Like many West Indians, mixed-race Jamaican immigrants enter the United States with fluid notions about race and racial identifications that reflect socio-political events in their home country and that conflict with the more rigid constructions of race they encounter in the U.S. This dissertation explores the experiences of racially mixed Jamaicans in South Florida and the impact of those experiences on their racial self-characterizations through the boundary-work theoretical framework. Specifically, the study examines the impact of participants’ exposure to the one-drop rule in the U.S., by which racial identification has been historically determined by the existence or non-existence of black forebears. Employing qualitative data collected through both focus group and face-to-face semi-structured interviews, the study analyzes mixed-race Jamaicans’ encounters in the U.S. with racial boundaries, and the boundary-work that reinforces them, as well their response to these encounters. Through their stories, the dissertation examines participants’ efforts to navigate racial boundaries through choices of various racial identifications. Further, it discusses the ways in which structural forces and individual agency have interacted in the formation of these identifications. The study finds that in spite of participants’ expressed preference for non-racialism, and despite their objections to rigid racial categories, in seeking to carve out alternative identities, they are participating in the boundary-making of which they are so critical.

Negative experiences of stigmatization, discrimination, and rejection are common among people living with HIV in the United States, and particularly when they are also members of a minority group. Some three decades after the first cases of AIDS were identified, people infected with HIV continue to be perceived and characterized negatively. While an HIV/AIDS diagnosis is typically associated with negativity, this study investigates the extent to which collective experiences among HIV-positive people result in healthy responses and positive social adjustment. This study is focused on the ways in which HIV-positive Puerto Rican men in Boston live positive despite being diagnosed with HIV. Rather than wrapping themselves in the social stigma of HIV and the isolation that entails, they participate in processes that affirm themselves and their peers. In so doing, they help generate both healthy and meaningful lives for themselves and others. The study examines the process in which Puerto Rican men living with HIV in Boston participate, promote, and reaffirm an HIV community, la comunidad, as a social entity with a unique culture and identity. This study also investigates how this community influences, supports, and encourages the adoption of positive transformations for living long term with HIV. On the basis of nine months of field research, this qualitative study employed both focus groups and interviews with fifty HIV-positive Puerto Rican men in Boston. These men were recruited, using convenience sampling, from different community-based organizations (CBOs) that provide HIV/AIDS services in Boston. The study finds that HIV-positive Puerto Rican men in Boston build community, not in response to social exclusion, but built on shared positive practices and strategies for living healthy with HIV. These men come together to negotiate and form a unique cultural community expressed in norms, beliefs, and practices that, although centered on HIV, are designed for living healthy. These expressions reaffirm a sense of community in everyday settings and transform the lives of these men with positive behaviors and healthy lifestyles. The findings reveal that this transformation takes place in the context of a community, with the support, encouragement, and at times, policing of others. La comunidad is where the lives of these men are transformed as they learn, adopt, and experience living positive with HIV.

Climate change was the most covered issue in the media in Sweden during 2019 and the use of terms such as “climate emergency” and “climate crisis” increased significantly (Vi-skogen, 2020). These developments and the climate issue pose questions of future practices and purpose of journalism and therefore also its professional boundaries, not the least towards other social actors and institutions. This study focuses on journalists professional boundaries with their sources, specifically non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Environmental NGOs play an important role in climate- and international politics, such as for instance in the setting of United Nations’ climate summits (COPs), and are themselves engaged in producing public information (Powers, 2015b; Wozniak et al. 2017). The study therefore explores journalists’ conceptions of NGOs for climate journalism and these organizations’ roles in the climate reporting during COP25 in Madrid. It uses a theory of boundary work in journalism and applies a methodology of online interviews with journalists from Swedish national news organizations and with two representatives from environmental NGOs based in Sweden. The findings demonstrate four overlapping roles of NGOs in climate journalism based on the practices and views of the participating journalists: dependency; established source; partnering watchdog; and agenda-driven player. It further concludes that the climate issue and COP25 offer a context for blurred boundaries between the two actors, however, it is limited as journalists maintain control over NGOs’ participation in the news making process.

