Tradition, Change and Variation : Past and Present Trends in Public Old-age Care

The general aim of this dissertation is to describe and analyse how public old-age care in Sweden has developed and changed during the last century. The study applies a provider perspective on how care has been planned and professionally carried out. A broader social policy perspective, studying old-age care at central/national as well as local/municipal level, is also developed. A special focus is directed at the large local variation in care and services for the elderly. The empirical base is comprised of official documents and other public sources, survey data from interviews with elderly recipients of public old-age care, and official statistics on publicly financed and controlled old-age care and services. Study I addresses the development of old-age care in Sweden during the twentieth century by studying an important occupation in this field – the supervisors and their professional roles, tasks and working conditions. Throughout, the roles of supervisors have followed the prevailing official policy on the proper way to provide care for elderly people in Sweden; from poor relief at the beginning of the 1900s, via a generous level of services in the 1960s and 1970s, to today’s restricted and economy-controlled mode of operation. Study II describes and compares two main forms of public old-age care in Sweden today, home help services and institutional care. The care-load found in home-based care was comparable to and sometimes even larger than in service-homes and other institutions, indicating that large care needs among elderly people in Sweden today can be met in their homes as well as in institutional settings. Studies III and IV analyse the local variation in public old-age care in Sweden. During the last decades there has been an overall decline in home help services. The coverage of home help for elderly people shows large differences between municipalities throughout this period, and the relative variation has increased. The local disparity seems to depend more on historical factors, e.g., previous coverage rates, than on the present municipal situation in levels of need or local economy and politics. In an introductory part the four papers are linked together by an outline of the demographic situation and the social policy model for old-age care in Sweden. Trends that have been apparent over time, e.g. professionalisation and market orientation, are traced and discussed. Conflicts between prevailing ideologies are analysed, in regards to for instance home-based and institution-based care, social and medical culture, and local and central levels of decision-making. ’Welfare municipality’, ‘path dependency’, and ‘decentralisation’ are suggested as a conceptual framework for describing the large and increasing local variations in old-age care. Finally, implications of the four studies with regard to old-age care policy and further research are discussed.

Flat roofs renovation: a life cycle approach for environmental impact assessment and economic effectiveness

The high energy consumption caused by the building sector and the continuous growth and ageing of the existing housing stock show the importance of housing renovation to improve the quality of the environment. This research compares the environmental performance of flat roof systems (insulation, roofing membrane and covering layer) using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). The aim is to give indications on how to improve the environmental performance of housing. This research uses a reference building located in the Netherlands and considers environmental impacts related to materials, energy consumption for heating and maintenance activities. It indicates impact scores for each material taking into account interconnections between the layers and between the different parts of the life cycle. It compares the environmental and economic performances of PV panels and of different materials and thermal resistance values for the insulation. These comparisons show that PV panels are convenient from an environmental and economic point of view. The same is true for the insulation layer, especially for materials as PIR (polyisocyanurate) and EPS (expanded polystyrene). It shows that energy consumption for heating causes a larger share of impact scores than production of the materials and maintenance activities. The insulation also causes larger impact scores comparing to roofing membrane and covering layer. The results show which materials are preferable for flat roof renovation and what causes the largest shares of impact. This gives indication to the roofers and to other stakeholders about how to reduce the environmental impact of the existing housing stock.

Bridging innovation, nature and tradition: assessment of strategies for rural tourism development in Maramureş (Romania)

In the frame of EU rural policy, always more oriented towards environmental concerns and green livelihoods, Romania stands out for the predominance of rural areas and high nature value farming. The country has to face the challenge of joining the modernization process of rural farming systems with the valorization of local assets. Tourism has emerged as one of the main drivers of change and contributors for a sustainable exploitation of local resources. Rural tourism (RT) can foster the enhancement of the territorial capital (TC), the preservation of public goods (PGs) and the promotion of a more environmental oriented livelihood. The research focuses on a case study area, two valleys from Maramureş, where environmental approaches as diversification strategies are partially explored. The work investigates the role of tourism initiatives for the promotion of green oriented practices. The first part of the work is based on a literature review and interdisciplinary analysis of secondary data to identify the key issues: from rural development policy, to the concept of TC, of PGs and RT. The Romanian development programmes and related strategies are investigated; afterwards the characteristics of the County and the role of RT as diversification and valorisation policies is considered. The second part is based on the collection of primary data through interviews to different local stakeholders (farmers owners of rural guesthouses, local administrators, networks and artisans). The main frequencies are analyzed, a cluster analysis is computed to evaluate the similarities within the most representative groups and a comparative analysis is carried out between the two Valleys. The frame of the analysis is based on a set of indicators following the dimensions of the TC, to assess the characteristics of the local stakeholders and to outline the perception about the local PGs and on the adopted strategies to manage the territory. Final considerations are elaborated and few scenarios are outlined, giving relevance to the importance of improving awareness and creating embeddedness among public-private local stakeholders and resources as a tool for a socio-economic and environmental development of the area.

Cicero, Tullia, and Marcus: Gender-Specific Concerns for Family Tradition?

A fair number of Cicero's letters reveal his concern for his daughter Tullia and his son Marcus. Recent scholarship has read these letters as evidence for a ‘natural’ emotional attachment of a father to his children, in reaction to Philippe Ariès's opposite claim. This chapter considers whether Cicero's letters can be analysed only as expressions of paternal affection. The fact that the pater familias Cicero occupies a political position simultaneously in his nuclear family, his domus, and the Senate, results in a concern for his prestige within the social field of the aristocracy. And this concern is necessarily conferred upon his support of the education and the social and political career of his children. The chapter traces the gender-specific differences between Cicero's treatment of Tullia and Marcus, shows the social construction of parental affection, and contributes to a further understanding of the different functions of daughters and sons in the social force field of family memory.

Wom(b)anism: Reading Relationships Between the Community and the Womb in Sankofa, The Women of Brewster Place, and Corregidora

This project attempts to contribute to the various discourses within the black womanist tradition. In 1983, Alice Walker published her landmark collection of essays entitled In Search of Our Mother Gardens: Womanist Prose. At the outset of the volume, Walker defines the core concept of womanism. After a poetic four-part definition of the term womanist, Walker concludes by stating, 'womanist is to feminist as purple to lavender' (Phillips 19). Although this analogy is critically engaged, the scholarly discourse that emerged in response to Walker's proposition shapes the intellectual inner workings of this project. Certain established concepts (such as ancestral mediation or the laying on of hands) work in conjunction with my own concepts of 'wom(b)anism' and 'the communal womb' to frame the interpretive discussions throughout these pages. Wom(b)anism and the communal womb both emerge from the black feminist and womanist traditions, especially via the role of ancestral mediation but also within the contested discourses on womanism itself. I apply the two concepts (wom(b)anism and the communal womb) to my readings of Haile Gerima's Sankofa, Gloria Naylor's The Women of Brewster Place, and Gayl Jones' Corregidora. The relationship between the community and women's wombs across each of these texts construct a narrative that features ancestral mediation (or intervention), various acts of violence committed against women's bodies, and the complicated circumstances through which women heal themselves andtheir communities.