Utbrändhet som arbetsskada och motståndsberättelse

Burnout as occupational injury and narrative of resistance During the last years of the 1990s and the first years of the 2000s, burnout was a common diagnosis for sick listing in Sweden. That burnout is directly related to working life was acknowledged by medical experts as well as in the public debate. The number of applications for occupational compensation due to social and organizational factors in work rose from a very modest degree to nearly a forth of the claims among occupational diseases. In this article 48 individual claims for compensation in cases of burnout as occupational disease are analyzed as narratives of resistance. In this respect they are seen as alternative accounts of risk in working life, but also as narratives about resistance. The concept, narratives of resistance, is used to understand the claimants’ argumentation for rights to compensation, as well as how the claimants draw upon public narratives of societal transformation to understand how they themselves have become ill from occupations that normally are not thought to be hazardous. One conclusion from the analysis is that the claimants regard their illness as the resistance of the body against changes in society and working life. 

Konsten att välja rätt spårvagn : en studie av segregation, skolval och unga människors studieplaner

The art of choosing the right tram – A study of urban segregation, choice of school and young people’s life plans When discussing barriers to integration and young people’s choice of school, research often focuses on language skills, cultural capital, supportive environments and other more obvious, distinct and material aspects that have an impact on educational achievement. In the present study, we have instead chosen to look at how young immigrants construct their inner career landscapes and life-plans, and how this relates to their perception of ethnicity, neighbourhood and identity. The sample used here consists of altogether twenty individuals. The interviews were used to explore certain designated dimensions and processes. All interviews were conducted in the school environment, in classrooms and other locations. The students attended two different inner-city schools. A narrative-sociological approach is used in the analysis. The young people’s perceptions and narratives are analysed in relation to concepts such as: territorial stigmatization, identity, self-perception and modifications of life plans. The findings show that the feelings of otherness which originates in housing conditions, experiences of exclusion and the everyday life of many immigrants, are transposed into the school area and transformed into strategies and life plans.

Thick viewing : empirical examples of condensed moments of narrative impact in fiction film developing theoretical concepts for intensified engagements