När förstelärarreformen sjösattes 2013 förändrades scenen för de svenska lärarna. Flera decenniers jämlikhetssträvanden bröts genom att en ny titel, förstelärare, introducerades som en möjlig karriärväg för ”särskilt yrkesskickliga lärare”. Reformen lämnar till de lokala huvudmännen att avgöra hur förstelärarna ska utses och även vilka uppgifter som dessa ska utföra. Reformen är den senaste i en rad reformer som introducerats i det svenska skolsystemet under de senaste decennierna; reformer som kontinuerligt har förändrat lärarnas arbetsförhållanden.Målet för denna studie är att undersöka och problematisera reformens inverkan genom att låta en grupp förstelärare i en liten kommun ge sin syn på sin nya position. Hur artikulerar förstelärarna sina krav på jurisdiktion? Hur definierar de en ”särskilt yrkesskicklig lärare”? Analysen görs på de spontana berättelser som uppstod efter att gruppen skissat kring frågan ”Var befinner du dig i skolans organisation?”De teoretiska ramverk som används är diskursanalys i enlighet med Ernesto Laclau och Chantal Mouffe (1985), men jag använder mig även av Andrew Abbotts (1988) arbete för att beskriva hur gränser skapas och uppehålls på arbetsplatser. Abbott möjliggör en definition av de arenor där förhandlingarna äger rum, och Laclau och Mouffes verktygslåda tillhandahåller medel för att dissekera diskursens element.Resultatet visar att förstelärarnas definition av ”en särskilt yrkesskicklig lärare” mer riktas mot vad läraren gör än mot lärarens personliga egenskaper. Diskursen består av fyra element. Nyckelelementet består av positionen som gör det möjligt för försteläraren att operera på flera nivåer i organisationen. Tillsammans med personliga kvaliteter skapas en grund för funktionen – att leda skolutveckling. Det synliga arbetet legitimerar förstelärarnas krav på jurisdiktion, vilket i sin tur ger tillgång till positionen. Förstelärarnas gränsarbete är i första hand riktat uppåt i organisationen. De ger uttryck för ett behov av stöd från sina rektorer och gränser för det arbete de ombeds att utföra, samtidigt som de gör anspråk på tillgång till skolutvecklingsuppgifter.Studien pekar på de spänningar som byggts in i det svenska skolsystemet efter decennier av politiskt motiverade reformer, och den belyser behovet av möjliga karriärvägar för fler lärare. / In 2013 the stage changed for the Swedish teachers when the “first teacher” reform was launched by the Swedish government. After decades of egalitarianism, these traditions were broken when a new title, first teacher, was introduced as a possible career pathway for “highly skilled teachers”. The reform gives the local authorities freedom to determine how the first teachers should be appointed, and also to design the tasks that should be performed. The reform is the latest one in a number of reforms that have been introduced in the Swedish school system during the last decades; reforms that continuously have changed working conditions for the teachers. The aim of the study is to explore and problematise the impact of the reform by letting a group of first teachers in a small municipality give their view of their new position. How do the first teachers articulate their jurisdictional claims? How do they define a “highly skilled teacher”? The analysis is performed on spontaneous stories that emerged after sketching as a response to an open question: “Where are you in the school organization?” The theoretical frameworks used are discourse analysis according to the work of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe (1985), but I also draw upon the work of Andrew Abbott (1988) to describe how boundaries are created and upheld at work places. The two frameworks are chosen to highlight different aspects of the first teachers’ boundary work. Abbott enables the description of the arenas where the negotiation takes place, and the toolbox of Laclau and Mouffe provides the means to dissect the elements of the discourse.The results show that the first teachers’ definition of a “highly skilled teacher” is more concerned with what the teacher does than with the teacher’s qualities. The discourse consists of four elements. The key element is the position which enables the first teacher to operate at multiple layers of the organization. Together with the personal qualities there is a foundation for the function – to lead school development. The visible work legitimatizes the first teachers’ claim to jurisdiction, which gives admission to the position. The first teachers’ boundary work is primarily directed ‘upwards’. They express a need for support from their principals and limits for the work they are asked to perform, but at the same time they claim access to school developing tasks.The study points at the tension that has been built into the Swedish school system after decades of politically motivated reforms, and it highlights the need for possibilities to career development for all teachers.

