aim is to gain knowledge of how employees in the equine industry – here including riding schools and trotting stables – experience their work and work environment. The study is part of two larger research projects, financed by the Swedish-Norwegian Foundation for Equine Research and AFA Insurance, where the purpose is to, in close collaboration with the equine industry, identify and implement methods and tools for a systematic work environment management. The study includes data from a questionnaire, individual interviews and observations. The results showed that the employees considered their work as one of the most important things in life, that they primarily worked for self-realization and good quality of life and that they perceived their current work both attractive and meaningful. Love of horses, passion for the sport, practical work in an outdoor setting, significant, stimulating and varied tasks as well as workplace relations, are the most important factors for the attractiveness and meaningfulness of the work. Nevertheless, imbalance between work and leisure time as well as high physical workload and lack of adequate equipment challenges the experience of an attractive, meaningful and sustainable work. The experiences differed somewhat between the two groups examined, i.e. employees in riding schools and trotting stables.

Abstract Rationale, aims and objectives  In this article, ideal conceptions about teamwork are tested. The research question posed is: How are teams in psychiatry formed? Three theoretical concepts that distinguish groups from teams are presented: sequentiality, parallelism and synchronicity. The presumption is that groups cooperate sequentially and teams synchronously, while the parallel work mode is a transitional form between group and team. Methods  Three psychiatric outpatient teams at a university hospital specialist clinic were studied. Data were collected through 25 personal interviews and 82 hours of observations. The data collection was carried out over 18 months (2008–2009). Results  Results show: (1) that the three theoretical distinctions between group and team need to be supplemented with two intermediate forms, semiparallel and semisynchronous teamwork; and (2) that teamwork is not characterized by striving towards a synchronous ideal but instead is marked by an adaptive interaction between sequential, parallel and synchronous working modes. Conclusions  The article points to a new intermediate stage between group and team. This intermediate stage is called semiparallel teamwork. The study shows that practical teamwork is not characterized by a synchronous ideal, but rather is about how to adaptively find acceptable solutions to a series of practical problems. The study emphasizes the importance of the team varying between different working modes, so-called semisystematics.

Användning av telemedicin förväntas möjliggöra access till expertråd oavsett var patienten eller läkaren befinner sig geografiskt. I artikeln analyseras, utifrån intervjuer med specialistläkare vid ett universitetssjukhus, hur en form av telemedicin, multidisciplinära videokonferenser mellan olika sjukhus, påverkar beslut och relationer i vården. Begrepp som ”artikuleringsarbete”, ”tyst integrering” och ”skript” används för att förstå beslutsfattandet på distans. Artikeln visar att effektivitet i vården kan tolkas på olika sätt, tar upp hur samarbete mellan specialområden uppfattas samt visar på ambivalenser vad gäller centralisering eller decentralisering av medicinsk kunskap mellan sjukhus med teknikens hjälp.