Abstract  In a case study about viewing habits in a Swedish audience I sampled 309 questionnaires; interviews with five focus group were conducted together with ten in-depth individual interviews discussing altogether fifteen favorite films exploring specific scenes of idiosyncratic relevance.  The outcome supports claims about viewers as active and playful (cf. Höijer 1998, Frampton 2006, Hoover 2006, Plantinga 2009). In line with mediatization theory I also argue that spiritual meaning making takes place through mediated experiences and I support theories about fiction films as important sources for moral and spiritual reflection (Partridge 2004, Zillman 2005, Lynch 2007, Plantinga 2009). What Hjarvard calls the soft side of mediatization processes (2008) is illustrated showing adults experiencing enchantment through favorite films (Jerslev 2006, Partridge 2008, Klinger 2008, Oliver & Hartmann 2010).  Vernacular meaning making embedded in everyday life and spectators dealing with fiction narratives such as Gladiator, Amelie from Montmartre or Avatar highlights the need for a more nuanced understanding of elevated cinematic experiences. The reported impact of specific movies is analyzed through theories where cognition and affect are central aspects of spectators’ engagements with a film (Tan 1996, Caroll 1999, Grodal 2009). Crucially important are theories of meaning-making where viewers’ detailed interpretation of specific scenes are embedded in high-level meaning-making where world view issues and spectators’ moral frameworks are activated (Zillman 2005, Andersson & Andersson 2005, Frampton 2006, Lynch 2007, Avila 2007, Axelson 2008, Plantinga 2009).  Also results from a growing body of empirical oriented research in film studies are relevant with an interest in what happens with the flesh and blood spectator exposed to filmic narratives (Jerslev 2006, Klinger 2008, Barker 2009, Suckfüll 2010, Oliver & Hartmann 2010). Analyzing the qualitative results of my case study, I want to challenge the claim that the viewer has to suspend higher order reflective cognitive structures in order to experience suture (Butler & Palesh 2004). What I find in my empirical examples is responses related to spectators’ highest levels of mental activity, all anchored in the sensual-emotional apparatus (Grodal 2009). My outcome is in line with a growing number of empirical case studies which support conclusions that both thinking and behavior are affected by film watching (Marsh 2007, Sückfull 2010, Oliver & Hartmann 2010, Axelson forthcoming). The presentation contributes to a development of concepts which combines aesthetic, affective and cognitive components in an investigation of spectator’s moves from emotional evaluation of intra-text narration to extra-textual assessments, testing the narrative for larger significance in idiosyncratic ways (Bordwell & Thompson 1997, Marsh 2007, Johnston 2007, Bruun Vaage 2009, Axelson 2011). There are a several profitable concepts suggested to embrace the complex interplay between affects, cognition and emotions when individuals respond to fictional narratives. Robert K. Johnston label it “deepening gaze” (2007: 307) and “transformative viewing” (2007: 305). Philosopher Mitch Avila proposes “high cognition” (2007: 228) and Casper Thybjerg ”higher meaning” (2008: 60). Torben Grodal talks about “feelings of deep meaning” (Grodal 2009: 149). With a nod to Clifford Geertz, Craig Detweiler adopts “thick description” (2007: 47) as do Kutter Callaway altering it to ”thick interpretations” (Callaway 2013: 203).  Frampton states it in a paradox; ”affective intelligence” (Frampton 2006: 166). As a result of the empirical investigation, inspired by Geertz, Detweiler & Callaway, I advocate thick viewing for capturing the viewing process of these specific moments of film experience when profound and intensified emotional interpretations take place. The author As a sociologist of religion, Tomas Axelsons research deals with people’s use of mediated narratives to make sense of reality in a society characterized by individualization, mediatization and pluralized world views.  He explores uses of fiction film as a resource in every day life and he is currently finishing his three year project funded by the Swedish Research Council: Spectator engagement in film and utopian self-reflexivity. Moving Images and Moved Minds. http://www.du.se/sv/AVM/Personal/Tomas-Axelson Bibliography Axelson, T. (Forthcoming 2014). Den rörliga bildens förmåga att beröra.[1] Stockholm: Liber Axelson, T. (In peer review). Vernacular Meaning Making. Examples of narrative impact in fiction film questioning the ’banal’ notion in mediatization theory. Nordicom Review. Nordicom Göteborg. Axelson, T. (2011). Människans behov av fiktion. Den rörliga bildens förmåga att beröra människan på djupet.[2]Kulturella perspektiv. Volume 2. Article retrieved from www.kultmed.umu.se/digitalAssets/74/74304_axelson-22011.pdf Axelson, Tomas (2010) “Narration, Visualization and Mind. Movies in everyday life as a resource for utopian self-reflection.” Paper presentation at CMRC, 7th Conference of Media, Religion & Culture in Toronto, Canada 9 – 13th August 2010. Axelson, Tomas (2008) Movies and Meaning. Studying Audience, Favourite Films and Existential Matters. Particip@tions : Journal of Audience and Reception Studies. Volume 5, (1). Doctoral dissertation summary. ACTA UNIVERSITATIS UPSALIENSIS. Article retrieved from http://www.participations.org/Volume%205/Issue%201%20-%20special/5_01_axelson.htm  [1] English translation: Moving Images and Moved Minds. [2] English translation: Our need for fiction. Deeply Moved by Moving Images. Cultural Perspectives.