Den här uppsatsen handlar om spridningen av jordbrukskunskap i Sverige under slutet av 1700-talet. Genom en analys av källmaterial från i första hand Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien, men även andra samhällsinstitutioner involverade i att försöka förbättra det svenska jordbruket, undersöker jag vilken roll spridandet av jordbrukskunskap spelade i den sociala och politiska utvecklingen i Sverige. Med hjälp av Thomas Gieryns idéer om ”boundary work” och med ett fokus på frågan om kunskapens spridning, kan jag visa att socialt och politiskt kontroversiella frågor var närvarande i försöken att förbättra det svenska jordbruket. Genom själva spridningen av kunskap deltog jordbruksförbättrarna i upprättandet och reproducerandet av idéer om ståndsutjämning och medborgarskap. Dessa slutsatser gör det också möjligt att ifrågasätta en etablerad berättelse om naturvetenskapens och vetenskapsakademiens plats i det svenska samhället under den här perioden. I stället för att diskutera deras ställning så som en fråga om ”status” som går upp eller ned, visar jag att vad som sker är ett publikskifte. Vetenskapsakademien involverar sig i det stora projektet för jordbruksförbättring i samband med att man får en mycket större publik. I stället för att konstatera att akademien plötsligt blir irrelevant analyserar jag vad det innebär att man börjar tilltala en allmogepublik som man betraktar som en avgörande pusselbit i byggandet av ett starkare Sverige.

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In recent decades numerous nonprofit organizations (NPOs) are undergoing the process of professionalization characterized by increased attention to efficiency, accountability, and the adoption of “business-like” tools and practices. At the same time, the majority of NPOs rely on volunteer labor. Most nonprofit scholars focus on traditional volunteering in which one volunteers doing something other than their professional work. These studies see volunteerism and professionalism as two completely separate systems. Meanwhile, the subset of skills-based volunteers, i.e., volunteers who provide professionally-related skills or services in nonprofit settings is understudied and their views of NPOs' professionalization are generally unknown. The present thesis aims to help fill this gap by exploring how skills-based volunteers perceive their roles and increasing the professionalization of nonprofit organizations. The study is guided by two research questions: (1) how do skills-based volunteers react to the rise of NPOs' professionalization? and (2) how do they navigate possible tensions between professionalism and volunteerism? The study is an ethnographic case study of skills-based volunteers at Engineers WithoutBorders Sweden. The data is collected through 14 semi-structured interviews with working and retired volunteers complemented by my participatory observations as a part-time employee at the organization. To analyze and interpret the study findings, the thesis employs a boundary work framework. The empirical findings indicate that, contrary to traditional volunteers, skills-based volunteers react to NPOs’ professionalization positively. The professionalization helps them to integrate their roles as volunteers and professionals, thus, facilitating boundary blurring. At the same time, working and retired skills-based volunteers perceive student volunteers as a barrier to professionalization, consequently, emphasizing differences in competencies and reliability between themself and students and performing demarcation work.

