Projekt Norrliden : Om småstadspressens etnifiering och genderisering av en förort

The Norrliden project. Genderisation and ethnification of a low status residential area in the local press Media often contributes to segregation by constructing low status residential areas as “different” from what is “normal” and “Swedish”. Research into media representations of these residential areas often focuses big city contexts. Furthermore, research tends to be preoccupied with the construction of ethnic differences, paying little attention to the relationship between construction processes of gender and ethnicity. This article is a critical analysis of how the local daily newspapers in a medium sized town, Kalmar, construct stereotypes of immigrants and gendered identities in the low status residential area Norrliden. Two newspapers were studied in search for articles related to the area, published during the year 2005. Despite the newspapers’ claim that they want to contribute to a more nuanced and less stereotyped image of the residential area the consequences of their work seem to be the opposite. The representation sof the area are coded with stereotypes suggesting that the area is unsafe and dangerous and that the people who live there are motivated by affect and emotions rather than by successful socialisation. These representations are also characterised by notions of ethnicity and gender, as well as class. Norrliden is described as an area in need of change and improvement, as an unfinished project dependent upon aid from the outside. A reading of the 2005 media representations of Norrliden exposes an example of “symbolic violence” in that texts and photographs repeatedly degrade the area and its inhabitants.

Trans-ethnic fine mapping highlights kidney-function genes linked to salt sensitivity

We analyzed genome-wide association studies (GWASs), including data from 71,638 individuals from four ancestries, for estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR), a measure of kidney function used to define chronic kidney disease (CKD). We identified 20 loci attaining genome-wide-significant evidence of association (p < 5 × 10(-8)) with kidney function and highlighted that allelic effects on eGFR at lead SNPs are homogeneous across ancestries. We leveraged differences in the pattern of linkage disequilibrium between diverse populations to fine-map the 20 loci through construction of "credible sets" of variants driving eGFR association signals. Credible variants at the 20 eGFR loci were enriched for DNase I hypersensitivity sites (DHSs) in human kidney cells. DHS credible variants were expression quantitative trait loci for NFATC1 and RGS14 (at the SLC34A1 locus) in multiple tissues. Loss-of-function mutations in ancestral orthologs of both genes in Drosophila melanogaster were associated with altered sensitivity to salt stress. Renal mRNA expression of Nfatc1 and Rgs14 in a salt-sensitive mouse model was also reduced after exposure to a high-salt diet or induced CKD. Our study (1) demonstrates the utility of trans-ethnic fine mapping through integration of GWASs involving diverse populations with genomic annotation from relevant tissues to define molecular mechanisms by which association signals exert their effect and (2) suggests that salt sensitivity might be an important marker for biological processes that affect kidney function and CKD in humans.