Kommunal marknadsföring- Competitive identity och institutionell problematik : En komparativ fallstudie om två svenska kommuner och deras marknadsföring

Historiskt sett finns det etablerade normer i samhället som säger att en kommun endast ska bedriva traditionell kommunal verksamhet som innefattar att tillgodose välfärden (vård, skola & omsorg). Dock så har globaliseringen och urbaniseringen skapat en konkurrens om invånare vilket har lett till att kommuner idag bedriver en allt mer utvecklad marknadsföring för att attrahera fler invånare. Den här fallstudien innehåller två objekt (kommuner). Vi vill undersöka den kommunala marknadsföringen genom att fokusera på begreppen competitive identity (CI) och institutionell problematik (IP). Begreppet CI innehåller en teoretisk genomgång av komponenter i kommunal marknadsföring och IP beskriver kommunernas komplexa situation med olika institutionella krav. Genom att analysera dessa begrepp mot praktiska fall kan vi bidra till ökad förståelse om kommunal marknadsföring som är vårt syfte. Vi presenterar även en egen modell i samband med begreppet CI som ger en nyanserad bild av ämnet. Studiens resultat identifierar att kommunerna har speciella målgrupper som likt ett företag varierar beroende på deras ställning på marknaden. Genom skapandet av en CI deklarerar kommunen en önskvärd image där företeelser som inte bidrar till den blir exkluderade. Det gestaltar sig på olika sätt vilket analyseras grundligt i studien. Samtidigt illustreras motsägelsen när respondenterna i fallen säger att det är medborgarna som håller uppe imagen. Studien visar att det inte finns en enhetlig bild hur man som kommun ska hantera den institutionella komplexitet som uppstår. Fallen presenterar två olika synsätt som de finner mer lämpligt.

Exploring 'Samoaness' in the Samoan language film The Orator (O Le Tulafale)

The Pacific nation of the Independent Samoa (formerly Western Samoa)  is not known for having a developed film industry.   In 2011, a Samoan languge film called The Orator (O le Tulafale) placed the spotlight on Samoa, its people, and the Samoan culture when it became the country’s first ever film to be accepted into major international film festivals such as the 68th Venice Film Festival.  Samoans the world over have embraced the film for its richness, compassion, and authenticity. Yet at times, the film portrays the Samoan culture as harsh and cruel.   Samoans are usually quick to criticise negative portrayals of their culture but the thousands of comments on the film’s official Facebook page show otherwise.  From April 2011 to March 2012, there were only 11 comments criticising the film on Facebook, and these criticisms were denounced as ‘un-Samoan’. This raised the question as to why Samoans did not react to the unflattering portrayals of their culture, but instead react against legitimate criticisms of the film.  By using Foucault’s concept of heterotopia and the Samoan narrative structure of fāgogo, a heterotopia space and a utopia space are created in which past memories confirming Samoan cultural identity and bonds to the culture are evoked and are (re)experienced by Samoans while viewing the film.  Thus the film’s ability to encourage this is what Samoans praise rather than the actual film.  

Managerial leadership for research use in nursing and allied health care professions : a narrative synthesis protocol

BACKGROUND: Nurses and allied health care professionals (physiotherapists, occupational therapists, speech and language pathologists, dietitians) form more than half of the clinical health care workforce and play a central role in health service delivery. There is a potential to improve the quality of health care if these professionals routinely use research evidence to guide their clinical practice. However, the use of research evidence remains unpredictable and inconsistent. Leadership is consistently described in implementation research as critical to enhancing research use by health care professionals. However, this important literature has not yet been synthesized and there is a lack of clarity on what constitutes effective leadership for research use, or what kinds of intervention effectively develop leadership for the purpose of enabling and enhancing research use in clinical practice. We propose to synthesize the evidence on leadership behaviours amongst front line and senior managers that are associated with research evidence by nurses and allied health care professionals, and then determine the effectiveness of interventions that promote these behaviours.Methods/design: Using an integrated knowledge translation approach that supports a partnership between researchers and knowledge users throughout the research process, we will follow principles of knowledge synthesis using a systematic method to synthesize different types of evidence involving: searching the literature, study selection, data extraction and quality assessment, and analysis. A narrative synthesis will be conducted to explore relationships within and across studies and meta-analysis will be performed if sufficient homogeneity exists across studies employing experimental randomized control trial designs. DISCUSSION: With the engagement of knowledge users in leadership and practice, we will synthesize the research from a broad range of disciplines to understand the key elements of leadership that supports and enables research use by health care practitioners, and how to develop leadership for the purpose of enhancing research use in clinical practice.