This thesis explores ‘feminisation’ discourse(s) within the UK veterinary profession, including the ways in which gender stereotypes and biases also influence such discourses and experiences of working within the field. Drawing upon and combining a range of sociological, organisational and feminist theories such as Witz’s (1992) theory of gendered professional projects and Butler’s (1990) highly influential notion of performativity, I am able to contextualise and expand upon the ‘doing’ of the veterinary profession as well as being able to frame ‘feminisation’ discourses as paradoxes, potentially producing the effects they articulate. My analysis is divided into two parts; the first deals with results of a 463 participant survey of veterinary workers regarding definitions, perceptions and observations of ‘feminisation’ and gender difference, highlighting the significance of this subject matter within their professional lives. The second part incorporates a deeper thematic analysis of particular everyday realities, emerging from four semi-structured interviews which also aimed to explore in greater detail individual perceptions and observations regarding ‘feminisation’ and gender biases and stereotypes, encouraging participants themselves to reflect upon their experiences. A number of conclusions emerged during the analysis, including an intriguing insight that those who tended to draw most strongly on gender stereotypes and biases to outline their perceptions and observations were paradoxically those who most vehemently believed gender was irrelevant. Fundamentally however this study concludes that the concept of ‘feminisation’ is a fluid conceptualisation, a cultural process and not just empirical category of ‘empty rhetoric’ as commonly utilised and applied to the veterinary profession; as such it has the potential to be utilised extensively to progress the profession in terms of wider inclusiveness, equality, transformation, in offering reconceptualised ways of considering what it means to be part of a ‘profession’ not predicated on patriarchal structures, and to ultimately reperceive how gender can be (re/un)enacted in transformative ways alongside progressively rearticulated ‘feminisation’ discourses.

This dissertation is a scientific biography of Astrid Cleve von Euler. She was Sweden’s first female Ph.D. graduate in the natural sciences (1898) and pursued a scientific career in spite of formal and cultural limitations. Though she failed to secure a professional position as a scientist, she published numerous papers throughout her life. The dissertation studies her life in general and analyses her research in particular. How did her research change over time in relation to the rest of her life? How did established scientists receive her research? How did her status as a woman on the fringes of academia affect her research? Sociologist Thomas F. Gieryn’s concepts of boundary-work and credibility contests are important analytical tools in the interpretation of these questions, as Cleve’sresearch was regulated by various boundaries: between professionals and amateurs, between men and women and between different academic disciplines. The study is divided into seven chapters. The first chapter introduces the dissertation, its objective and theoretical framework. The remaining chapters follow Cleve’s life in a chronological and sometimes thematic order and the source material is continually analysed. Chapter two accounts for Cleve’s childhood and student years in Uppsala, ending with her Ph.D. graduation. Chapter tree focuses on her research as a chemist and her ten years of marriage to a fellow researcher, Hans von Euler-Chelpin, a marriage that was closely intertwined with their academic studies. The fourth chapter studies Cleve’s controversy with some of the leading quaternary geologists in Sweden at the time, regarding the level changes of the Scandinavian land mass following the latest Ice Age. The fifth chapter diverges slightly from Cleve’s research, and investigates her undertakings in popular science and her political standpoints. Chapter six analyses her archaeological studies as part of the scientific controversy she was involved in, but also as influenced by political and religious views. Finally, the seventh chapter begins with a closer look at Cleve’s diatom studies, already part of most of the study but thus far not focused on as such, and ends with the main conclusions of the entire dissertation project. The dissertation shows that while science was part of Cleve’s life from childhood to death, factors other than her personal desire to uncover scientific truths governed her research opportunities and the topics of her studies. While she was consistently highly regarded as a diatom expert and gained some success as a chemist, disciplines she was formally educated in, she was met with scepticism and eventually silence when she tried to make an impact in quaternary geology and archaeology, fields of research in which she had no formal training. This demonstrates a possibility to simultaneously be regarded as credible and non-credible as a scientist, as credibility is not necessarily attached to the individual, but to his or her formal expertise in a particular area.

During Sweden's economic crisis in the early 1990s a governmental committe of prominent economic and political experts were gathered to produce an analysis of and suggestions to the solution of that crisis. The committe produced a report that became widely commented in the media and in parliment. The report anc the reception of it gives us insights in how the boundaries between social science and politics are created an how new fields of expertise is added to a science. This thesis uses a constructivist approach to explore how the techniques of the economic science were made into credible means of knowöedge production outside of the field where it traditionally holds epistemological authority. Working from the assumption that language does things to the objects that it describes I claim that the episode investigated in this thesis was shaped by the committee's ability to define the economic crissi and thus making it into a knowable object. The cultural space of the episode was shaped by the actor's moves to enrol the committiee's report rather than examining it, making the credibility contest stacked in favour of the committee's concept of the social order.