Problematic Yet Needed: Shifting Problematisations of Migrant Reception in Malmö 1945–1970

This article describes and analyses by whom, in what ways and with what consequences migrant reception was performed in Malmö during the period 1945–1970 and how this changed over time. Inspired by Carol Bacchi’s ‘what’s the problem represented to be’ (wpr) approach, the article analyses the shifting problematisations of migrant reception in Malmö, and argues that there were two decisive shifts in Malmö’s migrant reception policy. With the help of Robert Miles’ concept of racialisation, the article shows that different migrant groups were racialised in different ways, depending on how they were depicted by the Swedish society. We also identify a gendered racialisation as women and men were racialised differently.

Swedish Media, Fundamental Values and the Opinion Corridor in the 2018 Election

Sweden is usually ranking very highly in terms of global democracy and transparency indexes. The 2018 elections in Sweden were very divisive and bitterly fought, where there was an open conflict between the mainstream political establishment parties and the anti-political establishment Swedish Democrats. Mainstream Swedish media were not neutral bystanders in the election coverage, in the months before and after the September 2018 elections. The election coverage framing featured an idealised national myth that uses the notion of various acceptable fundamental values to define it, and an idealised Swedish society. Those actors whose values and norms that do not fit these ideals were subjected to attack and derision within a concept of consensus enforcement known as the opinion corridor, which is akin to the spiral of silence.

Gendered Activation at the Expense of Gender Equality? Activation and Gender Equality as Competing Logics in the Swedish Welfare State

This study aims to understand how goals of activation and gender equality interact in labor market programs directed towards activating unemployed participants. The study draws on interviews with 28 social workers and managers at four Swedish municipally governed labor market programs typically targeted towards poor, unemployed individuals with little to no attachment to the labor market or social insurance system. Our findings show that activation goals are understood to be clear cut and a dominant logic within the labor market programs. The gender equality goals are understood as fuzzy and subordinate to the activation logic. Our theoretical analysis, based on neo-institutional theory, shows that gendered activation as a hybrid logic is created within the four programs as a means of handling the competing logics of gender equality and activation. Gendered activation may be reasonable on an individual level, where women in long-term unemployment can sustain a higher income through work and become financially independent. In the context of the gender segregated labor market, gendered activation reproduces gendered inequalities when an increasing interest for activation policy among welfare states overshadows claims of gender equality. Furthermore, our study exemplifies the systemic reproduction of racist discourse within social- and labour market policies. Within the logic of gendered activation, migrant women become singled out as specifically problematic for Swedish society to handle when unemployment is given gendered and cultural explanations. Through the logic of gendered activation, gender equality goals become no-matter-what employment rather than employment leading to equal outcomes.

Activity levels influence frequency of premature atrial contractions

Background Frequent premature atrial contractions (PACs) are associated with substantially increased risk of atrial fibrillation (AF) and stroke, but PAC count varies substantially day-to-day. With the emergence of potential therapies for primary prevention of AF reliable estimation of PAC frequency is increasingly relevant, as is an understanding of PAC determinants. Purpose To determine the effect of daily activity and heart rate on an individuals' daily PAC count. Methods We included a random sample of patients 18–85 years without AF who recorded an ambulatory ECG for 7–31 days in the U.S.A during 2019 using a full-disclosure mobile cardiac telemetry device, and who had ≥500PACs on at least one recording day. PACs were algorithmically detected and manually verified. PAC count and activity was sampled for each individual and each recording day during daytime (06–22h). The effect of activity on daily PAC count was assessed in a negative binomial regression model including age, sex and with a random effect for individual, to account for confounding due to inter-individual differences. Results The study population consisted of 2,094 patients, of which 48% were men (Fig 1). Mean time spent in activity was 32% (standard deviation (SD 10%) for men and women 31% (SD 10%) for women (Fig 2). The median PAC count was 592 (inter-quartile range 1280). Beyond age, sex and intra-individual differences PAC frequency was determined by activity levels, (intercept 629 PACs; incidence rate ratio per 10 minute increase in activity 1.03, p<0.0001). A 1-hour increase in daily activity was associated with a 20% increase in daily PACs count. Conclusions Physical activity is associated with increased PACs counts, implying both that a reliable diagnosis of PAC frequency needs to be conducted during a person's habitual level of activity and that PAC frequency is modifiable. In-hospital assessments of PACs while patients are mainly inactive may underestimate PAC frequency. FUNDunding Acknowledgement Type of funding sources: Foundation. Main funding source(s): the Swedish Society For Medical Researchthe Swedish Heart and Lung Foundation Age and sex distribution Activity levels by sex

“We can’t get stuck in old ways”: Swedish sports club’s integration efforts with children and youth in migration

The last years many people have been forcibly displaced due to circumstances such as conflicts in the world, and many people have come to Sweden for shelter. It has been challenging for Swedish society to receive and guide newcomers through the resettlement process, and many organizations in civil society, such as sports clubs, have been invited to support the resettlement. However, a limited numbers of studies has drawn the attention to sports clubs experiences. Therefore the aim of the paper was enhance understanding of sports clubs’ prerequesites and experiences of integration efforts with immigrant children and youth. Ten Swedish clubs with experience of working with newcomers participated. Semi-structured interviews were conducted, and analyzed with qualitative content analysis. Two categories were identified: Struggling with sporting values and organization and Seeing integration in everyday activities. The clubs experienced that integration occurs in everyday activities, but current ideas focusing competition and rigid organization of sports constrained possibilities for integrating newcomers with no or limited former experience of club sports. The clubs experienced potential to contribute to personal development, social connectedness and enjoyment in a new society and building bridges between cultures. In conclusion, clubs cannot solve the challenges of resettlement in society but have potential to be part of larger societal networks of integration.