Identity and image – the story of expertise in a manufacturing company

This thesis is an investigation on the corporate identity of the firm SSAB from a managerial viewpoint (1), the company communication through press releases (2), and the image of the company as portrayed in news press articles (3). The managerial view of the corporate identity is researched through interviews with a communication manager of SSAB (1), the corporate communication is researched through press releases from the company (2) and the image is researched in news press articles (3). The results have been deducted using content analysis. The three dimensions are compared in order to see if the topics are coherent. This work builds on earlier research in corporate identity and image research, stakeholder theory, corporate communication and media reputation theory. This is interesting to research as the image of the company framed by the media affects, among other things, the possibility for the company to attract new talent and employees. If there are different stories, or topics, told in the three dimensions then the future employees may not share the view of the company with the managers in it. The analysis show that there is a discrepancy between the topics on the three dimensions, both between the corporate identity and the communication through press releases, as well as between the communication through press releases and the image in news press articles.

The rhetorics of violence in Joshua: Foucauldian Power, Israelite Identity, and the Ethics of Interpretation

The goals of this project are manifold. First, I will attempt to discover evidence in the book of Joshua that will lend support to the theory of a Josianic influence enacted in the 7th century BCE. I will do this through an analysis of the rhetoric in selected stories in Joshua using the ideas of Foucault. Second, I will address the significance of this kind of analysis as having potential for the emancipation of oppressed peoples. The first section delineates scholarly discussion on the literary and historical context of the book of Joshua. These scholarly works are foundational to this study because they situate the text within a particular period in history and within certain ideologies. Chapter 2 discusses the work of Foucault and how his ideas will be applied to particular texts of the book of Joshua. The focused analysis of these texts occurs within chapters 3 to 6. Chapter 7 presents an integration of the observations made through the analyses performed in the previous chapters and expands on the ethical significance of this study.

Stranger in a Strange Land: The struggle for cultural and personal identity in Haruki Murakami's Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

In order to explicate Murakami's version of the official culture, I have analyzed the novel with the works of several different theorists. Primarily, I drew my own understanding of the official culture from Raymond Williams's examination of culture in Marxism and Literature. His terminology became helpful in writing about the operation of the System and the Town, though it did not define that operation precisely. Williams's work also introduced me to the theory behind the official culture's manipulation and exclusion of historical aspects in order to create their "official" version of history, from which the official culture draws its identity. For further analysis of the treatment of history, I turned to Friedrich Nietzsche's On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life. Though it examines the official culture's manipulation of history in a much more in-depth manner, it seems to have influenced Murakami's treatment of individual memories and cultural histories. For instance, the herd ofunicoms in the End of the World resembles Nietzsche's description of the ''unhistorical herd," or has the potential to resemble it. With these theories I was able to access the mechanisms of cultural control that Murakami depicts in the form of the System and the Town, and from there I was able to develop a model for how the narrator struggles to subvert that control. Both sides of that struggle are depicted and re-imagined many times throughout Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World.

Dwelling in possibility: aestheticizing identity in African American women's fiction

African American women writers define aesthetics through their negotiation of identity in the politicized loci of space, place and voice. In the balkanization of such issues of voice and space, we can see the ways that the emergent selfis embodied and aestheticized in literature. To do so creates a more tactile and "artfull" representation of the self rather than a representation of identity as a mere abstract concept. To use written language to express the self is to carry processes of selfdefinition for black women into the realm of creative production. For women, especially black women, who are a politically and socially compromised element of society, the written word is a way of expressing the politically and the socially critical voice that is suppressed in other forums of expression. Using theories on "writing in difference" as a skeleton key, this project seeks to outline some of the ways that black women writers use aesthetic elements in their art to express the potential for self-examination, discovery, and emancipation.