Dream weaving and sonic metalepsis in Jan Troell’s Land of Dreams

Jan Troell’s Sagolandet (Land of Dreams) (1988) presents itself as a documentary about 1980s Swedish society, but is also a film about filmmaking, the imagination, memory and autobiography. The film has multiple narrative levels: interviews, home movie footage, autobiographical anecdotes and imaginative sequences. Commentary and guiding themes are drawn from the theories of psychoanalyst Rollo May. These strata and themes have associated musical motifs and/or sound effects, which, as the film progresses, serve as an ontological bridge between the different strata. Land of Dreams is structured as both a multistrand and multiform narrative with the intercutting of multiple stories with multiple protagonists (multistrand) mixed with dream worlds and internal-subjective perspectives of Troell (multiform). The different narrative strata invite metalepsis, a type of narrative ‘transgression’ that occurs across the boundaries of distinct narrative worlds. In Land of Dreams, voice, music and sound effects act as metaleptic agents, transgressing different strata through four interrelated techniques: (1) metaleptic ‘i-voices’; (2) musical structures made up of ironic and disjunctive musical textures; (3) musical motifs transgressing narrative and ontological boundaries and (4) musical metaleptic warps. Musical metalepsis in Land of Dreams functions in a way that is emblematic of how political decisions and public policy infiltrate the private sphere, human consciousness and even dreams of the future.

Regulating Research: The Origins and Institutionalization of Research Ethics Committees in Sweden

The year 1966 saw the birth of Sweden’s first formal Research Ethics Committee (rec) at the medical university Karolinska Institute (ki). In the following years other ethical committees were institutionalized, coordinated by a working group steered by the Swedish Medical Research Council (smrc). Research ethical issues of a principled nature were also discussed by the Ethics Delegation of the Swedish Society of Medicine (ssm). Between 1966 and 1975, around 500 research proposals were assessed by rec s in Sweden, and the medical community started to follow certain protocols when preparing applications for ethical review. This paper traces the origins and early development of the rec system in Sweden and offers an analysis of their practices, discussions, and assessments through the reading of meeting protocols and correspondence between central actors. The aim is to sketch out how and why the system of research ethics committees emerged, became institutionalized, and developed in Sweden from the 1960s to the early 1980s. This paper connects to the recent empirical turn in historical research on medical research ethics and regulations, by focusing on how the insiders, i.e., the medical community, reacted to new demands of ethical review. The analysis illustrates how the medical researchers interacted with transnational funders, the Patients Association, a broader public, governmental authorities, and parliamentary politics when developing the Swedish rec system.

Durable Homelessness: From Negotiations to Emulation

In recent decades, Sweden has seen extensive change in its housing policy, with emphasis shifting from “good housing for all” to marketisation and the supposed benefits of private ownership (Bengtsson, 2013; Grander, 2018). Consequently, Swedish society is now facing increasing homelessness rates, including whole new groups of social service clients due to housing shortages and people’s difficulties accessing the housing market. This article examines the complexities emerging from diverging institutional frames and points specifically to a dividing line between those who can access housing independently and those who need support from the social services. The article describes how such a categorical division/dividing line is institutionalised in the organisation of the social services’ work with homelessness and points to causes and effects of this situation. The case study is based on interviews and documents. The interviewees are staff from the municipal social services and the municipal public housing company. Our theoretical point of departure is Tilly’s (1999) “categorical inequality,” using exploitation, opportunity hoarding, emulation, and adaptation to explain how homelessness is (created and) maintained in our case study. The results show the dependency of social services on external actors and demonstrate the problematic consequences both for those referred to social services and for the practical work within them, including a requirement to stringently control clients. The results further show how it is possible for the social services to maintain collaboration with (public) housing companies at the same time as the most vulnerable clients are permanently denied housing.

Disconnection as Distinction

Disconnecting from digital media is often mentioned in the public debate as a way of improving quality of life, productivity, sustainability, and so forth. However, not everyone can afford to disconnect, and media morality varies across social space. Based on data from a national Swedish survey (2019), this chapter applies correspondence analysis and a Bourdieusian theoretical framework to chart the extent to which different social groups prioritize disconnecting in different places, and the forms of digital unease associated with smartphone use. Such preferences are mapped onto a social space constructed around the distribution of economic and cultural capital in Swedish society, also illuminating how disconnection practices correspond to other lifestyle practices. The analysis reveals that the handling of digital (dis)connection (in different places) plays into overarching patterns of taste and cultural distinction. As such, disconnection manifests as an emerging moral-symbolic battleground in affluent societies.